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Another newbie

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PaulBee69

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At risk of diabetes
Hi Everyone,
I've been lurking for about a week now and I must say the first impression this is a really friendly community.

Im Paul and after a recent blood test was told my blood levels were at 65 and they ideally want this figure around 40, it has steadily increased over the last couple of years, Im an office worker so I've been working from home and eating rubbish since covid kicked in with no sight of going back into work for the moment. Im currently 112kgs.

Ideally, I want to avoid the tablet route as I had a heart attack 12 years ago and it took a while to get the medication to a level that made me comfortable, so I'm hoping that a few months with a decent diet and some proper exercise can bring my numbers down enough.

I think this is the kick I have needed for a while.

I've learnt so much just from reading your posts, some of them have really motivated me to do something about this.

Thanks
Paul
 
Hi @PaulBee69, welcome to the forum and glad you decided to de-lurk and join us! Hopefully your GP will let you try a diet based approach before medicating, ie cutting out sugars and cutting down on such carbs as potatoes, bread, rice and pasta. My GP wouldn't allow it, but I was a bit higher than you at 76.

The good thing about reducing carbs is that it not only reduces your blood glucose, but it helps you lose weight, which in turn reduces blood glucose! I rarely eat starchy carbs now, but it is recommended you reduce them slowly to avoid issues with your eyesight. I was lucky because that never happened to me, though I cut out all starchy carbs straight away, but better safe than sorry!
 
Hi @PaulBee69 and welcome to the forum, it is a friendly forum with many experienced and knowledgeable people willing to offer support and information for any queries/questions you may have. I've only been a member for a few weeks and have gained more knowledge, information and support from the people on here than I have from health care professionals.
 
Vonny said:
Hi @PaulBee69, welcome to the forum and glad you decided to de-lurk and join us! Hopefully your GP will let you try a diet based approach before medicating, ie cutting out sugars and cutting down on such carbs as potatoes, bread, rice and pasta. My GP wouldn't allow it, but I was a bit higher than you at 76.

The good thing about reducing carbs is that it not only reduces your blood glucose, but it helps you lose weight, which in turn reduces blood glucose! I rarely eat starchy carbs now, but it is recommended you reduce them slowly to avoid issues with your eyesight. I was lucky because that never happened to me, though I cut out all starchy carbs straight away, but better safe than sorry!
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Hi, @Vonny thanks for the welcome, im hoping I can get similar numbers to you with regard to sorting out my diet and doing some more exercise. Most of my diet consisted of as my wife would say brown food, everything was either cooked in bread crumbs or a batter of some sort and highly laden with carbs.

So far so good with the diet, I'll have another blood test around November and see how I'm doing.
 
PaulBee69 said:
Hi, @Vonny thanks for the welcome, im hoping I can get similar numbers to you with regard to sorting out my diet and doing some more exercise. Most of my diet consisted of as my wife would say brown food, everything was either cooked in bread crumbs or a batter of some sort and highly laden with carbs.

So far so good with the diet, I'll have another blood test around November and see how I'm doing.
Click to expand...
One of the supermarkets I visit has sampling sessions quite regularly but I avoid them now as I was not popular when I pointed out that although on the front of the packet it said 'made with 100% good stuff' or words implying that, on the back it revealed that there was a goodly amount of flour involved, to make it cost less to make.
These days I eat protein and fat, the essential things, plus fresh salad, low carb veges and fruit and that seems to have sorted out the type 2 very well. I don't need tablets other than for my thyroid, and the dose has bee reduced recently for that.
 
Hi PaulBee69, welcome to the forum.

Glad that you’ve found us as you’ve done the hard part which is getting your mind in the right place to manage diabetes as best as you can.

Weight loss and reducing carbs and sugar can be enough to avoid medication though you’d need to be consistent with your approach.

We’ve got lots of info on the forum from people who’ve been able to manage without medication and stay within the range of remission so do have a look around and let us know if we can help in any way.
 
PaulBee69 said:
Hi Everyone,
I've been lurking for about a week now and I must say the first impression this is a really friendly community.

Im Paul and after a recent blood test was told my blood levels were at 65 and they ideally want this figure around 40, it has steadily increased over the last couple of years, Im an office worker so I've been working from home and eating rubbish since covid kicked in with no sight of going back into work for the moment. Im currently 112kgs.

Ideally, I want to avoid the tablet route as I had a heart attack 12 years ago and it took a while to get the medication to a level that made me comfortable, so I'm hoping that a few months with a decent diet and some proper exercise can bring my numbers down enough.

I think this is the kick I have needed for a while.

I've learnt so much just from reading your posts, some of them have really motivated me to do something about this.

Thanks
Paul
Click to expand...
As a newbie myself, I agree, everyone so far has been super lovely and really helpful with suggestions.
 
@Cherrelle DUK - whyever say 'Carbs and sugar'? Sugar is solely carbohydrate. It has no protein and no fat. (99.98g of carb per 100g weight of it)

It is indeed the very first thing to cut down on being practically 100% carb, but nobody in the world's diet consists of solely sugar.

Cut down on carbs generally so the very first thing is cut down on things like sugar in hot and cold drinks, cake, puddings, biscuits, the starchy carbs so anything with flour in it, eg pastry and pasta, rice, spuds and parsnips are also high carb - but carrots despite being naturally sweet are not anywhere nearly as high.
 
trophywench said:
@Cherrelle DUK - whyever say 'Carbs and sugar'? Sugar is solely carbohydrate. It has no protein and no fat. (99.98g of carb per 100g weight of it)

It is indeed the very first thing to cut down on being practically 100% carb, but nobody in the world's diet consists of solely sugar.

Cut down on carbs generally so the very first thing is cut down on things like sugar in hot and cold drinks, cake, puddings, biscuits, the starchy carbs so anything with flour in it, eg pastry and pasta, rice, spuds and parsnips are also high carb - but carrots despite being naturally sweet are not anywhere nearly as high.
Click to expand...
Hi @trophywench,

I say carbs and sugar because many people new to diabetes aren’t aware sugar is a form of carbohydrate and they’re often spoken about separately so I prefer to use language that makes it easy for a complete newbie to know what to look out for.

Sugar also is a substance in and of itself hence why you've used it separately instead of saying "cut down on things like carbs in hot and cold drinks".

Being initially diagnosed can be very overwhelming and I just prefer to get straight to point of what to look out for on these newbie threads and use the rest of the site / forum for further discussion and deeper education.
 
Thank you so much for the warm comments, It has been a while but I had some blood taken on 23.12.2022 and the results came back at 49, I had a review with the diabetic nurse this morning and I have managed to drop 6kg too, Quite happy with that.

Im going to continue with low carb and watching what I eat for a while and see how I get on, they want to do another review which will be June/July.

Thanks
Paul
 
Fantastic result! Well done and good luck with continued success!
 
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