Please help

9 posts, 4 contributors

Search the DAFNE Online Forums

 
Mumoftwoboys 4 posts

Hi I have let my diabetes go the last couple of years but I am back on it now and I need to change the way I do things.
I always remember there was a way of working carbs out, I can't remember how to do it. There was a table I was given where I believe I have to divide something them times it by something 🤷‍♀️.
If I'm having something to eat and it weighs 115g the carbs are 38g, but what if I was to eat say 155g how do I work out the carbs???

alturn DAFNE Graduate
NHS Grampian
78 posts

Welcome back – it can be quite daunting to restart.

Sorry if this is a bit long, but best I can do. I've tried to keep it simple, there are many exceptions.

I assume your whole serving comes to 155g with 38g of carbs. DAFNE only counts carbs – mainly found in cereal, rice, potatoes, pasta. And cakes etc.

The process is :
DAFNE works on Carbohydrate Portions (CP) – 10g of carbs equates to 1 CP.

Then apply your QA:CP (Quick Acting insulin units:1 CP) ratio for the current meal (DAFNE ratios are normally 1:1, 1.5:1, 2:1, 2.5:1 or 3:1). You can have different ratios for each meal.

Then you may have to round up or down if the units work at e.g. 3.6 and your pen doesn't handle 0.5 units. It's a bit of guess work, but depends eg how you feel or activity.

Then you may need to adjust your units if current BG is high or low. DAFNE says somewhere how much one unit should reduce your BG, but can't find it at present. Think 1 unit to reduce BG by 2 might be a good place to start. And if low, then reduce units using same ratio.

So for 38g carbs:
Divide by 10 gives 3.8CPs
Multiply by ratio eg 2:1 give 7.6 units.
Round up or down to 7.5 or 8.0
Add in your correction (assume BG in range so correction is 0) gives 7.5 or 8.0 .

Some meters do a lot of the work for you. I used an Aviva Expert for several years and saved all my results in a spreadsheet. I now use another meter but use the data saved to calculate units. The Expert can be programmed with QA:CP ratios, correction ratios and also allow for exercise, for several time bands – breakfast, lunch, dinner. When you do a test, it will suggest how many units to take. It's up to you to decide what to take.

Hope this helps,

J

torana DAFNE Graduate
Royal North Shore Hospital, St Leonards, NSW
53 posts

Hi Mumoftwoboys,
I just use an app called CalorieKing. I think it’s Australian based however there appears to be a number of international apps detailing products from the local supermarket. Just weigh on scales the item and type in the amount of grams of the product and it automatically works it out for you. It’s that simple to derive the nutritional value of a piece of food such as carbs, fats and proteins. In fact, we received a set of scales as part of the DAFNE course which I still use every day.

Muncle DAFNE Graduate
University Hospitals, Leicester
9 posts

Hi Mumoftwoboys, I hope I've interpreted your question correctly :-)

I think you wanted to know what the carbs are based on packet information saying 38g carbs/115g but you want to eat 155g?

For me the easiest way is to say 38g (carbs) devided by 115g (info weight) = 0.33043 and then multiply that by 155g (eating weight) = 51.21g (carbs) which would be 5.12 (CP's ).

I hope that makes sense Wink

All the best
Muncle

Mumoftwoboys 4 posts

Muncle said:
Hi Mumoftwoboys, I hope I've interpreted your question correctly :-)

I think you wanted to know what the carbs are based on packet information saying 38g carbs/115g but you want to eat 155g?

For me the easiest way is to say 38g (carbs) devided by 115g (info weight) = 0.33043 and then multiply that by 155g (eating weight) = 51.21g (carbs) which would be 5.12 (CP's ).

I hope that makes sense Wink

All the best
Muncle



That's what I was looking for, thank you so much for your help

alturn DAFNE Graduate
NHS Grampian
78 posts

Good grief.

My apologies, I mis-read your query.

I get annoyed when people mis-read my queries (I do try to make them obvious) or don't reply to question I asked in an eMail I send. Can't say much else....

J

Mumoftwoboys 4 posts

alturn said:
Good grief.

My apologies, I mis-read your query.

I get annoyed when people mis-read my queries (I do try to make them obvious) or don't reply to question I asked in an eMail I send. Can't say much else....

J


Aww I'm so sorry, I hope I haven't upset you in anyway Sad . I am greatful to everyone who has replied, but am so busy with the children, I do mean to reply to you all that have commented, just life gets very busy at times. Thank you so much though for your comment, everyone who has commented has left excellent tips for me and I am very greatful Razz

Mumoftwoboys 4 posts

torana said:
Hi Mumoftwoboys,
I just use an app called CalorieKing. I think it’s Australian based however there appears to be a number of international apps detailing products from the local supermarket. Just weigh on scales the item and type in the amount of grams of the product and it automatically works it out for you. It’s that simple to derive the nutritional value of a piece of food such as carbs, fats and proteins. In fact, we received a set of scales as part of the DAFNE course which I still use every day.


Thanks lovely will have a look at this.

alturn DAFNE Graduate
NHS Grampian
78 posts

Hi, no problems, it's very easy to mis-read something.

Enjoy your 5.12 CPs and hope your BGs work out Ok.

J
Razz