Advice please, pre diabetes and weight loss.

[Wontgiveup]

Hello, I’ve been diagnosed with pre diabetes and trying to get and keep numbers down, I purchased a home testing kit and only ever get 7.2 as highest reading and that’s 2 hrs after main meal. Problem is I’ve lost 1 stone that I didn’t want to lose, I’m now 7st 3lb and it’s not a great look for me! How can I put weight back on, or at least maintain weight when I can’t eat bread, roast potatoes. I’m vegetarian so can’t eat meat, love vegetables and eggs but that’s all I seem to live on. I’m quite fit and active, but stress plays a big part in my life, I believe stress is not great when pre diabetic but I might have that wrong. Any advice please

 

[Inka]

Welcome @Wontgiveup 🙂 Can you increase the fats? Cheese, Greek yogurt, avocado, peanut butter, nuts and seeds are good. You can also make low carb treat items to up the calories.

 

[Wontgiveup]

Thank you Inka. I should have said I’m allergic to any kind of nuts and avocados, which is such a shame as I know those foods would help. I started eating Tesco double fat cream, with no spikes. I’ll Google recipes for low carb treat, thank you.

 

[42istheanswer]

One option might be Parmesan "Crisps" made with coconut flour (if you're not allergic to that, it's a seed/fruit rather than a true nut) instead of ground almonds, would put carbs up a bit I think but still lower than most crisp type snacks. It's one of the recipes from Dr Michael Mosley's recipe books

 

[Leadinglights]

Hello, I’ve been diagnosed with pre diabetes and trying to get and keep numbers down, I purchased a home testing kit and only ever get 7.2 as highest reading and that’s 2 hrs after main meal. Problem is I’ve lost 1 stone that I didn’t want to lose, I’m now 7st 3lb and it’s not a great look for me! How can I put weight back on, or at least maintain weight when I can’t eat bread, roast potatoes. I’m vegetarian so can’t eat meat, love vegetables and eggs but that’s all I seem to live on. I’m quite fit and active, but stress plays a big part in my life, I believe stress is not great when pre diabetic but I might have that wrong. Any advice please

Did you lose weight as a result of changing your diet when diagnosed as prediabetic as that is quite common and it is usually because people need to lose weight, that makes it tricky as most of the recommended strategies are focused on regimes to lose weight.
You may find you can ease up on your carb reduction as 7.2mmol/l 2 hours after meals is lower than what people are advised as a good level after 2 hours of no more than 8-8.5mmol/l
Full fat Greek yoghurt is good with berries or High protein yoghurts or Kvarg deserts. Sugarfree jelly with berries and cream.
Keep an eye on your weight loss as it may not be directly diabetes related. Sometimes sudden weight loss would indicate Type 1 but you would usually have very high blood glucose levels so that sounds unlikely.

 

[Inka]

Thank you Inka. I should have said I’m allergic to any kind of nuts and avocados, which is such a shame as I know those foods would help. I started eating Tesco double fat cream, with no spikes. I’ll Google recipes for low carb treat, thank you.

I think you’ll have to concentrate on dairy then - butter, cream, yogurt and cheese. Lots of the low carb treats have almond flour in but there are some coconut flour ones and you could look at formulas for replacing almond flour with coconut flour (it would affect the amount of liquids you needed and possibly the amount of eggs too). Coconut itself is higher fat too. You can get a fresh coconut and cut off chunks of the flesh as low carb snacks.

You might also be able to add back a few carbs, if you’re carefully. You could experiment with things like sweet potato, quinoa, legumes, etc, and see what works.

 

[Wontgiveup]

Thank you, may sound crazy but your reply has given me hope, mostly because you understand what I’m saying and the individual journey I’m on. Ie not wanting to lose weight and a few food allergies to contend with with. I have added a carb to main meal tonight and will test in 2 hours. I didn’t know I could eat butter, that’s great. re weight loss, being worried about being pre diabetic, and trying to find foods I can actually eat has been a mental battle, possibly the reason for high weight loss. Thanks again, you’ve given me a good few things to work on and think about 🙂

 

[harbottle]

Losing weight quickly when cutting carbs is normal. The body loses retained water due to the diet.

Results seem good, as well.

 

[Wontgiveup]

Thank you, yes that makes sense, ie weight loss due to cutting carbs. I added 3 small roast potatoes to my main meal last night, a reading of 5.1 @2 hours later. Thank you both (Inka and harbottle) being able to add a few carbs to main meal is a game changer for me

 

[Inka]

Thank you, yes that makes sense, ie weight loss due to cutting carbs. I added 3 small roast potatoes to my main meal last night, a reading of 5.1 @2 hours later. Thank you both (Inka and harbottle) being able to add a few carbs to main meal is a game changer for me

That sounds great @Wontgiveup 🙂