Daily Meal Plan

[Little Nightingale]

Hiya, Everyone...

I'm so confused with all the dietary advice and wondered if you could tell me what a typical days meal plan would be for you? I believe my calorie intake should be around 1,600 calories..For years I've been eating a bowl of bran flakes, sliced banana and berries, because the quack said contained in the cereal is all the nutrients my body needs..But from what I read this is the worst thing to do...

Marnie

 

[rossie]

Hiya....me too. no good giving you advice cos i am pretty useless...but this forum is great and they will give you some good advice.....I read it every day...and you feel less alone....good luck..x

 

[DeusXM]

It really does vary from person to person.

However, the key thing you need to bear in mind for all of this is the impact your food has on your blood sugar. Calories are probably less relevant.

Most people with diabetes create highly individualised meal plans based on testing after eating to see what effect different things have on their blood sugar at different times of the day.

A good starting point, however, is to remember the following truths.

Carbohydrates raise your blood sugar.
Fat doesn't raise your blood sugar.
Protein DOES raise your blood sugar but usually very slowly.

The obvious next step, then is to see if reducing your carbohydrate intake helps improve your blood sugar levels.

The breakfast you describe is almost entirely carbohydrate-based. That may or may not be the best choice for you depending on your blood sugar. The simplest way to think about this is Lego blocks. If one Lego block is 'sugar', then a Lego 'house' is starch. Your body will always dismantle the house into its individual blocks, so chemically speaking, there isn't actually much difference between eating a bowl of cereal and a bowl of sugar. It IS a bit more complicated than that but it isn't far off.

So what does that mean for your diet? That depends on you. What I would do is this - get yourself a blood sugar meter, test before eating, eat something, and then test two hours afterwards. Ideally you want your after meal reading to be roughly the same as your before eating one. If it's much higher, then that means that what you've just eaten isn't an appropriate choice and you may need to limit your portion in future.

What you will probably find is you will need to swap carbohydrates for more fats and proteins. This isn't actually a bad thing as meat, eggs and veg are nutritionally better than bread or pasta. Put it this way, my diet is a lot of meat-heavy salads, steaks with veg, omelettes, and using substitutes for starches (like mashed cauli for mashed potato, grated cauli for rice, mince for pizza bases, stir-fries bulked with shredded cabbage, 'naked' burritos etc). 90% of the time, carbs are simply a dry brown delivery mechanism for the food that you actually want to eat. I also make my fruits count. Instead of drinking juice, I'll snack on berries which are packed full of vitamins but with very little sugar and a lot of fibre.

You can also cut carbs down quite dramatically compared to what is 'officially' mandated. I think for an adult male, the carb RDA is 300g a day. If I ate that much a day I'd be dead and I can easily go through the day and eat less than 30g without any problems. My recommendation would be to entirely cut all the carbs from your diet and then add them back in so you find the amount that works for you.

 

[DeusXM]

And another thing....


...get out of the mindset that fat = bad.

Fat is only bad if you don't use it up. If you need 1600 calories a day and your total diet intake is 1500, and of that, fat is 1000, all of that fat gets used up anyway. Fat is only a problem when it sticks around.

 

[LeeLee]

Hi Marnie, whilst I agree with much of what Deus has said, I differ on the fat front. I have managed to lose 6 stone in 60 weeks by reducing my carb/fat/calorie intake, and feel miles better for it. I chose to do it with Slimming World Original plan, which is D-friendly and suits me. Others have had success with Weightwatchers, or going it alone. I find I need the group support to keep me going - but the Big Two also have online membership and email support if you don't want to go to a group.

 

[Little Nightingale]

Thank You so much, Deux..I ordered a monitor today and will follow your excellent advice...I suffer with gallstones and my cholestorol is high, so will have to be careful with fats..I do use extra virgin olive oil, but have gone overboard in the past with lurpak butter and mayo...Is it possible to gat a handle on this and not resort to medication? Is it doable?

 

[Little Nightingale]

Hi Marnie, whilst I agree with much of what Deus has said, I differ on the fat front. I have managed to lose 6 stone in 60 weeks by reducing my carb/fat/calorie intake, and feel miles better for it. I chose to do it with Slimming World Original plan, which is D-friendly and suits me. Others have had success with Weightwatchers, or going it alone. I find I need the group support to keep me going - but the Big Two also have online membership and email support if you don't want to go to a group.

Thank You, LeeLee..Like I said, I'm a bit wary of fats, but realise there are good ones which the body needs...I suppose my age has a lot to do with the weight loss, too...I am in my mid-fifties and hormones can knock the old metabolism outta whack...It's difficult for me to get to a "group", because I suffer from agorophobia..I have also had several massive stressors in my life, one of which was my brother's suicide in October 2010.....I am trying to deal with that through grief counselling with CRUSE Bereavement...Maybe, just maybe, if I can get a grip of this diabetes stuff, I can tackle the agorohobia and stop feeling like a prisoner...Happy days ahead for all of us, eh? 🙂

 

[DeusXM]

my cholestorol is high, so will have to be careful with fats..I do use extra virgin olive oil, but have gone overboard in the past with lurpak butter and mayo...Is it possible to gat a handle on this and not resort to medication? Is it doable?

You may not have to watch your fats as much as you think.

As far as I'm aware, there has never been a study that has conclusively proved reducing your saturated fat intake is actually good for your cardiovascular system. In fact, the only reasonably conclusive result is a study done in Finland...which found that those who reduced their fat intake actually had a lower life expectancy.

The problem is every doctor 'knows' fat causes your cholesterol to go up yet there's no proof that this actually happens. We already know dietary cholesterol plays no role in your actual cholesterol level because when you cut back on your cholesterol intake, your body actually produces more.

Cholesterol is synthesised in the liver. There is a hormone that encourages your liver to produce more cholesterol.

It's called insulin.

As a T2, you are likely to be insulin resistant, which means your body probably produces a lot of insulin for your body size, but your muscles are unable to use it effectively to remove glucose from your blood. You probably have a high circulating insulin level. The higher your insulin level, the more it stimulates your liver to produce cholesterol. Interestingly, the higher your insulin level, the more fat you store. The more fat you have stored, the more cholesterol you produce anyway, regardless of diet or insulin levels.

So it should seem pretty obvious - the less insulin you have circulating, the less fat you'll store AND the less cholesterol you'll produce.

What causes your insulin level to rise? Rising blood sugar levels. What causes your blood sugar level to rise? Carbohydrates.

In other words, the theory is that if you eat more fat and very few carbs, you'll lose weight and your bad cholesterol level will drop, while your good cholesterol level increases.

Conventional diet advice for people with diabetes is very low fat and 50-60% of your calories from carbs. Many people with diabetes have issues with high cholesterol and body fat, as well as high HbA1Cs. I would suggest that these two facts are interlinked.

 

[Little Nightingale]

Thanks, Deux..The last three blood tests I had showed "low liver-function"...Which is kind of what you're saying? Is this responsible for the high cholestorol levels? There's so much to absorb and I'm a dufus...I'm gonna start with the monitor like you advised me and see how I go... 🙂

 

[Little Nightingale]

Deux, I also have gallstones which, because of the agorohobia, I have not been able to have dealt with...Will this have a bearing on the low liver-function?

 

[Mark T]

...Is it possible to gat a handle on this and not resort to medication? Is it doable?

Yes it can be done as others have proved, but don't berate yourself if you can't - you are not a failure.

Getting a meter is a very good move since it will allow you to identify which meals are a complete no-no and which you can get away with.

Personally, I've switched to a dollop of low fat probiotic yogurt with added nuts in the morning which mostly does me (aimed to be less then 10g carbs, but definitely less then 15g)

 

[Little Nightingale]

Thanks, Mark..I was thinking of trying a slice of the Burgen bread with some lo-fat cottage cheese and a lo-fat yoghurt with grapes for breakfast in the morning...I know porridge is meant to be really good, but I don't like it...Also, I was wondering your take on fresh lemon juice and boiled water? I don't drink tea of coffee...I do drink plenty of water throughout the day...

 

[Little Nightingale]

Also, would a drizzle of olive-oil be okay on the cottage cheese?

 

[LeeLee]

Good thing you don't like porridge... some people can tolerate it, but it sends others sky-high - so that's one less experiment you have to go through.

Take care with grapes, I was told not to eat them when first diagnosed because they're little balloons of sugar! Berries are much lower GI, and English strawberries are now hitting the shelves.

 

[Mark T]

Grapes = little sachets of glucose! 😱

Some others have porridge for breakfast, but I'm usually in a rush in the mornign so I want something quick and easy. I've tried Oat-So-Simple but that does makes my blood glucose levels go through the roof!

I do occasionally drink fruit tea's so I wouldn't so no to hot lemon 🙂 Most tea (herbal, fruit or otherwise) drinks have next to no carbohydrates anyway.

Is it tea you don't like or the caffeine in it? Have you tried zero caffeine tea's like green and redbush?

 

[Little Nightingale]

Thanks, Mark! No, I haven't tried those teas! But I'm gonna! 🙂

 

[DeusXM]

The last three blood tests I had showed "low liver-function"...Which is kind of what you're saying?

No. Insulin just regulates cholesterol synthesis. Low liver function is something different.

I also have gallstones which, because of the agorohobia, I have not been able to have dealt with...Will this have a bearing on the low liver-function?

I don't have any experience with gallstones at all so I wouldn't be able to point you in the right direction. Gallstones might also have an impact on your diet flexibility as well. I understand from other members here that fats are a completely no-no with gallstones. From my own very limited reading (ie a Wiki page on gallstones), diet doesn't really affect gallstones and if they are agglomerations of cholesterol then I would have thought any steps to reduce cholesterol would also reduce gallstones. However I'm completely out of my depth here and just speculating, you'll need professional advice.