• Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
  • We seem to be having technical difficulties with new user accounts. If you are trying to register please check your Spam or Junk folder for your confirmation email. If you still haven't received a confirmation email, please reach out to our support inbox: support.forum@diabetes.org.uk

Many questions and emotions

Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
S

SkinnyLiz

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
At risk of diabetes
Many questions, many emotions, feel like most of the fun in life has been stolen away, or at least will be tinged with guilt.
According to the doctor, its simple: Eat more fruit and veg, switch to wholemeal bread, pasta etc. ( Bread is varied, more often granary or wholemeal, than white already) Cut down on saturated fats (ok, no more butter, less cheese), red meat (rarely eat this anyway), and alcohol (thats a hard one, only so many cups of tea/coffee I can drink in a day, and dont enjoy sweet soft drinks,) excercise more.
So why do I feel so miserable?
Having never needed to diet, this thinking about food is exhausting. What should I eat? When? Is my bood sugar highest in the morning??? How would I know this? How does having breakfast help? (Dont always bother with it) Should excercise come before, or after meals? Are regular meals essential? (tend to be a bit haphazard about timing) We eat when its ready, anytime in a three hour window.
Need to be more active. Dont sit still too long! There goes my reading and time at the computer. What am I supposed to do instead?
Apparently some minor health issues are down to high blood sugar, the frequency and urgency for the toilet that is becoming embarrassing, and the night waking, roughly every two hours.
Add to that my research tells me that too little sleep will elevate blood sugar levels. How? and that each waking increases it, as my body repeatedly prepares for a day.
What are low GI foods and having checked that out, portion size seems tiny - BMI 19.7 - no need to lose weight here.
Favourite foods, bread, potatoes, cheese, all now tainted with guilt. Move to France planned for spring, meaning that in the land of fabulous pattiserie, wonderful bread, wine and many tasty cheeses all are now restricted foods. So depressing.
 
Last edited:
Ok , Hi @SkinnyLiz, wow your advice from your Dr. Is contra advice to what most people here suggest I’m not surprised you are struggling...did you lose weight over the last few months or were you always that way
If you lost over last few week/ months please ignore below..

Ok the general advice from here is to adopt what is called a LCHF low carb, higher healthy fat diet.
Ok so up your exercise a bit no one asking you to do a half mar@thon, avoid carbohydrates , not only the simple sugars, but the more complex starches found in any wheat, rice, corn products and pulses.
What you can eat are more protein and fats and yo will need to get up for breakfast for these to stop any more weight loss..
Your favourite foods with bread, potatoes etc need limited or cut out, cheese like mature cheddar, parmesan is fine but some of the milkier cheese no..!
Breakfast helps with you bcoz you’re a bit underweight, and if you’re gonna lower carbs you’re going to have to to get up have a higher protein and fat diet ..ie get up have bacon, eggs avocado, mackarel high meat sausage..etc etc..
It may sound totally alien to you ..but it works regards M.
 
Hello @SkinnyLiz and welcome. It really can be overwhelming when flooded with lots of information and understandably this raises lots of questions for you, all at once. So, take your time.
It sounds like you have already got a good grip of a lot of the information that is out there, but you also need to make sure that it works for you. You do not have to make lots of drastic changes all at once and may find it helpful to just make smaller, gradual changes or simple switches (swapping for alternative foods).

Essentially, you will just be moving towards a slightly healthier diet - which I am sure some members can confirm, can actually be more enjoyable.

The rise in BG level on waking is something that occurs in all people, whether you have diabetes or not. It's called the dawn phenomenon and is where your liver releases a little dump of glucose to give you energy for the day. It is something that some people need an awareness of, however, at this point, it may not be something that you need to focus on to much for now.

In regards to portion sizes, reducing your carb portions can help you reduce BG levels and although they are smaller than we think, you can increase portions of things like proteins or good fats to help you stay full. You can also look at carb alternatives that will have less impact on levels, so whole meal or low-carb bread, or sweet potatoes instead of potatoes.

And also, at the moment you are at risk of diabetes, so this is not a diagnosis just yet. Hopefully with the support of people here, you can reduce your bg level away from that threshold and in doing so, may find a range of health benefits that come from this, not just reducing your risk of diabetes.
 
Oh and that advice...eat more fruit etc, just keep it to a minimum it’s very sugary..which most diabeticis can’t handle..
 
SkinnyLiz said:
pattiserie, wonderful bread, wine and many tasty cheeses all are now restricted
Click to expand...
Not necessarily though the ability to test will help in determining what foods affect you
 
If you are at risk of diabetes, but have not yet crossed the line, eating a low carb diet is very likely to correct the situation.
If you are taking Metformin - which was dreadful when I tried it, I suggest telling your doctor and also reporting it - I could not as I was also taking a statin and apparently you can't report problems which might be one or the other medication. I did not even need it, but lost a month of my life to the squits and other troubles.
The advice from your doctor makes no sense and I can't see how it will help - you have a problem with carbohydrates - fats are invisible to the blood glucose sensors - so not involved in the problem, protein can have a small effect, but by finding out how much carb you can tolerate you can be in control.
Even full blown diabetics can return to normal by reducing carbs down to about 50 - some need to go lower, but 50 gm seems about the mark.
Also low GI - total nonsense as far as I am concerned - if I eat carbs to excess they can be any colour at all and they cause a spike in my blood glucose - so I don't eat them.
 
Martin9 said:
Ok , Hi @SkinnyLiz, wow your advice from your Dr. Is contra advice to what most people here suggest I’m not surprised you are struggling...did you lose weight over the last few months or were you always that way
If you lost over last few week/ months please ignore below..

Ok the general advice from here is to adopt what is called a LCHF low carb, higher healthy fat diet.
Ok so up your exercise a bit no one asking you to do a half mar@thon, avoid carbohydrates , not only the simple sugars, but the more complex starches found in any wheat, rice, corn products and pulses.
What you can eat are more protein and fats and yo will need to get up for breakfast for these to stop any more weight loss..
Your favourite foods with bread, potatoes etc need limited or cut out, cheese like mature cheddar, parmesan is fine but some of the milkier cheese no..!
Breakfast helps with you bcoz you’re a bit underweight, and if you’re gonna lower carbs you’re going to have to to get up have a higher protein and fat diet ..ie get up have bacon, eggs avocado, mackarel high meat sausage..etc etc..
It may sound totally alien to you ..but it works regards M.
Click to expand...
Martin9 said:
Ok , Hi @SkinnyLiz, wow your advice from your Dr. Is contra advice to what most people here suggest I’m not surprised you are struggling...did you lose weight over the last few months or were you always that way
If you lost over last few week/ months please ignore below..

Ok the general advice from here is to adopt what is called a LCHF low carb, higher healthy fat diet.
Ok so up your exercise a bit no one asking you to do a half mar@thon, avoid carbohydrates , not only the simple sugars, but the more complex starches found in any wheat, rice, corn products and pulses.
What you can eat are more protein and fats and yo will need to get up for breakfast for these to stop any more weight loss..
Your favourite foods with bread, potatoes etc need limited or cut out, cheese like mature cheddar, parmesan is fine but some of the milkier cheese no..!
Breakfast helps with you bcoz you’re a bit underweight, and if you’re gonna lower carbs you’re going to have to to get up have a higher protein and fat diet ..ie get up have bacon, eggs avocado, mackarel high meat sausage..etc etc..
It may sound totally alien to you ..but it works regards M.
Click to expand...
 
Hello Martin, Thanks for replying, missed out the docs advice about wholemeal stuff, sorry. but yes always been a bit underweight. Its normal for me. Also have slight rise in cholestrol so thats where the advice about fats and red meat comes from.
Did think my diet was ok, not wonderful, but certainly not scoffing whole bags of crisps, or sweets, get my five a day ( mostly) and usually more veg than fruit. Breakfast is usually natural yoghurt and fruit, berries, prunes or apricots all unsweetened, Bread is more often wholemeal or granary than white, although we do/did have sandwiches for lunch nearly every day. (thats not easy to change) and couple of biscuits with coffee in the morning. pudding, about twice a week. so cant really see where I was going wrong. Apart from couple of glasses wine five days a week. ( now down to one, three days) Wasn't getting a lot of excercise though.
 
SkinnyLiz said:
Many questions, many emotions, feel like most of the fun in life has been stolen away, or at least will be tinged with guilt.
According to the doctor, its simple: Eat more fruit and veg, wholemeal bread, pasta etc. cut down on saturated fats (ok, no more butter, less cheese), red meat( rarely eat this anyway), and alcohol (thats a hard one, only so many cups of tea/coffee I can drink in a day, and dont enjoy sweet soft drinks,) excercise more.
So why do I feel so miserable?
Having never needed to diet, this thinking about food is exhausting. What should I eat? When? Is my bood sugar highest in the morning??? How would I know this? How does having breakfast help? (Dont always bother with it) Should excercise come before, or after meals? Are regular meals essential? (tend to be a bit haphazard about timing) We eat when its ready, anytime in a three hour window.
Need to be more active. Dont sit still too long! There goes my reading and time at the computer. What am I supposed to do instead?
Apparently some minor health issues are down to high blood sugar, the frequency and urgency for the toilet that is becoming embarrassing, and the night waking, roughly every two hours.
Add to that my research tells me that too little sleep will elevate blood sugar levels. How? and that each waking increases it, as my body repeatedly prepares for a day.
What are low GI foods and having checked that out, portion size seems tiny - BMI 19.7 - no need to lose weight here.
Favourite foods, bread, potatoes, cheese, all now tainted with guilt. Move to France planned for spring, meaning that in the land of fabulous pattiserie, wonderful bread, wine and many tasty cheeses all are now restricted foods. So depressing.
Click to expand...

Martin9 said:
Ok , Hi @SkinnyLiz, wow your advice from your Dr. Is contra advice to what most people here suggest I’m not surprised you are struggling...did you lose weight over the last few months or were you always that way
If you lost over last few week/ months please ignore below..

Ok the general advice from here is to adopt what is called a LCHF low carb, higher healthy fat diet.
Ok so up your exercise a bit no one asking you to do a half mar@thon, avoid carbohydrates , not only the simple sugars, but the more complex starches found in any wheat, rice, corn products and pulses.
What you can eat are more protein and fats and yo will need to get up for breakfast for these to stop any more weight loss..
Your favourite foods with bread, potatoes etc need limited or cut out, cheese like mature cheddar, parmesan is fine but some of the milkier cheese no..!
Breakfast helps with you bcoz you’re a bit underweight, and if you’re gonna lower carbs you’re going to have to to get up have a higher protein and fat diet ..ie get up have bacon, eggs avocado, mackarel high meat sausage..etc etc..
It may sound totally alien to you ..but it works regards M.
Click to expand...
Martin9 said:
Ok , Hi @SkinnyLiz, wow your advice from your Dr. Is contra advice to what most people here suggest I’m not surprised you are struggling...did you lose weight over the last few months or were you always that way
If you lost over last few week/ months please ignore below..

Ok the general advice from here is to adopt what is called a LCHF low carb, higher healthy fat diet.
Ok so up your exercise a bit no one asking you to do a half mar@thon, avoid carbohydrates , not only the simple sugars, but the more complex starches found in any wheat, rice, corn products and pulses.
What you can eat are more protein and fats and yo will need to get up for breakfast for these to stop any more weight loss..
Your favourite foods with bread, potatoes etc need limited or cut out, cheese like mature cheddar, parmesan is fine but some of the milkier cheese no..!
Breakfast helps with you bcoz you’re a bit underweight, and if you’re gonna lower carbs you’re going to have to to get up have a higher protein and fat diet ..ie get up have bacon, eggs avocado, mackarel high meat sausage..etc etc..
It may sound totally alien to you ..but it works regards M.
Click to expand...

next day:
Hi Martin9,
your comments about maintaining weight sent me to unearth the scales, and eek! have lost 10 pounds in three weeks. Have also been unpleasantly reminded about IBS, which has been under control for years on a low fat diet, snacking on small handfull of nuts isn't good for it.
 
SkinnyLiz said:
next day:
Hi Martin9,
your comments about maintaining weight sent me to unearth the scales, and eek! have lost 10 pounds in three weeks. Have also been unpleasantly reminded about IBS, which has been under control for years on a low fat diet, snacking on small handfull of nuts isn't good for it.
Click to expand...
I find that nuts can impact my IBS.
 
Ah - you are stuck on carbs - all that fruit and bread, biscuits, puddings - and I bet the yogurt was low fat - often they are high carb.
You might be surprised at just how many carbs you were eating.
The usual way to lower blood glucose is eating meat fish shellfish eggs and cheese, along with low carb veges, salads, and there are a few low carb breads around, but just switching to wholemeal isn't going to make much difference.
Most advice on low carbs is for people who want to lose weight, but it is possible to maintain weight once you get the balance right - though it might take a little time as being diabetic throws your metabolism off balance so you need to get it rubber side down again and that can take some tweaking and some time.
 
SkinnyLiz said:
your comments about maintaining weight sent me to unearth the scales, and eek! have lost 10 pounds in three weeks
Click to expand...
If you've lost that much weight whilst still eating as much as you normally do, I would be asking your doctor whether you might be developing Type 1 diabetes. It's often thought of as a childhood condition, but I was 51, (and many of our members have developed it as 'maturer'adults) and even GPs don't always realise you can develop it at any age. Mine assumed I was Type 2, until all the medication and low carb diet had absolutely no effect, and I was losing 2lb a week. Watch out for feeling thirsty or dehydrated, weeing more (especially at night) and feeling tired ( I felt like I was wading through treacle when I went out for a walk).
 
Thanks for responding Robin,
Frequency has been an issue for a while, and at night as well, but not getting excessively thirsty or tired without reason. Losing weight when stressed is also normal for me, and right now am very stressed.
Maybe the extra exercise is the culprit, along with reduction in carbs, have spoken to the surgery today and now have an appointment with the diabetic nurse on monday the 24th. Will have to see what advice she has for me then.
 
Hi Liz and welcome 🙂

I agree with Robin - losing 10lb in 3 weeks rings alarm bells for type 1 or type 1.5 (basically a slow onset type 1). Your GP and surgery diabetes nurse may not know very much about this (they will mostly see type 2s), but it is worth asking whether they will organise for you to be tested for type 1, just in case (if they say that only children get type 1, tell them the latest research shows that about 40% of new cases of type 1 are adults - about half the type 1s on this forum were diagnosed as adults, including me - I was 44).

Whether or not they'll organise the tests, please do keep an eye on the weight loss and other symptoms yourself - if you start feeling very tired and ill please go to A&E as it could be very serious if not treated urgently (but don't worry, it will be fine if it's treated - and also if you are type 1 you will still be able to eat all the things you like, at least in moderation!).

Either way, for the moment I'd be inclined to eat less rather than more fruit, more rather than less full fat cheese/yogurt/butter, and something or other at breakfast - if you can't face something like eggs & bacon, stick to your yogurt and fruit, but make it full-fat yogurt (as that will be lower in sugar) and berries, which are the lowest carb fruits, or better still, replace the fruit with nuts.

Exercise is good after meals, it means the food is less likely to spike your blood sugar. You don't have to give up computing or reading or anything like that, just try not to spend all day doing them!
 
Yeah, hi. Sorry been away a bit but your diagnosis is a bit unsure, and the advice for different types of diabetes is too, but my very best wishes x
Sounds like you may have another type than T2, the people above will be able to help more than me...
Regards M
 
@SkinnyLiz , you been going through a lot, you need see GP, your weight loss is worrying, check you don’t have T1...
 
TheClockworkDodo said:
Hi Liz and welcome 🙂

I agree with Robin - losing 10lb in 3 weeks rings alarm bells for type 1 or type 1.5 (basically a slow onset type 1). Your GP and surgery diabetes nurse may not know very much about this (they will mostly see type 2s), but it is worth asking whether they will organise for you to be tested for type 1, just in case (if they say that only children get type 1, tell them the latest research shows that about 40% of new cases of type 1 are adults - about half the type 1s on this forum were diagnosed as adults, including me - I was 44).

Whether or not they'll organise the tests, please do keep an eye on the weight loss and other symptoms yourself - if you start feeling very tired and ill please go to A&E as it could be very serious if not treated urgently (but don't worry, it will be fine if it's treated - and also if you are type 1 you will still be able to eat all the things you like, at least in moderation!).

Either way, for the moment I'd be inclined to eat less rather than more fruit, more rather than less full fat cheese/yogurt/butter, and something or other at breakfast - if you can't face something like eggs & bacon, stick to your yogurt and fruit, but make it full-fat yogurt (as that will be lower in sugar) and berries, which are the lowest carb fruits, or better still, replace the fruit with nuts.

Exercise is good after meals, it means the food is less likely to spike your blood sugar. You don't have to give up computing or reading or anything like that, just try not to spend all day doing them!
Click to expand...
Hi Juliet,
thanks for replying, mostly have plenty of energy, dont feel ill, losing weght when i am stressed is normal for me, but this is a bit fast and sadly, still have that little pad of fat on stomach. ( have been trying to lose that for few years now ) am assumng have got the balance of diet and excercise wrong. Stepped up the exercise massively as advised, and cutting down on carbs/ satutated fat as well. Doc advises to cut saturated fat because of raised cholesterol. ( Really missing butter and cheese.) Seems diet for one condition is diametrically opposed to requirements for the other. Add to that tendency for IBS (tried adding few nuts to breakfast as suggested, results not good ) and it gets really confusing. Good thing have appointment with diabetic nurse next week or will be fading away.
Was spending lot of the day on computer, or reading. Now lot more active, partly due to circumstances, but also deliberate effort to exercise more. Its early days, no doubt will get better balance in time.
 
I was on a cholesterol reducing diet before diagnosis - all low fat high carbs - little effect.
Since diagnosis and eating fats, saturated fats, fats from meat and dairy - guess which way my cholesterol has gone?
No wonder my Dr isn't talking to me - but it is no use blaming me if my body doesn't behave as he expects.
 
Status
This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
Back
Top