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Low Carb Surprise.

I

indio02

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
After a recent small rise in hba1c I've decided to cut out as many carbs as I reasonably can. Obviously was prepared to forego bread, rice, pasta etc but having a closer look it would also mean losing things like onion, lentils, beans (chickpeas, kidney beans etc) even the wheatbran I put in my morning overnight oats/porridge is considered high carb!
Does anyone have any advice? Thanks
 
I didn't know onions were high carb although they are below ground veg. Depends how much you want to change your diet and if it is to give you a boost or you want to stick with it. It also depends if you have belly fat to lose.
Do you ever check your BG? I used to eat porridge regularly but now enjoy full fat Greek style yoghurt with berries and nuts or seeds. Other times I have eggs or even a small 'lunch' for breakfast to ring the changes.
I knew beans and lentils were carby. I had chick peas earlier in the week as my iron is low so thought it was a good idea.
The lowest carb you can do is a keto diet but that is often used to kick start weight loss. It is basically neat fish for protein with some added fat and berries and above ground veg.

I eat about 130 gms carbs but do have days where the more carbs i have the more I want!

I cut rice and pasta and use alternatives.

Look at Freshwell. If you want to try lower carb Moseley and Caldesi are informative. I have often posted a website from the New Forest which has links to various websites including the above two authors.
 
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How many carbs have you been having per day until now? Like @saffron15 I aim to stick to 130g per day and I manage it quite easily most days - sometimes under, sometime over but never over by a lot, and I also use alternatives to rice, wheat pasta and potato.
 
I've never actually counted just relied on what I thought was a healthy way of eating.
Yesterday I had some overnight oats which basically is 1tbs each of rolled oats, rye flakes, sunflower & pumpkin seeds with 3 tbs of wheatbran and 1.5 tbs of chia seeds in 300ml of full fat milk.
Lunch was steamed cod loin with a stew of fennel, tomato, onion with chickpeas.
Supper was mushroom omelette with feta and a side salad with 2 squares of chocolate grated over greek yoghurt.
I'd need to crunch the numbers as to the exact carb content. I've heard a number of people use the figure of 130g of carbs per day. I think I'll aim for that.
 
saffron15 said:
I eat about 130 gms carbs but do have days where the more carbs i have the more I want!
Click to expand...
I had my Dr. appointment last week so have only really just started focusing on carb content of my food. I've been going through the cupboards and asking google "Is X low carb" and had a few shocks. I did stop regular BG testing but restarted on Monday. The current results seem OK.
I will be focusing on 130g of carbs a day.
Thanks Saffron
 
indio02 said:
After a recent small rise in hba1c I've decided to cut out as many carbs as I reasonably can. Obviously was prepared to forego bread, rice, pasta etc but having a closer look it would also mean losing things like onion, lentils, beans (chickpeas, kidney beans etc) even the wheatbran I put in my morning overnight oats/porridge is considered high carb!
Does anyone have any advice? Thanks
Click to expand...
Onions are not high carb at all! Tesco gives both brown and red onions as 8g per 100g, not quite as low as green veg, but not high. You would only need to lose them if you are aiming extremely low carb say 20g a day.
 
Bear in mind the portion size of what you want to eat. I often have spring onions or shallots. Extra veg is a good way of filling you up. If you have 3 portions of veg you could have one below ground eg beetroot and two above. At this time of year i have a few new potatoes. Be careful going below 120 if you are on other medication for conditions or more than metformin for diabetes get advice. I like some of the recipes on caldesi but their meal plans are lower than I want.

I think first thing I'd check is porridge. Some people process easily without a spike others react poorly to it. I've never got round to testing it as I so enjoyed Greek yoghurt berries and nuts or seeds. Watch your portion size of items with carbs. It is not an automatic ban.

I'm off to buy some fresh crab today. Last week I added strawberries olives and pumpkin seeds to the salad things. Not large amounts but for variety and because im low in iron at the moment.

Eating mindfully is important.

Good luck
 
What matters is how much of the higher carb foods you are eating, for example I put a tin of kidney beans in a chilli but that will do 6 portions so the carbs in just the 1 portion is not huge. Making sensible decisions on what to reduce or cut out will make your regime more sustainable.
 
indio02 said:
I will be focusing on 130g of carbs a day.
Click to expand...

Sounds like aiming for 130g of carbs a day would give you a lot more freedom. There are traces of carbs in all sorts of things. Once or twice on the forum we have had people suggest you can go ‘zero carb’, but that means absolutely no vegetables, nor dairy / eggs - as there are traces of carb in all of that. The only things left are water, meat and oil - hardly a sustainable or healthy diet long-term IMO.

Some of the results you’ve had don’t seem to be differentiating between fibre and other forms of carbohydrates (in the US the carbs value of bran would include the fiber (note the spelling difference), and you’d have to subtract it to get ‘net carbs’ since fibre passes through the gut without being absorbed.

With legumes / pulses, the way the carbohydrate is structured means that most people pass a proportion (perhaps 50% or more) of the carbs through their gut unabsorbed. So pulses can be a good slow release option for many.
 
indio02 said:
I had my Dr. appointment last week so have only really just started focusing on carb content of my food. I've been going through the cupboards and asking google "Is X low carb" and had a few shocks. I did stop regular BG testing but restarted on Monday. The current results seem OK.
I will be focusing on 130g of carbs a day.
Thanks Saffron
Click to expand...
i try to keep too a low carb diet also have a look through the low glycemic food list and maybe tweek your own diet where possible , reading posts sounds like your doing well so maybe a few small changes to diet will improve your hba1c
glycemic-index.net

Complete Glycemic Index & Load Chart - Glycemic Index Guide

A comprehensive list of common foods and their corresponding glycemic index and glycemic load values for easy reference.
glycemic-index.net glycemic-index.net
 
How much was the rise?
A hba1c isn't totally accurate and can vary by up 2-3 points, I believe.

I could never restrict onions. I eat as many as I possibly can!
 
The 'thing' about onions is that you know when you fry them, how they go nicely golden, then brown? Well that's caused by caramelisation. Yep, the natural sweetness of the onion, browning.

But - how much would you actually really eat at one meal? Hardly 'half a ton' is it? Not half a pound even. Say half a large onion, 150g ish weight, so say half is 75g weight. At 7.5g carb per 100g weight, let's over-estimate and say 75g equals 7g of carb. But that certainly isn't every single meal for the entire 90-120 ish days the HbA1c test measures, is it?
 
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