Welcome to the forum
@Alison13
Hope you find a blood glucose meter a more accurate amd immediate way of checking your responses around food.
Urine dipsticks can only really tell you what happened many hours ago, as it takes a while for glucose to spill over into urine once you have passed the renal threshold of about 10mmol/L
Yes, one of the biggest questions when trying to get to grips with your diabetes is often ‘what can I eat’ and while there are obvious things like cakes, biscuits, sweets and sugary drinks that you will want to cut out straight away, you might be surprised how much *all* carbohydrate affects your BG levels, including rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, pastry, grains, cereals and many fruits.
Many new members find it can be really helpful to keep a food diary for a week or two. Note down everything you eat and drink, along with an estimate of the
total carbohydrate content (not just ‘of which sugars) in your meals and snacks.
It might sound like a bit of a faff, and will involve weighing portions, squinting at the fine print on packaging, and possibly looking up ingredients on the internet, but it will give you a really good idea of which foods are the main sources of carbs in your menu. It will help you to see which meals or snacks are your ‘big hitters’, and where carbs might be unexpectedly lurking. Once you know that, you might identify some likely candidates for swaps, portion reductions, or using lower carb alternatives (eg celeriac or swede mash, or cauli ‘rice’).
The really tricky thing is that blood glucose responses to various foods are highly individual, and it can be impossible to say which types and amounts of carbohydrate will ‘spike’ your BG without checking for yourself. Hopefully by checking immediately before eating and again 1-2hrs after the first bite you will be able to see how different meals and snacks are tolerated. Ideally as
@Leadinglights suggests, you’d want to aim for a meal rise of no more than 2-3mmol/L.
Good luck, and let us know how you get on
🙂
