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Carbs
- Thread starter AnnetteT
- Start date
Leadinglights
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
That is a very leading question as everybody is different in their tolerance to carbohydrates. It will also depend on what your HbA1C is, so how far are you into the diabetic zone, what meds you are on and how active you are. A good starting point is to work out what you are currently having by keeping a food diary and looking to reduce that by cutting out some high carb foods or reducing portion size of others.
People following a low carb regime would consider less than 130g per day as a starting point but may well then go lowere than that depending on what their blood glucose levels are. If you are self monitoring you can see which meals and foods you can tolerate without causing too big an increase. Some people have much less than the 130g per day but it is something very individual and the regime has to be sustainable.
It is better to gradually reduce the daily carbs to avoid vision or other issues from cutting down too quickly. If you have been having 250-300g which would not be unusual for somebody undiagnosed then cutting to say 180g for a few weeks then to 150g and then lower if you need to.
TinaD
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
I do not think is quite that straightforward as we are all different. I keep my blood sugar under control by eating 20g or less of carbs each day. Much above that and I am outside normal limits. Other people eat more carbs and also find differences between types of carb in how well they tolerate them. I have to watch the dairy. Use your glucise monitor and experiment.
Inka
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Hi @AnnetteT
Starting from what you ate before is very good advice from @Leadinglights I think you said that you needed to lose weight too in your other thread. If you look at your previous food intake, you should be able to spot places where you can make improvements both for your diabetes and your weight.So, the answer to your question is really what works for you as an individual
Barfly
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Annette, welcome to the forum. I was diagnosed a month ago and am coming to grips with life with diabetes. What I have found so far a month into my diagnosis:
- Buy a BG meter. I was advised here to get an iSense Tee2+, but my GP practice have never heard of them. The test strips can be expensive, but I was able to get them and the jabber thingamagigs on prescription. (after I'd bought 300). EDIT 6-8-21 Don't ask your GP for a prescription, ask your diabetic nurse, they will be far more inclined to support you, GP's want to keep prescriptions to a minimum.
- Do a food diary, whether on paper or an app. I use - would you believe - an app called "food diary". It is very easy to use and can send a .txt file of your day's intake to a PC, I stick mine into a spreadsheet for easy analysis. The Tee2+ will send a file to the PC as well so it's easy to marry the two up, so you can immediately see the effect of different foods on your BG levels.
- Don't panic, if you slip and regress a bit that's ok, just do baby steps and you will find your feet, just as I am. It's a big learning curve and my poor old brain struggles to retain all the information. I read stuff and think I've absorbed it, but wake up in the morning and it's all disappeared. The 17 year old that inhabits my skull forgets about the 71 year-old body underneath it!
Best of luck, Tony.
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Kath Newman
Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Hello, interesting to read your comments and pleased to see you are managing to reduce your bg. Please could you tell me which food diary app you use? I’ve been keeping a food diary (diagnosed 6 weeks ago type 2) but wonder if the app calculates carb values? My bg 2 hours after eating hovers between 13 and 16 which concerns me as I am trying really hard to reduce my carbs. Many thanks
rebrascora
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
- Pronouns
- She/Her
@Kath Newman What are your pre-meal readings like? If you are still in the early days of diagnosis it will take time for your pre-meal readings to reduce and all you can do as regards diet is to limit the increase in BG due to each meal to less than 3mmols. Doing that consistently should result in your pre-meal readings gradually reducing. It is the difference in the before and 2 hours after reading in the early days which is important rather than the overall post meal level.
If however you are nicely in range before your meal (say 6 or7) and you are going up to 13-16 after your meal then something you ate or drank is too carb heavy for your system to cope.
If you would like to give us an idea of your before and after meal readings and the meal/food/drink they relate to, then we may be able to help you with suggesting lower carb alternatives.
If however you are nicely in range before your meal (say 6 or7) and you are going up to 13-16 after your meal then something you ate or drank is too carb heavy for your system to cope.
If you would like to give us an idea of your before and after meal readings and the meal/food/drink they relate to, then we may be able to help you with suggesting lower carb alternatives.
Barfly
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Ummm, it's an android app called....
wait for it.....
Food Diary.
Google apps. I presume there's an IOS version for evil empire fanboys and girls.
No the app doesn't calculate carb levels.
You gradually get the feel of where you are with carbs, I have found myself I can eat 2 slices of white crappy bread (Warburton's Danish) if I eat two eggs. I do the whole toasted soldiers bit which drives the lovely Jane barmy. Just had some now for lunch. However, I haven't had anything remotely sweet since diagnosis (apart from a tiny piece of vanilla cheesecake for my Daughter-in-Law's birthday last month).
The word document is taken from my monthly spreadsheet uploaded to my PC by the Food Diary app. The screenshot is taken from the Smartlog app to which the Tee2+ BG meter sends data automatically via Bluetooth.
I had a rocky spell a few days ago since when my BG has been all over the place. As you can see in the middle of the graph it looked like it was nice and smooth, then it all went pear-shaped. I am studying the spreadsheet to try and see where I'm going wrong, but it could just be I have been a bit erratic in the timing of my testing. I am trying to work it out.
I've only been at this for 5 weeks, so I am feeling my way.
Cheers Tony.
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Kath Newman
Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Hello and many thanks for your response. I am currently in Spain so my meals are fairly similar, last 2 days and BG's listed below
Breakfast. 2 weetabix and skimmed milk, 25 carbs, 1 slice toast 15 carbs (total 45) bg before 8.0 after 2 hours 16.0
Snack. 1 ryveta and cheese (5.64 carbs)
Tea. homemade lean beefburger, small sausage (2.5 carbs), chicken leg, very small portion homemade pasta (10 carbs) and very small portion homemade potato salad (10 carbs), cucumber (1.6 carbs) 1/2 tomato (1.7 carbs) lettuce (1 carb) (total 26.8) bg before 8.6 after 2 hours 15.3
Breakfast. 2 weetabix and skimmed milk, 25 carbs 1 slice toast 15 carbs (total 45) bg before 6.2 after 2 hours 11.6
Snack 1 orange (15 carbs)
I'd appreciate your thoughts and in particular if I am counting my carbs correctly. I try to be active after my meals and have only been drinking G&T's.
Thank you again
Katherine
Leadinglights
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
I think it is your breakfast where you are setting yourself up for high levels as you are having high carb foods in the weetabix and skimmed milk (which I think would be closer to 30g carb) and toast . As you are in Spain why not try a more continental style brekkie with cooked meats, cheese or boiled eggs with your toast which would immediately cut your breakfast carbs by 30g.
The rest of the day's meals don't look too bad except for the potato and pasta which look as if they may be the culprits for dinner.
Hi @Kath Newman You obviously love your carbs. I would consider those post meal BG readings to be far too high to allow.
Breakfast cereal is a poor start to the day (especially with skimmed milk with is worse for a T2 than full fat milk is). I get the impression you are trying to eat low fat ( which is what made me gain weight, then need a triple bypass, then get T2 diabetes) rather than Low Carb which has got my weight back down and reversed my diabetes.
Try meat, fish, cheese or eggs for breakfast. Or if you like a lighter meal a handful or berries , nuts, seeds with plain full fat greek yogurt.
Try alternatives to potato - such as celeriac - either cooked like roast or boiled potato, or raw in salads.
If you must have pasta, choose a Low Carb one such as black bean pasta or endame & mung bean.pasta.
A littler fat in meat /fish will keep you feeling full - it isn't something that the vast majority of us need to avoid.
rebrascora
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Hi again @Kath Newman
It looks like you are more or less following NHS advice with low fat and wholegrain carbs. You may well do better eating normal fat.... so whole milk which is lower in carbs than skimmed and full fat yoghurt and cheese and mayonnaise and meat. Fat will help to keep you feeling full for longer so you will be less inclined to need a snack between meals and provide you with slow release energy that will help to keep you going all day. Eggs are great as mentioned by others as they are an almost equal mix of fat and protein and so versatile. I also have double cream in my morning coffee.
The thing about carbs is that, as diabetics, we all have different tolerances and this is where using a BG meter helps us enormously, to see what our bodies can and cannot cope with. Your BG meter readings are showing quite clearly that you cannot cope with the level of carbs you are eating. You are looking for an increase of no more than 3mmols between the before and after meal readings. Those two examples suggest that your levels rose by 8mmols and 5.4 mmols after breakfast. Having 2 Weetabix and toast is a lot and we tend to be more insulin resistant on a morning so it is better to have a low carb breakfast and perhaps have more carbs later in the day although it looks like your body is struggling to cope in the evening too.
I would definitely work on breakfast to begin with as that should be relatively simple to alter as most of us tend to have the same breakfast every day, so it is easier to tweak that and then once we find a breakfast that we enjoy and our body can cope with, we can just make that our new routine and maybe just test it occasionally to ensure everything is still OK and turn our attention to testing and adjusting other meals.
What I would ask regarding breakfast readings is when do you test before breakfast? ie just before you eat or when you get out of bed or before you get out of bed? This can make a huge difference to the results. So if you are testing half an hour before you eat breakfast, then something called Dawn Phenomenon or Foot on the Floor syndrome could be impacting the results. It is important to test just before you start eating and then 2 hours afterwards.
Also are you doing exercise during that 2 hour period or afterwards and what sort of exercise as some types of exercise will increase your BG readings in the short term but decrease them over the following 48hrs whilst other exercise will decrease your levels in real time. For the moment, I would suggest you don't do exercise until after the 2 hour test so that you can limit the test to seeing the impact of the food alone rather than complicate it with other factors.
Hope that makes sense. If there is anything you don't understand then just ask. The others have given you great alternatives for lower carb breakfast options but shout up if you want more.
It looks like you are more or less following NHS advice with low fat and wholegrain carbs. You may well do better eating normal fat.... so whole milk which is lower in carbs than skimmed and full fat yoghurt and cheese and mayonnaise and meat. Fat will help to keep you feeling full for longer so you will be less inclined to need a snack between meals and provide you with slow release energy that will help to keep you going all day. Eggs are great as mentioned by others as they are an almost equal mix of fat and protein and so versatile. I also have double cream in my morning coffee.
The thing about carbs is that, as diabetics, we all have different tolerances and this is where using a BG meter helps us enormously, to see what our bodies can and cannot cope with. Your BG meter readings are showing quite clearly that you cannot cope with the level of carbs you are eating. You are looking for an increase of no more than 3mmols between the before and after meal readings. Those two examples suggest that your levels rose by 8mmols and 5.4 mmols after breakfast. Having 2 Weetabix and toast is a lot and we tend to be more insulin resistant on a morning so it is better to have a low carb breakfast and perhaps have more carbs later in the day although it looks like your body is struggling to cope in the evening too.
I would definitely work on breakfast to begin with as that should be relatively simple to alter as most of us tend to have the same breakfast every day, so it is easier to tweak that and then once we find a breakfast that we enjoy and our body can cope with, we can just make that our new routine and maybe just test it occasionally to ensure everything is still OK and turn our attention to testing and adjusting other meals.
What I would ask regarding breakfast readings is when do you test before breakfast? ie just before you eat or when you get out of bed or before you get out of bed? This can make a huge difference to the results. So if you are testing half an hour before you eat breakfast, then something called Dawn Phenomenon or Foot on the Floor syndrome could be impacting the results. It is important to test just before you start eating and then 2 hours afterwards.
Also are you doing exercise during that 2 hour period or afterwards and what sort of exercise as some types of exercise will increase your BG readings in the short term but decrease them over the following 48hrs whilst other exercise will decrease your levels in real time. For the moment, I would suggest you don't do exercise until after the 2 hour test so that you can limit the test to seeing the impact of the food alone rather than complicate it with other factors.
Hope that makes sense. If there is anything you don't understand then just ask. The others have given you great alternatives for lower carb breakfast options but shout up if you want more.
Kath Newman
Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Thanks for your reply, have been out and bought meats and cheeses ready for tomorrow
. I thought I was doing ok as was keeping well below 130g carbs daily ..Kath Newman
Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Thank you so much, your support is appreciated. I will tweak my breakfast. I test just before I eat not when I wake up and now exercise in the afternoon.
I think one of the main things I am struggling with is I have been following slimming world principals for the last couple of years so things like skimmed milk are ingrained in me now... I will do my best to make the changes and like your suggestion of starting with breakfast (although when had a cheese and mushroom omelette the other morning my BG's went from 8.7 to 15.2).
Thank you again
Drummer
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
To stay at the top end of normal Hba1c, I eat under 40 gm of carbs a day - two meals a day, with things such as scrambled egg with cheese and a tomato as a first meal, then 12 hours later meat or fish with various low carb veges.Thanks for your reply, have been out and bought meats and cheeses ready for tomorrow
My meter guided me to this way of eating - confirming that choices according to Atkins were correct for me in previous decades, and I got my post meal readings to be no more than 8mmol/l - then everything started to be well for me.
Kath Newman
Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Thanks you for your reply, I honestly thought I was doing well at reducing my carbs as aim to keep below 80 most days, perhaps I should spread them throughout the day more? As I have said having been following slimming world principals for a couple of years it's strange to think that full fat milk is better for me than skimmed.
rebrascora
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Just reading through all your other posts and threads I think it is possible you may be a misdiagnosed Type 1 or LADA (Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults). You have been on metformin for the best part of a month now and your levels increasing so significantly after eating a low carb meal like an omelette (assuming you didn't have 2 slices of bread with it or chips or potatoes) suggests you are not responding to Type 2 treatment at all and you are struggling with insulin production.
Can I ask if you are overweight at all? I appreciate you have mentioned Slimming World so I am guessing you have some to lose as most of us did but that makes it just a bit too easy for health care professionals to assume we are Type 2 when we might not be. You mentioned that you were a keen daily walker before diagnosis and your diet was good which again doesn't typically fit in with Type 2, although we do have to be careful about stereotyping.
Are you seeing any weight loss at the moment and if so, how fast is it dropping off?
I think @Drummer may have nailed it in one of your earlier posts that you are not a straightforward Type 2 and I think you need to be contacting the nurse or GP and asking for C-peptide and GAD antibody tests to clarify your diabetes type. In the mean time, if you can get yourself some Ketostix (which you can buy over the counter at most pharmacies) and use them to test your urine when your levels are mid teens and above and if you get a reading over 1 then seek medical advice. High levels of ketones in the body can cause you to become very ill and can develop quite quickly if you stop producing insulin. It sounds like you still have some insulin production because your levels are coming back down into single figures before your next meal but clearly not nearly quickly enough. If you start to have difficulty breathing or severe abdominal pain or your breath starts to smell of pear drops or you get a high urine ketone result (3+), then get yourself to A&E pronto.
Can I ask, have you had Covid? Just wondering if that might have triggered your diabetes as there seems to be a link between the two.
Can I ask if you are overweight at all? I appreciate you have mentioned Slimming World so I am guessing you have some to lose as most of us did but that makes it just a bit too easy for health care professionals to assume we are Type 2 when we might not be. You mentioned that you were a keen daily walker before diagnosis and your diet was good which again doesn't typically fit in with Type 2, although we do have to be careful about stereotyping.
Are you seeing any weight loss at the moment and if so, how fast is it dropping off?
I think @Drummer may have nailed it in one of your earlier posts that you are not a straightforward Type 2 and I think you need to be contacting the nurse or GP and asking for C-peptide and GAD antibody tests to clarify your diabetes type. In the mean time, if you can get yourself some Ketostix (which you can buy over the counter at most pharmacies) and use them to test your urine when your levels are mid teens and above and if you get a reading over 1 then seek medical advice. High levels of ketones in the body can cause you to become very ill and can develop quite quickly if you stop producing insulin. It sounds like you still have some insulin production because your levels are coming back down into single figures before your next meal but clearly not nearly quickly enough. If you start to have difficulty breathing or severe abdominal pain or your breath starts to smell of pear drops or you get a high urine ketone result (3+), then get yourself to A&E pronto.
Can I ask, have you had Covid? Just wondering if that might have triggered your diabetes as there seems to be a link between the two.
Felinia
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Hi
Lots of excellent advice above. The app I use is called NutraCheck, but it's not free. Works out at £7.99 a month, or less than the price of a coffee a week. If you measure your blood glucose before eating and 2 hours after first bite, you should be looking for a rise of about 2. As as yours are much higher, I would agree with others who have suggested you may not be Type 2. Also your eating is carb heavy.
When I was first diagnosed I experimented with daily carb levels, from 50gm to 130gm, and felt best on 90gm. The following is a typical day (in fact it's today). I use a lot of cauliflower as a substitute for potato, and make all my soups without thickeners (no potato, flour, pasta - then blend to thicken)
B: Poached egg, grilled bacon, grilled tomato, yogurt drink
L: Home made curried squash, red pepper and sweet potato soup
D: Smoked haddock, cauliflower cheese, broccoli, baby corn
S: 80gm plums, Greek yogurt
Comes to just under 90gm carbs and 1050 cals. I also do Aquafit classes 3 days a week which helps. Best wishes
Lots of excellent advice above. The app I use is called NutraCheck, but it's not free. Works out at £7.99 a month, or less than the price of a coffee a week. If you measure your blood glucose before eating and 2 hours after first bite, you should be looking for a rise of about 2. As as yours are much higher, I would agree with others who have suggested you may not be Type 2. Also your eating is carb heavy.
When I was first diagnosed I experimented with daily carb levels, from 50gm to 130gm, and felt best on 90gm. The following is a typical day (in fact it's today). I use a lot of cauliflower as a substitute for potato, and make all my soups without thickeners (no potato, flour, pasta - then blend to thicken)
B: Poached egg, grilled bacon, grilled tomato, yogurt drink
L: Home made curried squash, red pepper and sweet potato soup
D: Smoked haddock, cauliflower cheese, broccoli, baby corn
S: 80gm plums, Greek yogurt
Comes to just under 90gm carbs and 1050 cals. I also do Aquafit classes 3 days a week which helps. Best wishes
Kath Newman
Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Thank you so much for your response.
No, I didn’t have any bread or toast with the omelette.
I am overweight (5ft 5 & now 12stone 2, was 12 stone 9 when diagnosed) but genuinely was following a healthy diet, cooking everything from scratch and adding loads of vegetables to all our meals.
I will ask my nurse for those tests at my next appt and will buy some ketastix tomorrow.
I thought I had Covid back in January when several close friends tested positive and I had the symptoms but tested negative.
Thankyou again, your support is much appreciated.