{"id":51465,"date":"2020-01-15T08:15:02","date_gmt":"2020-01-15T13:15:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=51465"},"modified":"2020-01-15T08:15:02","modified_gmt":"2020-01-15T13:15:02","slug":"how-to-achieve-normal-blood-sugar-in-teen-athletes-with-type-1-diabetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=51465","title":{"rendered":"How To Achieve Normal Blood Sugar in Teen Athletes with Type 1 Diabetes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi, I\u2019m David.<\/p>\n

I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes almost 7 years ago, at the age of 9. My diagnosis story is probably similar to many other kids \u2013 I was thirsty, didn\u2019t feel well, then I lost a lot of weight. After a blood test, my pediatrician called and told us to immediately head to the emergency room because I was in DKA. When I was diagnosed in the hospital, my endocrinologist was honest with me right from the beginning. He gave it to me straight and told me about the problems that come along with running high blood sugars. He explained to me that carbs make your blood sugar go up and insulin makes it go down. I shot back right there from my hospital bed that I just wouldn\u2019t eat any carbs. After a few weeks of struggling with the rollercoaster blood sugars from the recommended high carb diet, my mother found Dr. Bernstein\u2019s book<\/a> and I\u2019ve been following a very low carb diet ever since. My results were so good that after a while, my family contacted Dr. Bernstein<\/a> and we have been friends for years now. More recently, I\u2019ve been working as Dr. B\u2019s intern producing his Diabetes University<\/a> videos on YouTube.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I’m an athlete, and I\u2019d like to share my approach to participating in sports as a teen athlete with type 1 diabetes, while eating a very low carb diet. As background, I am in my sophomore year in high school and play QB for the varsity football team as well as basketball for the JV team. In addition, I am on club teams for those sports, so my activity level is both high and frequent as I participate in these sports year-round.\u00a0 And I have closely followed Dr. Bernstein\u2019s best practices throughout my years of sports activities.<\/p>\n

Here is how I approach my practice and game days:<\/h4>\n

BEFORE ACTIVITY: My main goal before daily practice or weightlifting is to make sure I am at a normal and steady blood sugar and without bolus insulin onboard (I aim for around 85 to 90 mg\/dL and I wear a Dexcom, BTW).\u00a0 Practice is usually after school, around 4:30 PM. So, what this means is that I have a big lunch (mostly protein) with a bolus of Regular insulin to cover that protein. A few hours after lunch and a few hours before practice, I\u2019ll double check my Dexcom with a fingerstick and at this point it\u2019s possible that I might need a very small correction (e.g., a glucose tab or a quarter or half unit of insulin). I will, however, avoid snacking. Again, the goal is to ensure my blood sugars are in my optimal range and stable.\u00a0 The real key here is to make sure I don\u2019t have any active bolus insulin since without any insulin onboard, I won\u2019t have to play \u2018defense\u2019 and run my blood sugar high in order to avoid hypoglycemia. Preventing hypoglycemia during sports is my main goal. And with that goal, even if my blood sugar is 110 mg\/dL or even 120 mg\/dL as I go into practice (which is higher than I usually like), I will still avoid giving a correction because it usually won\u2019t go much higher, and I prefer to avoid a low in practice. I want to focus on practice and not be concerned about a low blood sugar.<\/p>\n

DURING ACTIVITY. Because I do most of my diabetes management routine before each practice, I don\u2019t need to do a lot during the game or practice.\u00a0\u00a0I keep an eye on my blood sugar to make sure I don\u2019t need to take glucose and I keep liquid glucose in my bag, as it works fastest. Basically, I keep my routine very consistent which means there aren\u2019t any real potential surprises. How do I check my blood sugars? I use a CGM. Surprisingly, I don\u2019t have many issues with my CGM tearing off \u2013 I wear it on my arm and use a Johnson and Johnson toughpad which holds it in place. But without a CGM, I\u2019d be fine using a blood sugar meter during a water break.<\/p>\n

\"3<\/p>\n

AFTER ACTIVITY: After practice, my blood sugar might be a bit elevated – 110 mg\/dL or\u00a0120 mg\/dL but by the time I get home my blood sugar usually drops about 30 mg\/dL on its own. That tells me that for the times I get in the car after practice and my blood sugar is 80 mg\/dL, I will likely need to eat a few tabs, so I monitor my CGM as I head home. When I get home, I eat one or two meals with protein as the main focus. My goal is to eat a lot of protein and to replenish calories without carbs so as to keep blood sugars normal \u2013 so I focus on high protein and high fat. My typical post-game meal is a big steak, fathead rolls, and a salad or vegetable. And my mom makes a lot of amazing low carb desserts (she first found out about them on this site, so thanks ASweetLife!<\/a>). In addition to my dinner, I do a very high fat\/calorie and high protein shake that I make from sugar free whey and heavy cream. One of the things I am trying to avoid with my post exercise routine is nighttime hypoglycemia, which can occur after a high intensity activity. This high calorie low carb shake is my secret weapon, and allows me to stabilize my blood glucose levels and remove the need for waking all night to take glucose corrections.\u00a0\u00a0By the way, using Dr. Bernstein\u2019s approach, I know the amount of Humulin-R (Regular) to take for each high protein\/low carb meal I eat. However, after sports, I have a different (smaller) amount of bolus insulin for a given meal than I would if I hadn\u2019t practiced that day. So for example that steak dinner might be 8 units of R for a non-activity day, but only 5 units\u00a0after a football practice.<\/p>\n

\"3<\/p>\n

My goal with this diabetes management plan is to totally remove the impact\/work of rollercoaster blood sugars<\/a> and to just focus on being a teenager who plays sports. My meal plan to eat a lot of protein, doesn\u2019t seem to be that different from what other modern athletes are doing. I\u2019m just using fat energy for fuel to a larger degree than most because of the issues involved with using insulin to cover carbohydrate energy and keeping my blood sugar normal. Switching to low carb has been a relatively easy transition honestly, and I\u2019m glad we figured all of this out. The benefits for me are huge: I get rid of the fear of hypos without having to run my blood sugars high. \u00a0In all this, I learned that eating pre-game carbohydrate, so called carb loading, isn\u2019t required for athletic performance. In fact, the blood sugar rollercoaster created by high carb\/high insulin is not optimal at all for my performance, as I would feel sluggish and nauseated.\u00a0 My message to other\u00a0teens with diabetes and their families is that it is not only possible, but relatively simple, to have the same blood sugars or very close to the same blood sugars as any other student athlete, while maintaining peak athletic performance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":480,"featured_media":51473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1457],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow To Achieve Normal Blood Sugar in Teen Athletes with Type 1 Diabetes | ASweetLife<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u2019d like to share my approach to participating in sports as a teen athlete with type 1 diabetes, while eating a very low carb diet.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=51465\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"David Dikeman\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=51465\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=51465\",\"name\":\"How To Achieve Normal Blood Sugar in Teen Athletes with Type 1 Diabetes | ASweetLife\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=51465#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=51465#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/dave_4k_bball_-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-01-15T13:15:02+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-01-15T13:15:02+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/fbf716806891a883a6b420e5c7394a42\"},\"description\":\"I\u2019d like to share my approach to participating in sports as a teen athlete with type 1 diabetes, while eating a very low carb diet.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=51465#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=51465\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=51465#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/dave_4k_bball_-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/dave_4k_bball_-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1610,\"caption\":\"3 Keys to Normal Blood Sugar in Teen Athletes\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=51465#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"How To Achieve Normal Blood Sugar in Teen Athletes with Type 1 Diabetes\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/\",\"name\":\"ASweetLife\",\"description\":\"The Diabetes Magazine\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/fbf716806891a883a6b420e5c7394a42\",\"name\":\"David Dikeman\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0a24ac07c5f2673baf2ea4ef0e8933ab?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0a24ac07c5f2673baf2ea4ef0e8933ab?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"David Dikeman\"},\"description\":\"David Dikeman is a 16 year old type one diabetic diagnosed at the age of 9. 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