When you change to a low-carb diet, you can lower your blood sugar levels almost immediately, within days. But a good time to see bigger changes is 3-4 months because this is when your HbA1c will be tested by your doctor.
Test for Lower Blood Sugar on a Low-Carb Diet
If you use a glucose monitor at home to measure your blood sugar levels, you’ll probably see your after meal (postprandial) blood sugar levels change a lot.
An easy method to test this and compare different meals is to monitor in pairs. See the image below that explains how to do this.
Why is Carbohydrate Reduction so Effective?
It’s never been a secret that carbohydrates have the biggest influence on blood sugar levels compared to other nutrients. That’s why carb counting has always been central to dietary self-management of type 2 diabetes.
All the carbohydrate foods you eat break down to sugar/glucose and enter the bloodstream, raising blood sugar levels.
When you reduce carbs – minimising or avoiding high carb foods like pasta, potatoes, bread, rice, noodles and flour-based products – then the amount of sugar/glucose entering the bloodstream is a lot less, so your blood sugar levels naturally are less too.
Over time that means your blood sugar levels will keep in range on average, instead of spiking high all the time.
How Does Lower Blood Sugar Levels Influence HbA1c?
When you lower your daily blood sugar levels, your next HbA1c test with your doctor will be lower.
This is because HbA1c tests the average amount of sugar/glucose in the blood from the previous 3 month period.
Take a look at the picture below. You can see that if you keep your levels within the green lines (the healthy range <7.8 mmol/l 2 hrs after meals), this will lead to healthier HbA1c levels. Whereas if your blood sugar is spiking all the time above the healthy range, your HbA1c levels will be higher.
How to Get Started on a Low-Carb Diet?
Getting started on a low-carb diet is easier than you think.
Check out these resources:
- Recommended low carb food list
- Type 2 diabetes and prediabetes low carb diet guidelines
- Foods to eat
- Foods to avoid
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