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Hi, I have had Diabetes for just over 12 months, and think I have been in denial this whole time. Had a check up this morning and despite everything such as cholesterol HDL and LDL being super great and losing some weight (still a lot to go). I was so disappointed to see my HbA1c levels increase. I'm obviously doing something wrong so am here for ideas and recipes and to try to get some better controls in place. Am just feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything today, and that is not like me at all.
Type 2s can't deal with carbohydrates in their diet - it is not due to weight and cholesterol, far more closely related to blood glucose levels.
Many type 2's see normal HbA1c numbers when they reduce carb intake to what will keep their blood glucose levels in the normal range or perhaps a bit less - checking the reaction to a meal two hours after starting to eat seems to show just how well it is being coped with so any necessary changes can be made.
My own approach was to cut out the high carb and low fat foods I had been encouraged to eat, but I ate anything else, and that made a difference very quickly. I have been in remission for some time now.
It is worrying when you think you are doing the right thing and that is often because the advice dished out by GPs or diabetic nurses don't recognise the value of a low carbohydrate approach to managing blood glucose so people carry on with a diet that advocates swapping white carbs for brown but they are just as high in carbs and do people no favours and so they end up on more and more medication. That of course is not to say that some people will need medication.
Have a look at this link for some menu ideas and plans for a way forward in making some changes. https://lowcarbfreshwell.com/
Metformin one with Breakfast and one with Dinner and today the nurse wants to put me on dapagliflozin just one a day. An average day food. Breakfast is Mon to Fri a fresh fruit salad. Lunch, is a range of veg soups/salads or wholemeal rolls with tuna or egg usually have beetroot, tomato & onion side salad. Dinner usually a chilli and rice, bolognaise & pasta, chicken covered in low fat yogurt and spices with Pitta bread and salad - most meals are home made and packed with veg or salad on side. Weekends I have a bit more time so google recipes and have a go. I do try and watch my portion size, but I also eat to ensure I am not hungry or I end up snacking and that means fridge raiding, which is when it gets worse. I have eaten like this for a few years - snacking and eating crap outside of meals is my fall down, which I have really tried to rain in since being diagnosed diabetic.
Metformin one with Breakfast and one with Dinner and today the nurse wants to put me on dapagliflozin just one a day. An average day food. Breakfast is Mon to Fri a fresh fruit salad. Lunch, is a range of veg soups/salads or wholemeal rolls with tuna or egg usually have beetroot, tomato & onion side salad. Dinner usually a chilli and rice, bolognaise & pasta, chicken covered in low fat yogurt and spices with Pitta bread and salad - most meals are home made and packed with veg or salad on side. Weekends I have a bit more time so google recipes and have a go. I do try and watch my portion size, but I also eat to ensure I am not hungry or I end up snacking and that means fridge raiding, which is when it gets worse. I have eaten like this for a few years - snacking and eating crap outside of meals is my fall down, which I have really tried to rain in since being diagnosed diabetic.
It could be the portion size of some of those high carb foods you are having, bread, rice, pasta, and even the fruit salad depending on what is in it as many fruits are quite high carb and of course any high carb snacks all add up.
Many find that full fat Greek yoghurt with berries is a good breakfast and is filling enough to keep you going until lunch time.
Having extra veg or salad and reducing the portion of pasta and rice or using substitutes which would be lower carb may help.
I suspect you may actually be having more carbs than your body can now manage. May I suggest you get an app or keep a spreadsheet/paper record and enter everything that goes into you. This will mean weighing all your portion sizes but it doesn't take long. I keep digital scales and a clear bowl on my kitchen worktop and plan my day first thing. I think you may be surprised at your daily total. Ideally you should be aiming for less than 130gm in total (including fluids and snacks) a day. NutraCheck used to offer a free 7-day trial but I don't know if they still do. But a week's recordings would certainly give you an idea of your intake.
Regarding Dapagliflozin, this medication makes you pee out excess glucose, so you need to drink a lot more fluid each day. You will wee a lot!!! It can cause thrush, but does have other health benefits.
Hi lady claire it's franthepotter. I'm newly diagnosed but reckon I've managed to hold off til 54 as I eat low carb and low sugar for T2. If you choose this option - please do check - then your fruit salad is actually sugar and the bread in the day is sugar too. Sadly its blackberries only and no bread!! Not even the delicious home made living sourdough starter made by my husband over each weekend. But it's OK as when you remove sugar amd fructose then other sugars become much more apparent amd now I taste milk and cheese as sweet. I'm early in the journey and have been really happy I joined this forum. Ps I'm trying to get my blood sugar levels down for 8 weeks time. It's hard so wish me luck !!!!
Hi lady claire it's franthepotter. I'm newly diagnosed but reckon I've managed to hold off til 54 as I eat low carb and low sugar for T2. If you choose this option - please do check - then your fruit salad is actually sugar and the bread in the day is sugar too. Sadly its blackberries only and no bread!! Not even the delicious home made living sourdough starter made by my husband over each weekend. But it's OK as when you remove sugar amd fructose then other sugars become much more apparent amd now I taste milk and cheese as sweet. I'm early in the journey and have been really happy I joined this forum. Ps I'm trying to get my blood sugar levels down for 8 weeks time. It's hard so wish me luck !!!!
Blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, redcurrants, and a few of the other hybrid berries are all the lowest carb fruits, it is blueberries which are a bit higher. As for bread some people can tolerate bread better than the same amount of carbs than if it was pasta or rice. Everybody is individual in their tolerance of different carbs so testing is the only way of knowing. Just as everybody taste is different when it comes to foods. All one can do is suggest meals that might appeal but I have a pretty omnivorous taste but some things people mention just sound awful.
Metformin one with Breakfast and one with Dinner and today the nurse wants to put me on dapagliflozin just one a day. An average day food. Breakfast is Mon to Fri a fresh fruit salad. Lunch, is a range of veg soups/salads or wholemeal rolls with tuna or egg usually have beetroot, tomato & onion side salad. Dinner usually a chilli and rice, bolognaise & pasta, chicken covered in low fat yogurt and spices with Pitta bread and salad - most meals are home made and packed with veg or salad on side. Weekends I have a bit more time so google recipes and have a go. I do try and watch my portion size, but I also eat to ensure I am not hungry or I end up snacking and that means fridge raiding, which is when it gets worse. I have eaten like this for a few years - snacking and eating crap outside of meals is my fall down, which I have really tried to rain in since being diagnosed diabetic.
As you are possibly eating high carb fruits first thing that can start off the day badly if you are more resistant to insulin then. The bread will be another high carb food, soups are often thickened with flour and may include starchy veges, rice, pasta and more bread through the day will all be raising numbers.
It is usually advisable to avoid low fat versions - we do actually need fat, thrive on natural fats, in fact.
Hi lady claire it's franthepotter. I'm newly diagnosed but reckon I've managed to hold off til 54 as I eat low carb and low sugar for T2. If you choose this option - please do check - then your fruit salad is actually sugar and the bread in the day is sugar too. Sadly its blackberries only and no bread!! Not even the delicious home made living sourdough starter made by my husband over each weekend. But it's OK as when you remove sugar amd fructose then other sugars become much more apparent amd now I taste milk and cheese as sweet. I'm early in the journey and have been really happy I joined this forum. Ps I'm trying to get my blood sugar levels down for 8 weeks time. It's hard so wish me luck !!!!
Hi, I have had Diabetes for just over 12 months, and think I have been in denial this whole time. Had a check up this morning and despite everything such as cholesterol HDL and LDL being super great and losing some weight (still a lot to go). I was so disappointed to see my HbA1c levels increase. I'm obviously doing something wrong so am here for ideas and recipes and to try to get some better controls in place. Am just feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything today, and that is not like me at all.
Drummer has the right idea: start counting your carbs. You will likely find that total carbs less than 50 a day are good enough to normalize your sugar. If not, go lower. Some need as low as 20 per day to normalize. Another plan would be to seek reversal of your diabetes 2 through a fasting program or very low calorie diet. Both will accomplish significant weight loss, and if you lose enough, your liver will clear, your pancreas function will improve and you'll be in remission. Prof. Roy Taylor has such a program out of the University of Newscastle. I'm in the middle of it myself. It's not for the faint of heart, but I'm having great results, and I've had diabetes 2 for nearly 8 years.
Drummer has the right idea: start counting your carbs. You will likely find that total carbs less than 50 a day are good enough to normalize your sugar. If not, go lower. Some need as low as 20 per day to normalize. Another plan would be to seek reversal of your diabetes 2 through a fasting program or very low calorie diet. Both will accomplish significant weight loss, and if you lose enough, your liver will clear, your pancreas function will improve and you'll be in remission. Prof. Roy Taylor has such a program out of the University of Newscastle. I'm in the middle of it myself. It's not for the faint of heart, but I'm having great results, and I've had diabetes 2 for nearly 8 years.
Hi LadyClaire, yes the other responses are more accurate than mine. Fruits and veg have very different sugar contents which is sometimes unexpected. A rule of thumb is that if it tastes sweet then it has plenty of sugar in it. That sounds obvious but mango tastes sweet and redcurrants don't. Mango has more sugar. On a similar note I do recall a few years ago I really noticed that the time I ate carbs or sugar made a big difference. I could tolerate eating carbs in the evening but not in the day. I'm sure someone may know why this is so, I don't, but I did notice it.
So I've changed my diet to eat less, not overeat, lots of steamed and baked veg. Chicken breast, Oily fish and salmon. Nut seeds full fat yogurt cheese and some full fat milk. Much less dairy than I used to but a little each day. Drinking more water. As well I exercise when I wake for strength, nothing fancy just at home in a corner, and every day for some cardio. That's hard as I work but the family food and housework have been forgotten. No grains like wheat pasta rice at the moment but I hope to reintroduce them slowly after my next bloods at the gp. Another 3kg and 6 weeks to go. It's a slog but I hope worthwhile. I haven't fallen off the waggon yet xx
Yes, theoretically a C-Peptide test could tell you, but when I suggested I get one to Prof. Taylor, he said they're tricky to interpret. He suggested instead that I wait until I've finished my 8 weeks weight reduction, and 1 month of transition back to isocaloric eating (that's normal food to you and me). At that point get an A1c test. If you're eating a normal...well let us say a healthy diet not too rich in carbs, you should get a non-diabetic number which means your pancreas has recovered (somewhat). It can take up to two years for a pancreas to recover completely. Now that's a lot to go through just to find out that your pancreas is kaputsky, and I promise you if my pancreas proves to be burnt out I'm going to have a very bad day. However, you do get a consolation prize: You get improved glucose control since at least your liver is ticking along nicely, you get improved heart health similar to the general population, you get decreased cancer risk, and btw, if you have afib you have a solid chance it will go away after losing significant ectopic fat. So to answer your second question (finally) yes it is try and see. My question to you is why WOULDN'T you try and see? You haven't had diabetes nearly as long as I have. Your remission chances are probably around 90 per cent, whereas statistically mine are barely 50/50...although there are early hints that my pancreas is still on the job. Jump in; the water's fine!
Thanks so much. I've had predicates for about 10 years and have basically been pretty carb intolerant all that time. Now I'm actually fighting it. 3kg lost. I want another 3kg off. But I'm starting from 67kg so cannot go much under 61kg I think as I may be somewhat underweight then. Is there anywhere I can read on transitioning to a 'normal' diet after being low carb? I had one tablespoon of quinoa last week and whilst that did iron out spikes, my blood reading all day was over 7.1 and not under my aim of 6.5
Hi LadyClaire, yes the other responses are more accurate than mine. Fruits and veg have very different sugar contents which is sometimes unexpected. A rule of thumb is that if it tastes sweet then it has plenty of sugar in it. That sounds obvious but mango tastes sweet and redcurrants don't. Mango has more sugar. On a similar note I do recall a few years ago I really noticed that the time I ate carbs or sugar made a big difference. I could tolerate eating carbs in the evening but not in the day. I'm sure someone may know why this is so, I don't, but I did notice it.
So I've changed my diet to eat less, not overeat, lots of steamed and baked veg. Chicken breast, Oily fish and salmon. Nut seeds full fat yogurt cheese and some full fat milk. Much less dairy than I used to but a little each day. Drinking more water. As well I exercise when I wake for strength, nothing fancy just at home in a corner, and every day for some cardio. That's hard as I work but the family food and housework have been forgotten. No grains like wheat pasta rice at the moment but I hope to reintroduce them slowly after my next bloods at the gp. Another 3kg and 6 weeks to go. It's a slog but I hope worthwhile. I haven't fallen off the waggon yet xx
Sounds like you are in the zone Fran, all the responses I am getting are helpful at the moment, I am absorbing all this information in and working on my frame of mind to engage correctly and every day I am making small improvements. There seems to be so much information - most is aimed at being sensible and counting carbs etc. For now this is one day at a time, learning and working at it until it becomes second nature - not everything in life is easy!!! I really get the slog reference and am whooping you on to success.
I am just working at getting fully on the wagon in the first place. I've decided to pay to see a private dietician, one who specialises in all of my medical problems, am hoping to learn a few things about how to best proceed for me.