No carbs in black coffee — so why does it push blood sugar up? Scott has never had a cup in his life. Jenny has had plenty, tested it on herself, and landed on a number: about a unit of insulin for an eight-ounce cup, pre-bolused. Then the sugar packets, the creamer you don't measure, and how much caffeine is really in everything else.
The estimator wasn't run on this one. The ratio is Jenny's own morning ratio, 1:11 — she rounds to 1:10 on the recording for easy math. Her coffee unit is her number from her own testing, not a rule: it might be 0.3 for you, or two. 9:12
Someone told Scott their blood sugar had been high and they'd been drinking more caffeine than they should. He wanted to know why.
Jenny: caffeine kicks your energy into gear, and in doing it can reduce some insulin sensitivity. So if you drink black coffee and see a rise — “there aren't any carbs, you're right, there aren't any carbs” — you're bolusing for the effect, not for food.
Hers, from her own testing — not everybody's. It depends on your sensitivity to insulin.
Measure it on yourself before you guess.
Jenny takes a tablespoon of coconut milk creamer — two grams of carb — and no sugar. Somebody else is going to toss in two packets.
Scott asked if she “lies to the pump.” She doesn't see it that way.
Jenny's example worked at her own morning ratio: 19 grams at 1:11. At the 1:10 she used for easy math on the recording, it's the one unit plus 0.8 for the sugar. Then she looks at what her blood sugar is doing.
Nobody goes to Dunkin' or Starbucks for a black coffee. Specialty drinks come with real milk or cream and usually two to four pumps of sugar syrup — the peppermint mocha at the holidays. Sugar-free syrups exist, but plenty of people don't like them. So there are more carbs than you think, and you're still getting the kick from the caffeine.
Does tea do the same thing? How does a soda compare? Scott looked up the caffeine.
She has a cup on the way to yoga in the morning, fasted — green, white, sometimes herbal — and nothing moves. Tea's caffeine is low compared with a cup of coffee. A matcha latte is a different story: milk and maybe a vanilla syrup. Count what you add.
It will hit hard enough to mess her up otherwise. Coffee isn't a fast kick like soda — don't drink a cup of black coffee to treat a low — but it isn't nothing either.
Where coffee hides.
The numbers that transfer to the next one.
“There aren't any carbs. You're right. There aren't any carbs.”
“It sounds like creamer is the ketchup of drinks.”
“I pre bolus for my cups of coffee.”
“When I get tired, I go to sleep.”
Every number on this page, with your own settings.
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