Do you have diabetes and are curious about your typical blood sugar levels?
Or do you not have diabetes yet and do you want to prevent this by keeping your blood sugar healthy?
Then this article is for you.
You will learn exactly how high your sugar can be under different circumstances and I give you 8 tips to lower your blood sugar if you have high blood sugar.
A healthy blood sugar
Your blood sugar indicates (as the name suggests) how much sugar (glucose) there is in your blood.
Why is there sugar in your blood?
Sugar is the most easily converted material by the body into energy. Sugar is, therefore, an energy source and ensures that you can walk, think or read every day.
I will discuss the values in this article. I also give 8 tips to keep your blood sugar around those values. If you apply these tips, there is a good chance that your blood sugar will reach or remain at a healthy level.
Read this The Role Of Insulin In Diabetes
How high can your sugar be (fasting)?
To be able to say how high your blood sugar should be, you first need to know that your blood sugar can be expressed in different ways. I won't bother you with difficult units, but the basics are important.
The Netherlands uses the unit mmol/L, while Belgium uses the unit mg/dL. That is not a disaster, but it does mean that there are different values attached to it.
Below I tell you more about the values of fasting blood sugar. This means that you did not eat or drink anything before the blood sugar measurement and that there is, therefore, no influence of food or drinks on your blood sugar.
Do you have diabetes and want to know what your blood glucose levels should be?
Healthy blood sugar is then between 4 mmol/L and 6 mmol/L.
You have slightly elevated blood sugar, which they also called prediabetes if your blood sugar between 6 mmol / L and 7 mmol / L is.
When your blood sugar level exceeds 7 mmol/L, you are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
In addition, people sometimes wonder how high your sugar can be...
...the sugar levels in diabetics can sometimes rise to 25 mmol/L. Then you have really high blood sugar and then something must be done quickly. Much higher blood sugar values have been measured in practice, but fortunately, this does not happen often.
What Affects Blood Sugar?
There are several things that influence your blood sugar so that the above values do not always apply. These include:
- >Food and drink
- >The dawn phenomenon
- >Pregnancy
In addition, there are a number of points that can affect your blood sugar, but they will not necessarily cause very high fluctuations. You should think of stress, sports, medication, and being sick.
How high can your sugar be after eating?
Your blood sugar level rises after you eat or drink something. That's very normal.
Your body gets food. This is then digested and absorbed by the blood. This means that your blood sugar rises as there is more energy available. One product causes a higher blood sugar increase than the other, you will read more about that later.
But how high can your sugar be after a meal (not sober)?
Normally, your blood sugar should be between 5 mmol/L and 10 mmol/L up to 2 hours after a meal.
In Belgium, your blood sugar may be between 90 mg/dL and 180 mg/dL up to 2 hours after a meal.
Yet many people are shocked when they measure their blood sugar and then read a blood sugar of 9.5 mmol/L at the time of measuring. While this is quite normal.
If your value rises above 10 mmo/L, it is quite possible that you have type 2 diabetes or are in the preliminary stage of type 2 diabetes.
Read This What is meant by prediabetes
High blood sugar in the morning?
This is a special one and one that is very often overlooked. This is also known as the Dawn Phenomenon.
It is so unknown that even doctors, diabetes nurses, and practice nurses don't know about this effect. While many diabetics suffer from it.
High blood sugar in the morning is something I often see. You should think of values between 7 and 9 mmol/L with a fasting measurement. This means that nothing has been eaten or drunk when the measurement is taken. And as I told you above, a fasting healthy blood sugar value should be below 6 mmol/L.
So you would say that people who measure a blood sugar value of 7.5 mmol/L in the morning would have a blood sugar value that is too high, but that is not always an effect that you can do something about.
How is that possible? I'll explain that to you below.
You sleep at night. You eat and drink (if all is well) nothing. And many people think that the body does not need energy at night. But the opposite is true. In particular you:
- >Gastrointestinal tract
- >Brain
They use a lot of energy at night and are therefore very active. That requires energy. Your liver then produces hormones that make you less sensitive to insulin and that more sugars are released from your liver. Most sugar stores are stored in your liver. These are therefore used when you need them.
This is why your fasting blood sugar rises at night. It goes without saying that you cannot treat this effect. It is a natural phenomenon of the human body.
Do you have high blood sugar continuously during the day? Or is your blood sugar VERY high in the morning? Then the chance that an unhealthy lifestyle causes high blood sugar very high in the morning. So I definitely recommend that you do something about it. You can read the tips to lower your blood sugar later in this article.
How high can your sugar be in the morning? That is a bit more nuanced than most people think.
Do you want to know more about high blood sugar in the morning?
How high can your sugar level be when you are pregnant?
Basically, during pregnancy, you aim to have your blood sugar levels the same as your blood sugar normally is. That means:
Fasting not higher than 6 mmol/L
After a meal no higher than 10 mmol/L
However, you may be less sensitive to insulin during your pregnancy. This is purely so that the body knows that you have enough nutrients in your blood to provide your baby with energy. A slightly elevated sugar is therefore not a disaster, but keep a close eye on it.
Your long-term blood sugar (HbA1c)
I purposely mentioned this last, because this is one of the most important values to remember. This value tells you exactly how healthy your blood sugar is. This value is measured by means of blood samples and not just by means of a finger prick.
When your finger is pricked for blood, you only measure the number of sugars in your body at that moment. But you have no idea what your blood sugar has been like for the past few weeks. The HbA1c was created for this.
This value represents the average blood sugar over a period of the last 8 to 12 weeks.
This way you won't be bothered by the dawn phenomenon, or from a big meal you just ate. That makes a huge difference and shows much better how healthy you really are.
To make it even more difficult, this value is also displayed in different ways. So to the question: "how high can your sugar be in relation to your hbA1c value?" Then other numbers apply here.
Read this how-to prevent type 2 diabetes
What you should mainly remember are the following values:
How high can your long-term sugar be?
A healthy HbA1c value is below 42 mmol/mol. This is actually equivalent to that 6.0 mmol/L or the 108 mg/dL.
With a value between 42 and 53 mmol/mol, you have prediabetes. and this equates to values between 6 and 7 mmol/L or 108 and 126 mg/dL.
Is your HbA1c value higher than 53 mmol/mol? Then you officially have type 2 diabetes. This equals a value higher than 7 mmol/L or 126 mg/dL.
Tips to lower your sugar
After reading this article, did you find out that your sugar is a bit higher than expected? Then below I have several tips to bring your sugar down.
#1 Choose the right carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are not all bad when it comes to a healthy diet for diabetics. There is simply a distinction between fast and slow carbohydrates.
You have to avoid fast carbohydrates as much as possible, while you can eat slow carbohydrates very well.
But how do you recognize slow carbohydrates?
In general, these are carbohydrate sources that have a low glycemic index and load.
how high can your glucose be?
Then you should think about:
Vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, low-carb bread, and oatmeal.
What all these products have in common is that they contain few carbohydrates per 100 grams and a lot of fiber. This brings me to the next tip:
#2 Eat more fiber
Fiber is a form of carbohydrates that cannot be absorbed by the body.
Now you're probably wondering why it's so healthy to eat them...
>Fiber ensures a less high blood sugar peak
>Fiber is healthy for your intestinal flora
Both are very important in keeping your body healthy.
Fibers are mainly found in plant products because they provide the sturdiness of plants. The list of products that I mentioned in the previous tip contains a lot of fiber and is therefore so healthy.
#3 Fats are not as unhealthy as you think
Most people are convinced that fats make you fat, cause diabetes and increase the risk of cardiovascular disease.
But just the opposite is true.
Healthy fats contribute to healthy blood sugar. And I'm not just talking about unsaturated fats.
This list also includes saturated fats that mainly come from unprocessed products.
The only ones I absolutely advise against eating are trans fats. These are fats that do not occur in nature and are mainly used in most processed products. Think about:
Biscuits, pastries, pizza, frying fat, chips, margarine, etc.
You can say that this whole list is unhealthy. If you want to improve your blood sugar, I strongly advise you to avoid these products.
But the fats from unprocessed products, on the other hand, improve your blood sugar. You should think of the following products:
>Butter
>Olive oil
>Avocado
>Nuts
>Seeds
>Fatty fish
>Cheese
>Full-fat dairy products
Do you want your sugar to be less high? Then I advise you to eat the above products more often.
#4 Start your breakfast a little later
Oops, what am I saying...
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, isn't it?"
And here too I have to disappoint you. Because it turns out that breakfast is actually not necessary at all. In fact, it's actually much healthier to start your breakfast later.
That has everything to do with the hormone: insulin.
When you start eating, your blood sugar rises. To lower your blood sugar, the sugars are then released to the body cells to be used as an energy source. Insulin ensures that the latter is possible.
But insulin is also the fat-storage hormone. And the moment you start eating and the hormone insulin is continuously present in your blood, you actually make sure that you become less sensitive to insulin. That promotes type 2 diabetes.
Conversely, the body becomes more sensitive to insulin when this hormone is present in the blood in low amounts for a long time. And a higher insulin sensitivity reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes.
The only way to do that is to fast. That is why it is very useful to eat your breakfast later and also to stop eating earlier.
#5 Get more exercise
Your diet determines for about 90% whether you develop type 2 diabetes or not. And it also determines for 90% whether you get rid of it.
The last 10% is actually determined by sports, heredity, and a number of other points.
This tip is therefore not as important as having a healthy diet, but it can certainly contribute to your health if you eat healthily.
So are you not into sports? Then I advise you to take a walk every day. In this way, you ensure better blood sugar regulation.
Are you crazy about sports? Then all I can say is:
"The more the better".
Read this Best diet for type 2 diabetes
#6 Drink the right drinks
This is also what many people often forget. Not only does food cause a blood sugar rise, but high-calorie drinks certainly can.
So when I talk about high-calorie drinks, water, coffee, and tea fall off. Provided you drink these last two without milk and sugar, of course.
No, when I'm talking about high-calorie drinks, I'm talking about drinks that generally contain a lot of sugar. Then consider the following drinks:
soft drinks
Energy drinks
Fruit juices (for example, Dubbelfris also falls into this category)
Lemonade syrup
All of the above drinks will raise your blood sugar and do absolutely nothing good for your body. If you continue to drink these drinks, the chance of lowering your blood sugar is very small.
Instead, I recommend sticking to:
>Water
>Tea
>Black coffee
>And as an exception: homemade smoothies with the right fruits.
This brings me to the next tip...
#7 Choose the right fruits
As a child, you were always told that fruit is very healthy. And on the one hand, that is also true. On the other hand, this does not apply to all types of fruit.
Especially if you have high blood sugar, you have to be careful with certain fruits. These are the fruits that contain a lot of fruit sugar and little fiber.
The following fruits belong in this list:
Banana
Pineapple
Mango
Grapes
And there are a few more.
Does all the fruit fall off? No, luckily there is still enough fruit left, which is very healthy.
Berries are one of the healthiest fruits on earth.
This group contains little sugar and, on the other hand, a lot of healthy antioxidants. Both blueberries and blackcurrants do well. Raspberries, strawberries, cranberries, and blueberries are also low in sugar and very healthy.
Eat these berries with some Greek yogurt and you have a delicious dessert.
All of these tips will definitely go a long way towards lowering your blood sugar. But did you know that you can completely reverse your type 2 diabetes? Say goodbye to your diabetes medication...
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