BG report: A day walking around Tajiri, Japan
Is Tajiri Japan's smallest town? Well...
Watch on YouTube (21:56)
There was a lot of walking today, and that always keeps blood sugars down. Sometimes too much – but you never know.
I spent the day walking around Tajiri, Japan. It’s Japan’s smallest town, depending on how you measure and define the town limits. (Official figures put it at #6, for reasons explained in the video.)
When I arrived at Yoshiminosato train station in Tajiri, it was about 11 am. My breakfast peak was peaking at around 218, but I took no insulin for it. I knew I’d be walking a lot.
As I began walking, BG went down and stabilized very well. By noon I was 133.
Lunch was a challenge: in the old Taniguchi villa, an extravagant house built by a cotton magnate in the 1920s that today is the Tajiri Historical House, I had lunch at the cafe. My CGM said I was an even 100 as I sat down.
It had carbs, and tough ones: spaghetti and a few French fries to go along with a small salad and a hamburger patty. For dessert, a pudding of very unknown thickness and carb count.
And I’d be walking some more. Normally I’d take about 8 units for it, so I took 5. The idea is that the walking would shave off the rest of the carbs as it made the insulin do its thing more aggressively.
The pudding turned out to be more dense than I thought. I expected to be a bit high later. Oops.
But I wasn’t. My shot had been perfect. I walked around another couple hours, including over the large Tajiri Sky Bridge, and later checked into my hotel.
It was 4 pm. My BG was 118.
A coffee and doughnut snack seemed simple: 40g of carbs, printed right on the package. I took 4 units, but drifted up to 222 by dinner time. My math was good; must have been something about the donut.
After a long walk around town looking for a place to buy an emergency iPhone charging cable, I was 123. So I finally had dinner: a bento from a konbini that included a 500ml beer.
The beer wrecked my evening.
Starting around 11 pm, for two hours my BG was low and would. not. get. better. I ate glucose, and waited, and repeated it. But it stayed in the 60s. I was annoyed but not panicking, yet.
Eventually it started to get better at 1 am. I was very irritated that I was robbed of the early sleep I’d wanted after walking 17,000 steps today. And, of course, I was awoken at 3:30 am with a high of 230, for which I took three units.
So, lots of exercise + a bit too much insulin + a beer was a bad formula. But, that aside, BGs were impressively steady in Tajiri. Some lessons learned, too.
