Early Confusion leads to continued confusion!

[eddymyers]

Hi everyone, I jumped straight on here pretty much as soon as I was diagnosed with type 2 (HbA1c = approx. 48 or 49). I asked questions about what sort of things i should be doing with my diet.

Well, at 5'9" and 65kg i feel as thoug i don't need to lose weight, i do football training once a week for an hour and play once a week on a saturday. I feel as though activity wise i am ok.

So...i start thinking about the carbs i am eating and how to reduce the 'spikes' in my blood sugar levels. I have a tester and i think i might stop using it!

Is it ok to rise into the 'borderline' scores after eating? I mean between 7 and 9.9mmol/l? Is this classed as a 'spike' or is it within the realms of 'normal' (i know it is higher than normal (4-7mmol/l)).

I looked at the amount of carbs i 'should' be eating to control BG, and then i looked at what carbs i am likely to have eaten (pre diagnosis) and i don't think i reach the 200-225g of carbs per day that i have read somewhere.

Everything seems geared towards losing weight and i am confused whether i need to do anything with diet and what sort of BG scores i should be avoiding! I know that keeping it close to 4-7 range is ideal...but is it harming me (either immediately or long term) if i regularly rise to 9(ish) 2 hours after eating - but i always seem to come back down to lower than 8.5 before the end of the day.

I eat pretty healthily most of the time and cannot see how i can improve - other than cutting out/reducing carbs - but then that leads to how much reduction should i be looking at?

Should i just be avoiding sweets/cakes/chocolates etc - i didn't eat a great deal of them anyway pre diagnosis.

I haven't had an appointment with a dietitian yet...waiting for that one but just trying to work out in my own head whether i should be actually changing my diet. I have swapped white bread/rice/pasta for wholemeal type stuff...

Thanks for listening/reading

 

[rebrascora]

Hi. I am not sure where you read the 200-225g carbs but generally low carb is considered to be below 130g of carbs a day... How much below 130g you need to go depends on your body and where you are with your diabetes.

Everyone spikes to some extent when they eat food, unless it is very low carb/keto, even non diabetic people. The important thing is that your body produces enough insulin in a timely manner to bring you back down to a reasonable level by the 2 hour mark. If it doesn't, then you ate too many carbs for your individual body to cope with, due to your diabetes and the answer would be to have a few less carbs with that meal next time..... So for instance one of your posts mentions eating a sandwich with thick wholemeal bread and a banana. The bread and the banana are the two main carb rich foods. It looked like your body had probably coped with it OK as your 2 hour post meal reading was in the 7s if I remember rightly, but if it had still been up at 9 or 10 at that 2 hour point then the thing to do would be to make a mental note to replace the banana with a lower carb fruit like a few raspberries or a small satsuma, or choose/make a sandwich with medium sliced bread instead of thick sliced, next time you have that meal and then see how your body coped with that.

The testing before a meal and then 2 hours afterwards helps you to figure out how many carbs your individual body can cope with at each meal. It is important to have a system rather than random testing and initially keep a food diary with those before and after pairs of readings so that you can look back and see what works and which foods your body takes exception to and sky rockets. Once you know how you respond to a particular meal and have adjusted it to keep your levels within a reasonable range then you don't need to continue to test that meal and gradually you build up a repertoire of meals and portion sizes that your body can cope with. After that it is a question of just spot testing every once in a while to make sure your body hasn't changed or test any new foods/meals to figure them out. The testing is only to provide you with feedback on how your body coped with particular foods which then enables you to make adjustments to keep in range. If you are back into range 2 hours after eating it is all going well and gradually your premeal readings should start to drop to 6s and 5s and maybe even 4s.

 

[eddymyers]

Hi. I am not sure where you read the 200-225g carbs but generally low carb is considered to be below 130g of carbs a day... How much below 130g you need to go depends on your body and where you are with your diabetes.

Everyone spikes to some extent when they eat food, unless it is very low carb/keto, even non diabetic people. The important thing is that your body produces enough insulin in a timely manner to bring you back down to a reasonable level by the 2 hour mark. If it doesn't, then you ate too many carbs for your individual body to cope with, due to your diabetes and the answer would be to have a few less carbs with that meal next time..... So for instance one of your posts mentions eating a sandwich with thick wholemeal bread and a banana. The bread and the banana are the two main carb rich foods. It looked like your body had probably coped with it OK as your 2 hour post meal reading was in the 7s if I remember rightly, but if it had still been up at 9 or 10 at that 2 hour point then the thing to do would be to make a mental note to replace the banana with a lower carb fruit like a few raspberries or a small satsuma, or choose/make a sandwich with medium sliced bread instead of thick sliced, next time you have that meal and then see how your body coped with that.

The testing before a meal and then 2 hours afterwards helps you to figure out how many carbs your individual body can cope with at each meal. It is important to have a system rather than random testing and initially keep a food diary with those before and after pairs of readings so that you can look back and see what works and which foods your body takes exception to and sky rockets. Once you know how you respond to a particular meal and have adjusted it to keep your levels within a reasonable range then you don't need to continue to test that meal and gradually you build up a repertoire of meals and portion sizes that your body can cope with. After that it is a question of just spot testing every once in a while to make sure your body hasn't changed or test any new foods/meals to figure them out. The testing is only to provide you with feedback on how your body coped with particular foods which then enables you to make adjustments to keep in range. If you are back into range 2 hours after eating it is all going well and gradually your premeal readings should start to drop to 6s and 5s and maybe even 4s.

thank you, that is a clearly written response that has helped me understand a bit more about what i am trying to do! i will continue to monitor foods/meals and create a 'library' of what does what and how i cope with certain things...thanks again

 

[Drummer]

Type 2s are usually advised to keep their increase in levels from before to two hours after starting to eat, to 2 whole numbers.
I reduced my intake of carbohydrate to achieve that and then saw the numbers reducing so in the end I was always under 7 after eating - but I eat low carb as that is what makes me feel OK.
There is little to be gained from going on eating high carb foods of any colour if your numbers are not reducing to normal.