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Bugs

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At risk of diabetes
Hello

TL;DR anyone had any success with dietary changes other than LCHF and if so, what?

Long version.

I was feeling a little tired earlier in the year and being a complete chocolate head, thought I would get a glucose meter. Morning readings anywhere between 5.0 - 5.9. Highest post eating reading of 7.8, either 30 mins or 2 hours after.

Could be better, but not as bad as I feared. Being built for comfort rather than speed, the obvious thing to do is lose weight. Pootled around the Internet and this forum and LCHF seems the way to go.

6 weeks later and I had lost the will to live. I dont really like meat or fish, eggs and cheese are OK but if a Dr said you could never eat them, I'd be yeah, OK.

I LOVE beans, kidney, black, borlotti, cannellini, lentils❤. And grains...oats, rice, barley.

I will give up chocolate, cake, biscuits, but to do that and wade through food you actively dislike, is not a long term reality.

Has anyone had any success with a fairly high carb but unprocessed diet?

TIA
 
If your BG readings are correct and in UK units (mmol/L) then it seems like you don't need to do anything more than a slight tweak to your lifestyle . Even a reading of 7.8 is something I would consider as only a little high at 2hrs after a meal.

Eating lower GI unprocessed food plus avoiding tropical fruit and cutting down (or going higher Cocoa solids) on Chocolate may well be sufficient provided you get some moderate exercise.
 
Thanks for the quick response Ian.

Thats my thinking, tackle it now before it gets worse. I had read some people's numbers on here and I realise mine are quite low.

I'm testing a lot over the next few weeks as I tweak and tried melon, 6.6 after 30 mins, 6.1 after 2 hours, so as you suggest tropical fruits are on the way out.
 
PS, 4 dogs, I usually get 12-15000 steps in a day.
 
That 's the great thing about testing - if you don't get a bad BG reaction to a food, then you know it is OK for you to keep eating it.
But at least for most here, controlling our BG is something we will want/need to do for the rest of our lives - but we can't do that by eating things we hate/don't like. Our willpower will give out, which is why there isn't a one-size fits all!
 
Ian, I see you do IF. Have you found it makes much of a difference? As my numbers are low, im finding it difficult to tell, though my version of IF is eating between 11a.m. and 6pm (ish).
 
You might find that eating at 12 your intervals enables you metabolism to cope better - it might be worth checking as each of us reacts differently.
Just removing the baked goods should make a big difference to your intake of carbs.
I react to legumes, getting readings far higher than the apparent carb content would indicate, but if you check and find that you are OK, or can manage small amounts, then you should be able to eat at least some of the foods you like. Test so you know how to go.
 
Thank you Drummer. I have eliminated bread and pastry now.

I will work on reducing that time frame.

I've had both my lowest and highest readings with beans so I'm concentrating on working what it is that causes the difference.

Thank you.
 
Welcome to the forum @Bugs

tldr; Yes! There are loads of different approaches here. The trick is to work out what suits YOU and gives you the results you are looking for.

Longer version
Many people find that reducing carbs or eating moderate amounts is a helpful strategy... but individual responses to foods vary widely, so armed with your BG meter just eat what you usually eat... keep a food diary noting the meal/snack amd check BG before, and again 2 hours after. If you see a rise of more than 2-3mmol/l examine the meal, and look at the carbs in it. Either reduce the portion size or consider a swap so another sort of carb or a lower carb alternative.

This intensive level of checking and evaluating foods needn’t last very long - just until you build up your own internal database of the sorts of carb that your body gets on well with.

The good news is that because of the way the carbs are stored and digested in pulses you should find that they are fairly gentle on your BG levels. 🙂
 
Thanks Mike

I've just started a diary and I'm measuring before, 30 mins after and 2 hours, and seeing what foods give the smallest rises.

Just for comparison, I will do some keto days and see how that compares.

Thanks for answering
 
You may well find that 30 mins is a little too early to give actionable information for the majority of foods @Bugs

There are generally 2 schools of thought for post-meal checks. One is to use 2 hours, as while it may not be the highest number the meal reaches (levels may have begun to come down) the old BG guidance was based on ‘no higher than 8.5 by 2 hours after eating’.

The other is to experiment between 1-2 hours to find the timing which most often seems to reflect the highest value a meal will reach, sometimes called the ‘spike time’ and then use that. The idea being that you are looking to limit the extremes of BG rises and if you check too late once BG is already dropping you may miss some important details. This is partly connected to first phase and second phase insulin secretion, where in some T2s the first phase can be impaired leading to a rapid BG rise up to around 1 hour.

When treating hypos with high glucose I can see that nothing much seems to happen to capillary blood glucose for around 10-15 minutes even when you are deliberately looking to push it upwards as quickly as you can!
 
I'm testing a lot over the next few weeks as I tweak and tried melon, 6.6 after 30 mins, 6.1 after 2 hours, so as you suggest tropical fruits are on the way out.

@Bugs those are perfectly normal blood sugars. Your blood sugar will naturally go up and down as anyone who’s not diabetic does.
 
I was feeling a little tired earlier in the year and being a complete chocolate head, thought I would get a glucose meter. Morning readings anywhere between 5.0 - 5.9. Highest post eating reading of 7.8, either 30 mins or 2 hours after.

So you haven’t had an HbA1C? What led to you being ‘at risk of diabetes’? Is it your weight that’s the concern? Blood sugars of 7.8, 6, 5, etc wouldn’t cause tiredness. I’d rule out other issues. Even low vitamins can affect people, as well as numerous diverse things like low iron, thyroid, coeliac, etc etc.
 
Thanks Mike, I will do 1 hour tests.

Hello Inka

No, I havent been to the doctors yet, I was going to arm myself with some blood counts first.

I looked at the NHS website which said morning readings of 5.5, 5.6 were pre diabetic and I average about 5.7, so I would like to drop those figures. Diet since lockdown has deteriorated ☺.

My plan is to carry on for a few weeks and see if weight loss and eating more healthily helps drop the morning readings and the tiredness. If it doesn't, then I'll make an appointment.

As an aside, I had a phase of being very tired early last year but very stressed at work and when I retired it stopped being an issue, hence I'm not feeling overly concerned.
 
No, I havent been to the doctors yet, I was going to arm myself with some blood counts first.
I looked at the NHS website which said morning readings of 5.5, 5.6 were pre diabetic and I average about 5.7, so I would like to drop those figures. Diet since lockdown has deteriorated

Getting a few blood tests to show the doctor is a good idea and a good start to any conversation 🙂 Just bear in mind that the blood glucose meters have a margin of error so don’t give an exact figure. They’re for monitoring purposes not for diagnosing. So it would be an HbA1C blood test (from your arm) that would give you a better idea of how you’re doing. It gives an idea of your blood sugar over the previous 3 months and the result you get will place you as not diabetic, pre-diabetic or diabetic. You’ll get a number eg 27, 42, 48, 65 and then be able to see where you stand.

Of course, healthy eating and exercising is always a good investment whether someone is diabetic or not 🙂 But please don’t think those figures in the 6s after eating are abnormal. They’re not.
 
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