#1853 Bolus 4 Sushi
This Bolus 4 episode details insulin strategies for sushi, breaking down hidden rice sugars, the glycemic stretch effect of cold starches, and tracking fats, proteins, and dipping sauces.
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Key Takeaways
- The Meal Bolt Roadmap: Scott and Jenny utilize the "Meal Bolt" framework (Measure, Evaluate, Base units, Layer correction, Bolus shape, Offset timing, Look at CGM, Tweak) as a foundational pathway to map out insulin requirements for tricky foods.
- Hidden Sushi Carbs: Sushi rice is a short-grain, highly starchy rice. Its carbohydrate impact is further amplified by the traditional preparation process, which involves mixing the rice with a hidden sugar and vinegar blend to make it sticky.
- The Cold Rice Stretch Effect: Because sushi is served cold, the cooled starches digest differently, dragging out the glycemic impact over several hours. This unique physical property makes split bolusing and accurate timing critical.
- The Fat and Protein Factor: Popular specialty rolls feature significant amounts of protein (fish) and fat (mayonnaise-based spicy sauces, avocado, or fried components). Omitting these macros from calculations will trigger a massive, prolonged blood sugar spike hours later.
- Hidden Condiment Values: Dipping a roll into a "slurry" of soy sauce, wasabi, and pickled ginger introduces sneaky, uncounted carbohydrates and protein akin to ketchup, which can instantly disrupt an otherwise well-calculated bolus.
Resources Mentioned
Introduction and the Meal Bolt Roadmap
Scott Benner Here we are back together again, friends, for another episode of the juice box podcast. In every episode of bolus four, Jenny Smith and I are gonna take a few minutes to talk through how to bolus for a single item of food. Jenny and I are gonna follow a little bit of a road map called meal bolt. Measure the meal, evaluate yourself, add the base units, layer a correction, build the bolus shape, offset the timing, look at the CGM, tweak for next time. Having said that, these episodes are gonna be very conversational and not incredibly technical.
Scott Benner We want you to hear how we think about it, but we also would like you to know that this is kind of the pathway we're considering while we're talking about it. So while you might not hear us say every letter of Miele Bolt in every episode, we will be thinking about it while we're talking. If you wanna learn more, go to juiceboxpodcast.com/meal-bolt. But for now, we'll find out how to bowl us for today's subject. While you're listening, please remember that nothing you hear on the Juice Box podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise.
Scott Benner Always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. The episode you're about to enjoy was brought to you by Dexcom, the Dexcom g seven, the same CGM that my daughter wears. You can learn more and get started today at my link, dexcom.com/juicebox. Today's episode is also sponsored by the Omnipod five. And at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox, you can get yourself a free, what I just say?
Scott Benner A free Omnipod five starter kit. Free? Get out of here. Go click on that link. Omnipod.com/juicebox. Check it out. Terms and conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox. Links in the show notes. Links at juiceboxpodcast.com. Jenny, hello. We are hey. Hello. Hello. Hello. Hello.
Scott Benner Hello. Alright. We're gonna talk about a food today for bolus four that I've never eaten. Well, that's not true. I had one piece one time, but I have never had beyond that sushi in my entire life.
Jenny Smith Missing out. That's what my boys if we have something special Mhmm. A birthday, a celebration, something, which by the way, Oscar just got his black belt. He tested last Saturday and was out of 20 some testers. There were only three who actually were passed all of the pieces through, like, a four and a half hour test.
Scott Benner What a nice accomplishment.
Jenny Smith It is. So he again, getting back to sushi. You know, we were like, well, we'll go out and we'll celebrate. Right? What would you like? And I already knew. Like, he's like, the sushi place.
Scott Benner Yeah. That's awesome. That's really
Jenny Smith Sushi is the thing.
Breaking Down Sushi Macros: Rolls and Rice
Scott Benner Well, I have a specific order here lined up for us to try to work through. Spice Spicy tuna to tuna. Spicy tuna roll. It says specifically dunked in soy sauce, wasabi and ginger slurry. No idea what that means. Macchi, nigiri, sashimi. Boy, this is gonna be fun for everybody to listen to. Tamakia, impact of sushi rolls rolls, California rolls, dynamite rolls. That's that's what they're looking for. So I'm gonna let you go because I don't I mean, how do you break this stuff apart?
Scott Benner I I let you know, for context for everybody, I asked Gemini to break down the nutritional value of these things. So I have something in front of me, but I'm I'd be much more interested to hear what you think about it.
Jenny Smith Yeah. So in general, rolls rolls is the whole entire roll that you get. Mhmm. Right? You may get in a roll depending on the location somewhere between six to eight pieces in a roll. The rolls can be considered small, meaning it's the diameter. Mhmm. Medium or the large are usually more like the specialty rolls. They've got a lot more sauces. They might have crispy onions on the top or that kind.
Jenny Smith So they're much larger and they're stuffed with a lot more usually like ingredients, not necessarily a lot more rice. But as you can see, wise, as that diameter gets larger, each piece is going to be more carbohydrate.
Scott Benner Mhmm.
Jenny Smith Right? So when you talk about something like a spicy tuna roll, essentially, you've got rice, you've got the tuna, and you've got usually usually, the spicy part also has fat. It's usually mayonnaise with some type of spice to it.
Scott Benner Okay.
Jenny Smith And the interesting thing about sushi rice is that one, it's a really it's like a short grain rice, so it's much starchier. It's also the way that they make the sushi rice that increases the carbohydrate content of it.
Scott Benner Yes. Because I read a little bit about that. Like, they like, to make the rice sticky, there's like a sugar mixture Yeah. Vinegar kind of mixture or something like that. Right? Okay.
Jenny Smith Absolutely. So again, not just rice, but you've got something increasing the carbohydrate content. Mhmm. So when you look at just like a spicy tuna roll in general, let's say it's eight pieces in the roll, you're probably looking at about four grams of carb per piece.
Scott Benner Okay.
Jenny Smith Okay. So eight pieces times four grams of carb a piece is what? About, let's call it 32. That's kind of on the lower end, honestly. Okay. For a spicy tuna roll, I'll tell you what I count. I count 38 because I figured that's I figured out what works.
Scott Benner It's like that's my number.
Jenny Smith And I do it often enough that and it's also, again, based on the place that I've gone over and over, kind of the content I've I've figured out. The lower thirties were too little, and it is this is the case where it truly is. It's an estimation. It's your best estimation. Yeah. Even if you fed a picture of what was on your plate to something like an AI, this is where you could get very varying results.
Scott Benner Wildly different, probably.
Jenny Smith They could be very wildly different. Mhmm. But in general, even if you just said, okay, a roll 35 grams of of carb in something like this. Again, the middle part is all protein, and the fat is the spicy kind of mayo sauce. And then you also have the carbohydrates that essentially come from the rice.
Scott Benner Okay.
Jenny Smith Protein becomes the secondary question. Not only carbs, but it's not a little amount of protein that they're putting in an entire roll. It looks little piece by piece. Mhmm. But if you consider how much probably goes in the entire roll, you're probably looking at a couple of ounces.
Scott Benner It's funny that because the breakdown I got online, which I have no idea if it's right or not, is and it's why this conversation is so interesting around this food specifically. It's almost a one to one carbs to protein for the roll. I don't know if that's accurate or not, but they that's how Interesting. That's how it broke it down.
Jenny Smith I would expect the protein to be less grams in a roll.
Scott Benner Okay.
Jenny Smith And again, this is based on facility. Right? The restaurant.
Scott Benner This one's gonna be your point about it all being different every I mean, this is really gonna be one. You are gonna get to eat a lot of sushi while you figure out how to handle this. Right? Yes. Yeah.
Jenny Smith Absolutely. My estimate would be that a sushi roll, again, spicy tuna specifically for this one, is probably three ounces of protein.
Scott Benner Okay. For the whole roll? Six to eight?
Jenny Smith For the whole entire roll. Which is about six to eight pieces is a typical roll. Mhmm. And so, you know, with seven grams of per protein per ounce, if we're looking at three ounces, that's around 20 ish grams of protein for the entire thing. Whereas the carbs really are more. Again, if you're estimating on the lower end 35 grams
Scott Benner Mhmm.
Jenny Smith It definitely does outweigh the protein.
Scott Benner And then there's fat in that as well. But
Jenny Smith And then the fat would be again on top of the roll typically or sometimes mixed within depending on how they make estimate is usually somewhere around 10 to 15 grams because again, it's mayonnaise.
Scott Benner Okay. This thing said 11. I'm going with you with 15. And so that whole roll then you're thinking maybe 35 carbs, maybe 15 fat, maybe 20 protein.
Bolusing Strategy and the Stretch Effect
Jenny Smith Mhmm.
Scott Benner Ice you know, when we do these, I keep insulin to carb ratio at 10, sensitivity at 50, targeting a 90 blood sugar. It's saying 3.5 up front and another one point o seven, one point one over four hours. I don't know if you agree with the four hour stretch or not, but basically, the theoretical requirement here is, like, almost 4.6 units for that.
Jenny Smith Mhmm.
Scott Benner Today's episode is brought to you by Omnipod. Did you know that the majority of Omnipod five users pay less than $30 per month at the pharmacy? That's less than $1 a day for tube free automated insulin delivery. And a third of Omnipod five users pay $0 per month. You heard that right. 0. That's less than your daily coffee for all of the benefits of tubeless, waterproof, automated insulin delivery. My daughter has been wearing an Omnipod every day since she was four years old, She's about to be 21. My family relies on Omnipod, and I think you'll love it. And you can try it for free right now by requesting your free starter kit today at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox.
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Jenny Smith I do agree with the four hour in terms of, like, that extended part, mainly because sushi is interesting. If you look at it just from a rice perspective, it's a pretty quick high glycemic index. Mhmm. It could be a quick hit. So pre bolusing becomes really important here. But there's a stretch effect to sushi and how it ends up digesting. I mean, you don't eat sushi warm.
Scott Benner No. Okay.
Jenny Smith Right? Alright. So we eat sushi cold, rice, like many starchy foods, and I'm sure you've heard about the noodle idea.
Scott Benner Yep.
Jenny Smith Right? You cook the noodles, you cool them down, you reheat them, or you even eat them cold, and it reduces the glycemic hit.
Scott Benner Mhmm.
Jenny Smith But it can also stretch out the glycemic hit. Sushi is kind of similar along with the fact that it's full of protein depending on what else you're eating with this spicy tuna roll. Yeah. So you're looking at a stretch effect that can be several hours. And that's where I think it it kind of trips up a lot of people thinking, well, gosh, it's it's rice.
Scott Benner It's also so small. I know that's It's small. It sounds crazy, but it's not that big of an amount of food. Yeah. Actually, to your point, the bolus estimator that is at juiceboxpodcast.com/bolusfour, bolus, the number four, it's saying pre bolus time, and I have this set up as the current blood sugar. I didn't even put it in, but I I I just put the the BG trend as stable. It says Uh-huh. It says nine minutes would be a pre bolus.
Jenny Smith Starting place.
Scott Benner Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If I Could
Jenny Smith could be a good
Scott Benner If I put in a a current blood sugar of one twenty, it stretches it out to, you know, twelve minutes. But it's to your point of, like, food get you know, let's put a reasonable pre bolus on here.
Jenny Smith Right.
Scott Benner But not, you know, but at the same time, not too long because this is gonna get going here.
Jenny Smith And my my sushi strategy, again, my n of one personal experience has been with many, many sushi eating experiences.
Scott Benner Many, many, many.
Jenny Smith The best of which by far was in Lima, Peru, which is very weird. It was the best sushi that I've ever ever had.
Scott Benner Didn't expect that?
Jenny Smith It was amazing. But my sushi experience has taught me that I can bolus knowing what I've ordered as soon as our order gets placed Mhmm. And knowing now about how much sushi I eat, I pre bolus. It's fifteen minutes as long as my blood sugar is in target. And even if my blood sugar is just slightly trending down, I still do the same pre bolus.
Jenny Smith Mhmm. But I don't pre bolus all of the carbs. Okay. Instead, I pre bolus about 40% of the carbs that I expect I'm going to eat of the rolls that we've ordered.
Scott Benner Mhmm.
Jenny Smith And when the meal arrives, I enter the rest of it.
Scott Benner You put the rest in. Use the classic how to pre bolus for a little kid trick on
Jenny Smith It is kind of Yeah. That exactly.
Scott Benner Yeah. Little bit going.
Jenny Smith It's more based on what I know the extensive reach of sushi for me looks like. So for you. Bowl is all upfront, I'm gonna hit a low before it starts kicking in.
Scott Benner Right.
Jenny Smith So I pre bolus enough that I catch the first digestive, if you will Mhmm. Of the initial. And then because I bolus for the rest at the beginning of starting to eat.
Accounting for Protein, Fat, and "Slurries"
Scott Benner Then you have a heavier blanket on the second burst, basically. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm. It's interesting. Just so people can track along, I think this why this estimator is really helpful to kinda learn from, 3.5 up front, one point o seven on the back end for those four hours. If you just take the protein out, so I don't count protein on this meal, it keeps the initial bolus at 3.5, but the the Warsaw wave now goes to three hours and comes down by, like, point four, like a half a unit. So if you're gonna get a big push later, not only have you not stretched it out long enough now just by not considering the protein, but you also, you know, you also are not, having enough insulin.
Scott Benner Again, same idea. If you don't think about the fat, if you just go like this sushi roll is 35 carbs, this goes down to a 3.5 bolus with no consideration for later, and that must be what people are seeing. Right? They're not treating they should be treating this food almost like a burger and fries as far as, like, that secondary hit.
Jenny Smith And the fancier the rolls get, again, those specialty rolls, they tend to have sometimes they have a fried component to them because the shrimp inside might be fried or you might actually have fried, like, squid or eel. Like, there might be a fried fish component that's inside as well as the mayonnaise based types of sauces or the avocado that might be inside of your, you know, California roll, for example
Scott Benner Okay.
Jenny Smith Depending on how much you're eating. And then what you might also be eating it with. Like, I know we always before our sushi even comes
Scott Benner Mhmm.
Jenny Smith We really like the edamame. Have you ever done the edamame? You probably
Scott Benner Arden loves edamame. Yeah.
Jenny Smith Yeah. So much fun to eat. Like, my boys could each eat their own bowl Mhmm. Of salty, hot edamame. So we usually share some of that ahead of time, which is actually great because it adds a fiber coating component, a protein component before the sushi actually also kinda gets digesting and rolling.
Scott Benner Right.
Jenny Smith So think about what you're doing before you eat the rolls.
Scott Benner Well, let's talk it through a little bit. So soy sauce has carbs and protein in it that I didn't expect even. Not a lot.
Jenny Smith It's more minor.
Scott Benner Yeah. A tiny little bit, but, you know, two tablespoons, two carbs, two proteins. The pickled ginger doesn't have any.
Jenny Smith Oh, the pickled ginger is so good.
Scott Benner Wasabi paste has carbs in it. Again, teaspoon of wasabi paste looks like about three grams of carbs. So that slurry you're talking about, you know, when it it's all put together and by the way, whoever said slurry, like, thought they were making that word up, it's obviously a real thing. But it's, 10 carbs, two proteins. So it's one of those things. It's it's almost like ketchup. Like, it's really easy to be like, oh, I didn't I didn't really account for that. But we go back down to this meal. If you're, you know, if you're putting I don't know what you do with that slurry, but all of a sudden, you know, there's two more proteins, 22, and there's 10 more carbs. So now it's the the roll and the slurry. It it boom. You know what I mean? Like, here we go again. It's, it's now four units up front. That went up by a half unit, and the worst all weight kinda stayed similar. But now we're up to over five units just with with that Right. That that add You
Jenny Smith You add on a good component in looking at a lot of meals that have these little saucy kinds of things with them. Right? Mhmm. I mean, ketchup is a huge offender.
Scott Benner Yeah. Oh, no. Yeah. All the time.
Jenny Smith Nobody ketchup. Right?
Scott Benner Sugar, you know, basically.
Jenny Smith It is. And then in this example, with your insulin to carb ratio standard at one to 10 for ease in calculation, if this little slurry
Scott Benner Mhmm.
Jenny Smith Great word. This little 10 grams of carb, That's a unit of insulin that you miss.
Scott Benner Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that can definitely make a difference. I mean, that's a 50 if if your insulin to carbon, your correction factor are truly well calculated Yeah. Then one unit of missed insulin can also create 50 more point rise than you would expect. Just like that. Right? Would a person eat a spicy tuna roll and a California roll, or is that too much food? Oh,
Jenny Smith no. Oh, okay. Like, if you were my children, oh, the more rolls, the better.
Scott Benner Well, then I'm telling you here, I'm looking at California roll, and the again, the spicy tuna roll estimate that I'm looking at was under your estimate. It says California roll, nine protein, 38 carbs, dynamite roll, 12 protein, 45 carbs, standard maki, 15
Jenny Smith The maki is just simple.
Scott Benner Yeah. But still, it's 15 it says 15 grams of protein, 25 carbs. Like, you know, sashimi has a lot of protein in it.
Jenny Smith It is. It's really sashimi is just it's without rice entirely. It's pretty much protein though. But again, if you are the person who goes and let's say you get the steamed edamame, maybe you get the oh, what is their soup called that they have? I really like it. Now it escapes me the name of the soup. Miso soup. Okay. There we go.
Scott Benner Right.
Jenny Smith I I mean, again, pretty pretty negligible. But if you are truly just doing a big plate of sashimi, you've got a lot of protein there that you're you should be expecting a hit down the road.
Scott Benner Three to four and a half ounces of thick slices, 22 to 25 grams of protein.
Jenny Smith Right. So in a and again, then they're pieces. They're not rolls.
Scott Benner Mhmm.
Jenny Smith So per piece, usually somewhere I usually say somewhere around five to seven grams per piece
Scott Benner Okay.
Jenny Smith In general.
Real-Life Meal Simulations & Learning Tools
Scott Benner Listen. I I'm gonna tell you right now. I think this conversation will help wrap your head around it, but this is just this is just Gemini. It's just Google Gemini. I didn't do it in Chad GPT. I didn't do it in Claude. I don't know if it would come up with different things or not. Yeah. But at least it's a starting point. Like, you're telling me that this one's a science experiment for sure.
Scott Benner Mhmm. And so at least start at a a reasonable guess. And all I did was took someone's order. It's a it's a listener who sent this to me. Yeah. Spicy tuna roll dunked in soy sauce, wasabi and ginger slurry, maki read it to you already. Right? I put it in and I said, I need a nutritional breakdown for all. Be complete. Be accurate. I need fat, protein, and carbs. And it just spit it back at me. I don't know if it's right or not. I mean, what the hell does right even mean? Like, you know, if each restaurant's gonna be different and each person's gonna feel impacted differently by it and maybe your settings are right and maybe they're not, but still, like, you gotta start somewhere.
Jenny Smith Yeah. And it
Scott Benner could be fun to be perfectly honest with you. Like, sit down at the table.
Jenny Smith Absolutely.
Scott Benner Yeah. Whip open your app. Ask your ask your ask your, you know, your world dominating minion in your pocket what it what it thinks. And then
Jenny Smith more you feed it, you know, this little helpful minion as it's like that consideration, truly. As you feed it the information, you can say, okay. I'm having a California roll. It is eight pieces. Each piece looks like it's about an inch in diameter. Yeah. So the more information you can give this type of system, it doesn't have parameters for distinct rules. Right? You have to feed it the information to get back the best cumulative that it's pulling from from all sources that it's looking at. Right?
Scott Benner Yeah. And this isn't a I mean, listen, this isn't an AI conversation, but as long as it got brought up I'm using Claude now mostly.
Jenny Smith Uh-huh.
Scott Benner And they recently added, like, some memory to it. Like, you can build in skills and and Oh. So, like, you could build a I don't know what you would call it. I don't know if it's a skill if it's, it it's not important. Again, this is not a this is not a Claude lesson, but you can basically teach it things about yourself. So you could say, you know, give me the the starting points for this meal and then get down to the point where you realize, like, well, this is what it actually took. I mean, you could easily add on to this and say, is my carb ratio. These are my settings. Here's what I tried this time. Here was my end result.
Scott Benner What should we try next time? And then say you figured out, and it's it ends up being like, this meal is this many carbs and this much fat, shush out over this much time. I've added in the protein, blah blah blah. You got it worked out. You go ahead and tell it, like, that's what worked for me. Right? Yeah. So now the next time you ask it for something, it'll probably be able to, like, say, oh, you know, I know the carbs say this, but, know, the last time that happened, it ended up being more like this for you. Maybe try this. And I'm telling you, like, that's not that difficult to figure out. So especially for these sorts of things. I mean, the reason sushi comes up is because everybody seems to struggle bolusing for sushi. Like, you know what I mean? When I'm seeing people online
Jenny Smith A 100%. Unless you test it and fiddle with it and expect that it's this is, again, not specific to sushi, but this is where you make a decision to try something and you say to yourself, this is entirely an experiment. I'm gonna use all the information I have from similar foods that I've learned to navigate well, and I'm gonna put in these strategies, and I'm going to see how it hits. Yeah. And then you end up making a change.
Scott Benner Right. But it but this is so much more focused and I think simple by starting with at least a better jumping in point, really, on on the numbers. Instead of just sitting down one day and going like, I don't know. I'll try this. Eating it, having your outcome going, I'm gonna go back next Friday night give it a whirl again. Like, although, you know, I'm sure you come to the same conclusion eventually.
Jenny Smith No? Yeah. Right. Correct. So, I mean, in a real world, like you said, would you eat just one roll?
Jenny Smith Yeah. Oh. Oh, no.
Scott Benner No. No.
Jenny Smith Yeah. Like, no. No. So let's I mean, let's put together a real life scenario. Right? Right. Let's say I mean, this person fed you a whole bunch of different things, but if we did what people tend to do, maybe especially if you're eating out for lunch on your own.
Scott Benner Mhmm. Let's say we take something like two spicy tuna rolls. We'll take some of the things from what you did. Two spicy tuna rolls, and we take, we like the salmon. So how about, like the salmon nigiri or nigiri? I never know how to say it exactly right. And we say, we're gonna have, let's see, four pieces of that. Okay. Okay. So as a cumulative then, what are we looking at in terms of macros? Like, our carb count goes up considerably from one roll.
Scott Benner I've been tracking you. I got what you were saying. The two rolls and the and the fish, 76 carbs, 30 fat, 44 protein.
Jenny Smith And that's on the light side.
Scott Benner Okay.
Jenny Smith That really would be on the light side. I mean, if you're looking at the nigiri nigiri, I mean, in pieces, you're probably looking at 35 grams ish from a carbo standpoint.
Scott Benner Of that.
Jenny Smith Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, from, two spicy tuna rolls, again, if you use average 35 for a spicy tuna roll, but two of them, that's 70 grams of carb.
Scott Benner Yeah.
Jenny Smith Like, we're looking at a large amount carb.
Scott Benner And five in that at that point.
Jenny Smith At least. Yeah. Right? And then the protein. Right? Protein for what did we count for the sushi rolls? I think it was like 30. Mhmm. 25 or 30. Right? So that's again adding up how much protein in each of the rolls. If we go on the low end twenty, twenty five per roll, that could be 40 to 50.
Scott Benner I'll put in 50. And what do you think about fat?
Jenny Smith And then fat, again, spicy tuna. Each roll being, I think, I said somewhere between ten and fifteen. So probably somewhere between 20 to 30 grams of fat. Mhmm. And then you're looking at the other, right, the other salmon containing. Salmon's a little bit of a fattier fish. It probably has more fat. It doesn't have a sauce on top of it, but you're looking at carbs, protein probably similar to this the tuna rolls.
Scott Benner Mhmm.
Jenny Smith And you're also looking at fat less for that. I would say probably 10 to 15 again, total fat for those pieces. Okay. But So you've got you've got huge macro hits here.
Scott Benner Yeah. So if you if just following along with what you're saying, a 105 carbs, 45 grams of fat, 50 grams of protein. Fat in the protein, not something most of you are counting to begin with. I'm going with a stable trend on your, you know, and let's just say you started at a 90 blood sugar, which let's you're probably not. Okay? But, like, like, let's just say that you are. That's 10 and a half units. This is a one to 10, right, with a Mhmm. Insulin sensitivity of 50. So it's 10 and a half units up front, three units over it's now saying eight hours.
Scott Benner Like like, you know, so three units stretched out over eight hours still with, a nine minute pre bolus. It's 13 and a half units for sushi.
Jenny Smith It's a a lot of insulin.
Scott Benner Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, again, we're not this is not a judgment. Right? Of course. You just have to consider though that if this is your meal, you have to also from a mindset standpoint, maybe your meals are usually more like six or seven units. And you're looking at this mouth thinking, my goodness. That's gotta be wrong. Something's gotta be wrong.
Scott Benner But but are you having that meal with your six or seven units in and then going up to 300 and staying there for five hours? Like, they this is your answer, really. You know? And again, just to make the point to everybody, if I just took 10 and a half up front, three over eight hours, if I just take out the 50 protein, it changes the back end, but it doesn't change the it doesn't change the front end very much. Right. If I take out the fat and no one's teaching you to bolus for fat, the complexity of this extended bolus is completely gone.
Scott Benner Now it's just telling you this is 10 and a half units for the meal. And we just said it might be not only 10 and a half, but my god, you know, another three units and stretched out over eight hours afterwards. That's a three unit impact. You're not getting it all with the amount of insulin, right, because you're not using it. Right. And you're not addressing the timeline after the food at all either. You're just looking at your regular old Yeah. Basal or, you know, if you're injected, it's just basal. If you're on a a a, you know, a regular old pump, it's just basal. If you're on an automated system, not only is it not there, but the automated system's probably taking the basal away.
Jenny Smith It might be.
Scott Benner Right. Right. And now you have now not only do you not have the three over the time, you you also have no basal either.
Jenny Smith No basal either.
Scott Benner No basal either. You could be diff yeah. You could be different deficient significantly, and you're seeing this crazy rise. And then you get on the phone to the pump company, you go, damn, pump don't work. Yes.
Jenny Smith Something's wrong. Something's wrong. It took all my insulin away, and I was sitting high. Well, you have to understand how the algorithms work.
Scott Benner Yeah. Yeah. And you have to understand these these impacts. I'm telling you right now, this estimator is a great way to learn this. I like just throwing in numbers and seeing, like, how does not accounting for this or not accounting for that or accounting for that correctly? How does that change the amount of insulin, the time that that insulin needs to be active? I think it's a really great learning tool. I really did build it as a learning tool. Yeah. You know, if you wanna use it otherwise, I probably can't stop you, but you are gonna answer a couple of, disclaimers on the way through. Ask your doctor about it. I would I would open this up at my doctor's appointment and say, like, hey.
Jenny Smith What do you think?
Closing and Community Resources
Scott Benner How come nobody ever mentioned fat to me? Can we talk about how to do this better? Mhmm. And if you're really, like, technically interested, keep scrolling down. It explains to you how the whole page works and the Mhmm. The estimator works and everything. Really just letting yourself know about that is, is probably the the the secret to the success a lot more. I'll even under I I might even say, it might even be even more valuable than understanding exactly how many carbs and fat and protein are in the in the sushi that you're eating. So thank you for doing this. I I really do appreciate it.
Jenny Smith No. It was super fun. A a a definitely type of food that I I I really like. We don't do very often, but I really like it. So thanks.
Scott Benner Well, the next time we get together, we're gonna do Mexican and Chinese. You're gonna love it.
Jenny Smith Oh, that's fun too. Bye. Bye.
Scott Benner This episode of the Juice Box podcast is sponsored by the Omnipod five. And at my link, omnipod.com/juicebox, you can get yourself a free what'd I just say? A free Omnipod five starter kit. Free? Get out of here. Go click on that link. Omnipod.com/juicebox. Check it out. Terms and conditions apply. Eligibility may vary. Full terms and conditions can be found at omnipod.com/juicebox. Links in the show notes. Links at juiceboxpodcast.com. Dexcom sponsored this episode of the juice box podcast. Learn more about the Dexcom g seven at my link, dexcom.com/juicebox.
Scott Benner Okay. Well, here we are at the end of the episode. You're still with me? Thank you. I really do appreciate that. What else could you do for me? Why don't you tell a friend about the show or leave a five star review? Maybe you could make sure you're following or subscribe in your podcast app, go to YouTube and follow me or Instagram, TikTok. Oh, gosh. Here's one. Make sure you're following the podcast in the private Facebook group as well as the public Facebook page. You don't wanna miss please, do you not know about the private group? You have to join the private group. As of this recording, it has 74,000 members. They're active talking about diabetes. Whatever you need to know, there's a conversation happening in there right now. And I'm there all the time. Tag me. I'll say hi.
Scott Benner My diabetes pro tip series is about cutting through the clutter of diabetes management to give you the straightforward practical insights that truly make a difference. This series is all about mastering the fundamentals, whether it's the basics of insulin, dosing adjustments, or everyday management strategies that will empower you to take control. I'm joined by Jenny Smith, who is a diabetes educator with over thirty five years of personal experience, and we break down complex concepts into simple, actionable tips. The diabetes pro tip series runs between episode one thousand and one thousand twenty five in your podcast player, or you can listen to it at juiceboxpodcast.com by going up into the menu. Have a podcast? Want it to sound fantastic? Wrongwayrecording.com.
