Dieting

[Evander1010]

Hello,

I have conflicting thoughts when it comes to dieting, I have been told that carbs are not the enemy and should be eaten as part of a balanced diet (this info was from the DESMOND diabetes session which I attended). I have been looking at the Keto diet and it seems that carbs are the enemy and minimal should be eater (under 20g per day).

I guess my question is -

I am a type 2 diabetic, are carbs bad for diabetics or can a minimal amount be eaten? I understand that I cannot have half a loaf of bread to myself or eat potatoes all the time, but say I want a bacon sandwich every now and then, will the carbs from the bread have some adverse effect?

Any help would be welcomed.

Thanks

Mark

 

[SueEK]

Hello Mark and welcome to the forum. I guess it depends on your bg levels as to how much leeway you can give yourself, do you happen to know what your last HbA1c was?
Certainly it appears, and most of us follow, a low carb diet. Carbs turn to sugar so the lower we can keep it the better. There are some members here who follow a very low carb diet but I would say mine is about 100g per day, sometimes more, sometimes less. Through testing I have discovered the foods that spike me and those that I can tolerate. This has taken time to find out and again depending on where you are on the diabetes scale it may be worth investing in a glucose meter.
I certainly do have a bacon sandwich every now and again but bread is one of the foods that do spike me whereas I can get away with some chips without too much problem.
Please have a good look around the site and then ask any questions you have as we are more than happy to help. Sue

 

[Felinia]

As SueEK says, a lot will depend on your current bg levels. There are some members who are sensitive to carbs so do follow a very low carb or keto diet and manage well on it. Others like myself follow a reduced carb diet, as my starting HbA1c was 57, and I got it down to 48 in 3 months. After experimenting I find around 75gm +- 15gm per day suits me - when I went lower I felt ill and weak. But we are all different and it took monitoring of all my foods to find out what suited me. I can eat a little low carb bread, but potatoes and apples are lethal. So I do have the occasional sandwich, just not every day, and I've found substitutes for potatoes, rice and pasta. I also limit my fruit intake to no more than one 80gm portion a day, and of course, no cakes, biscuits, sweets, pastries etc. My treat is a couple of squares of 85% dark chocolate. It soon becomes a way of life.

 

[zoombapup]

Hi Mark, welcome to the forums. Confusing isn't it!

I was recently diagnosed too. Since then, I've gotten a few different books and watched a ton of presentations about diabetes and diet. The only thing I have really taken away from all of it since my diagnosis, is that it is highly dependant on each person's metabolism, but the fundamentals are the same, which is that we need to reduce our carbohydrate intake and lose as much weight as possible (assuming regular overweight type 2 like myself, but there are others like TOFI).

I hate the idea of advice saying that carbs are ok, when clearly they aren't. But the only way you can see what carbs are ok for you, is to test with a blood glucose meter before and after food.

Keto seems to me, to be a bit too much of a fashion statement, but it does at least offer some food ideas that are low carb, so I pay attention to keto recipes that sounds nice and aren't too calorific.

Michael Moseley's books suggest that rapid weight loss is a good thing initially, then some sort of stable maintenance diet once you reach a target weight. His stuff is generally based off the Newcastle study (which I can't remember the proper name of right now). Personally I'm going to go in that direction, which is going 800 cals a day for 2 months. I have a lot of weight to shift though, so wouldn't recommend for everyone and I'm going to start after I've spoken to my diabetic doctor about it.

Good luck with your journey, it seems like we've got a bunch of people on here trying a lot of different things, so listen to what others are doing and maybe try the ones that sound sensible to you?

 

[Eddy Edson]

Hello,

I have conflicting thoughts when it comes to dieting, I have been told that carbs are not the enemy and should be eaten as part of a balanced diet (this info was from the DESMOND diabetes session which I attended). I have been looking at the Keto diet and it seems that carbs are the enemy and minimal should be eater (under 20g per day).

I guess my question is -

I am a type 2 diabetic, are carbs bad for diabetics or can a minimal amount be eaten? I understand that I cannot have half a loaf of bread to myself or eat potatoes all the time, but say I want a bacon sandwich every now and then, will the carbs from the bread have some adverse effect?

Any help would be welcomed.

Thanks

Mark

I think the American Diabetes Association 2019 dietary guidelines provide a good, science-based overview.

https://www.diabetes.org/blog/what-can-i-eat

Unfortunately, the main message is that everybodys different and it's not possible to say you should eat so many grams of carbs etc etc. It depends!

Certainly the common Internet message that carbs are the Root of All Evil is pretty much nonsense, but on the other hand it is useful to get an idea of which carbs in what amounts do what to your BG, particularly while getting things under control.

Personally, I got mine under control by cutting out obvious c**p and for a while cutting portion sizes for fruit, melon, grains; and most importantly, losing weight.

Now I can eat pretty much however much fruit & melon I want while remaining within "normal" BG levels, which is just great, because fruit & melon are super good for you.

Still nervous about grains, though!

 

[bakebeans]

I was told by my dr to cut carbs but nothing drastic like keto. I did go as low as possible for the first 3 months and got my HbA1c down from 56 to 38 and lost about 2 1/2 stone. Since then I’ve lost another 1 1/2 but I’ll be honest I have increased my carbs a little. I have the odd sausage roll and a few chips. I’ll have to see what my HbA1c is when I go back in March but compared to what I was eating before diagnosis I’ve still cut out a lot.
It’s all about what you feel comfortable with as other have said it’s a way of life so you have to do what suits you. Having a monitor to test your bg is a big help but don’t get to hung up on the numbers I feel that if I see anything over a 7 after I’ve eaten I’ve failed and I know that isn’t any good for my mental health and makes me worried to eat.
Best of luck you’ll get plenty of good advice on here

 

[Drummer]

I suggest that you get hold of a blood glucose meter just so you can have the evidence in front of you after eating - but I strongly advise that you check FIRST, and then adjust if necessary, rather than taking the advice that carbs are not the enemy - for the sake of your eyesight, your feet and your general well being.

 

[Toucan]

Research is increasingly showing that there are several causes of diabetes, and these are not yet fully understood. It is therefore logical that there will be different solutions that will work for some people and not others.
There seems to be a consensus that loosing weight ( sometimes hidden visceral fat) will help. I understand that for some people the NHS recommended healthy eating plan of the balanced plate, which includes carbs, works.
It didn't work for me, and it wasn't until that, as well as following healthy eating guidelines, that I dramatically reduced my carb intake that my blood sugar levels started to decrease. I find that I need to average about 70g of carbs per day and tend to get a good proportion of these from vegetables.

 

[ianf0ster]

As a TOFI who had already been eating for over 10yrs as per Eatwell plate with lots of complex whole grain carbs at every meal plus more than 5 A Day of fruit and veg, it was obvious to me that (for me at least) the standard NHS advice was going to put me down the typical Type 2 route of higher and higher HbA1c and thus more and more medication with the possibility of blindness and amputations thrown in as a bonus.
I discovered the success of Low Carb, which was the way I ate before I first got scared of heart disease, and have put my T2 into technical remission in less than 4 months - probably in only a few weeks but needed an HbA1C to confirm.

Since I realised I was going against my GP and DN's advice though following what Dr David Unwin a GP in Southport suggests, I got myself a cheap BG meter with cheap test strips ( a TEE2 from Spirit Healthcare rather than the SD CodeFree generally mentioned in this forum) and tested before and 2hrs after every meal for about 4 weeks until I knew exactly what I could eat and what I had better not eat. Unfortunately this put me at the low end of Low Carb 20gms to 50gms per day which is around the edges of Keto.

But I enjoy what I eat, it is a sustainable 'Way Of Eating' for me, I never had to cut Calories - so never went hungry and it worked like magic. I just Eat to my Meter, Eat until I'm no longer hungry and most importantly I don't eat if I'm not hungry - no matter what the clock says!

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

What I think is important from the responses on this thread, is just how individual different people’s reaction to diet and food can be. Some find they need to make only small tweaks, while others make bigger changes.

This is almost certainly what causes the confusion and apparently conflicting messages, but actually I think there is hope and encouragement in it. There is no one solution that will work for everyone, but each person can develop and hone a BG friendly (and weight friendly!) way if eating that suits their tastes and their needs, and allows their metabolism to cope (with or without the support of meds).

So no one has to feel backed into a corner by having ‘rules’ or requirements forced in them, it’s more a matter of using information from a BG meter to guide food types and amounts in order to provide the outcomes that you are looking for.

 

[ColinUK]

As a TOFI who had already been eating for over 10yrs as per Eatwell plate with lots of complex whole grain carbs at every meal plus more than 5 A Day of fruit and veg, it was obvious to me that (for me at least) the standard NHS advice was going to put me down the typical Type 2 route of higher and higher HbA1c and thus more and more medication with the possibility of blindness and amputations thrown in as a bonus.
I discovered the success of Low Carb, which was the way I ate before I first got scared of heart disease, and have put my T2 into technical remission in less than 4 months - probably in only a few weeks but needed an HbA1C to confirm.

Since I realised I was going against my GP and DN's advice though following what Dr David Unwin a GP in Southport suggests, I got myself a cheap BG meter with cheap test strips ( a TEE2 from Spirit Healthcare rather than the SD CodeFree generally mentioned in this forum) and tested before and 2hrs after every meal for about 4 weeks until I knew exactly what I could eat and what I had better not eat. Unfortunately this put me at the low end of Low Carb 20gms to 50gms per day which is around the edges of Keto.

But I enjoy what I eat, it is a sustainable 'Way Of Eating' for me, I never had to cut Calories - so never went hungry and it worked like magic. I just Eat to my Meter, Eat until I'm no longer hungry and most importantly I don't eat if I'm not hungry - no matter what the clock says!

Forgive my ignorance but what’s TOFI?

 

[SueEK]

Forgive my ignorance but what’s TOFI?

Think it’s thin outside, fat inside

 

[ColinUK]

Think it’s thin outside, fat inside

Ah that makes sense! So looks slender but has a reasonable/high amount of visceral fat?

 

[Jodee]

You can have minimal carbs, reduced carbs, its known that reducing carbs can aid weight loss, help lower blood glucose in addition to portion size each meal and regular exercise, any exercise really.

If you are only having a bacon sandwich now and then and your blood sugar is well controlled I don't think it will hurt. Perhaps go for bread other than white bread though or half and half if you must have white. 1 slice white + 1 slice rye, brown, burgen, seed loaf etc.

My belief is my body needs some carbs, I think the more active you are the more carbs you may need, not that I am excessively active but my body's metabolism seems to work better on some carbs. Low or lower carbs, start with, then you can reduce further if you wish to try to bring blood glucose down more and if you think you are wanting to slow up the weight loss eat a little more carbs, that is the way I have done things, but we are all different with carb toleration. I've attended Desmond Course and the Xpert course (latter more comprehensive I think)

https://www.xperthealth.org.uk/ Self Referral

 

[Drummer]

The Livlife loaves or protein bread with only 4 gm of carbs per slice are something I keep in the freezer for the times when I want to eat kippers - the flavour is too strong without bread, but ordinary bread is very high carb - and it would spike my glucose levels in minutes.