Hello

[Christine Moneypenny]

Hi my name is Christine Moneypenny and I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes on the 15th September three weeks ago in the past I've had blood tests and my Hba1c was bouncing between pre diabetic and type 2 diabetic until recently I was food control but now I'm on metformin one in the morning straight after breakfast and then straight after dinner

 

[Leadinglights]

Welcome to the forum.
Do you know what your HbA1C had gone up to warrant the introduction of metformin. But even so dietary management is still equally important.
This link may give you some new ideas for making dietary changes which will help you just as much. https://lowcarbfreshwell.co.uk/

 

[Christine Moneypenny]

Welcome to the forum.
Do you know what your HbA1C had gone up to warrant the introduction of metformin. But even so dietary management is still equally important.
This link may give you some new ideas for making dietary changes which will help you just as much. https://lowcarbfreshwell.co.uk/

My Hba1c went up to 52.0 mmol/mol

 

[Leadinglights]

My Hba1c went up to 52.0 mmol/mol

At that level many GP (the enlightened ones) would allow a period of 3 months to make some lifestyle changes, diet and increasing exercise if you can before going onto metformin.
Many have found a low carb approach of less than 130g per day successful. But if you have been at that amount then you may need to go a bit lower and trim a few carbs off your diet.

 

[Christine Moneypenny]

I had been on a food control for a long time and have found it hard to try to diet because of being on universal credit and could only eat what I could afford which wasn't alot of the healthy foods I had being food controlling for over a year

 

[Leadinglights]

I had been on a food control for a long time and have found it hard to try to diet because of being on universal credit and could only eat what I could afford which wasn't alot of the healthy foods I had being food controlling for over a year

I can see that is challenging but quite a few people find they save money by looking at different foods and reducing portions of the high carb foods and substituting with alternatives which are cheap.
I often find it surprising how a few vegetables will make a big pot of soup, and a pack of mince with lots of veggies will make enough for several meals. With prices going up even eggs are no longer that cheap.
It would be worth you making a food diary of everything you eat and drink with an estimate of the carbs you are having because even a modest reduction will make as much difference as the metformin.
If you would like to post some of your meals then people may spot some easy substitutions that would be lower carb.

 

[Christine Moneypenny]

OK thanks the one thing that I have changed is white bread to seeded bread

 

[ianf0ster]

OK thanks the one thing that I have changed is white bread to seeded bread

Hi, In my opinion that change is pointless since a carb is a carb and they all turn into sugars when digested (or in the case of white bread they start turning into sugars while still in your mouth). Fibre/ wholegrain just slows the process down a little.
So why substitute something unhealthy (but cheap) with something unhealthy (for T2's) which is much more expensive?

Buy the cheapest meats/fish/eggs/low carb veg instead. And don't fear fat - fatty mince tends to be cheaper as well as the fat keeping you well fuelled. and animal fat is much better for health than 'vegetable oils' which is the polite name for highly processed (and damaging) seed oils.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Hi, In my opinion that change is pointless

I wouldn‘t go that far @ianf0ster (it’s also not an especially friendly welcome for a new member to the forum!)

I see significant differences in the absorption profiles of seedy bread vs white bread. And seedy breads tend to have lower carbs, because some of the ‘space’ in each slice is made up of seeds which are not readily digestible.

It may not be the first choice for very low carbers like yourself, but it’s a perfectly valid choice for other diabetes management strategies 🙂

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @Christine Moneypenny

Sorry to hear you’ve just tickled over into a diabetes diagnosis after your efforts with diet control.

There’s a budget meal planner (along with low carb, low calorie, mediterranean and various other options!) on this page, which migt give you some ideas 🙂

Meal plans and diabetes

Eating nutritious, healthy and downright delicious food is that bit easier with our meal planners. We've created multiple different weekly meal plans to suit all types and tastes. They're nutritionally balanced, are calorie and carb counted, and can help if you want to lose weight. They also...

www.diabetes.org.uk

 

[Christine Moneypenny]

I wouldn‘t go that far @ianf0ster (it’s also not an especially friendly welcome for a new member to the forum!)

I see significant differences in the absorption profiles of seedy bread vs white bread. And seedy breads tend to have lower carbs, because some of the ‘space’ in each slice is made up of seeds which are not readily digestible.

It may not be the first choice for very low carbers like yourself, but it’s a perfectly valid choice for other diabetes management strategies 🙂

Thank you and my dietitian said that I can have seeded breads and ryvita crackers and I'm still learning about what I can eat and can't eat

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Thank you and my dietitian said that I can have seeded breads and ryvita crackers and I'm still learning about what I can eat and can't eat

If there was any way your budget could stretch to a BG meter you would be able to check how your body copes with these for yourself.

The most affordable meters members here have found are the SD Gluco Navii or the Spirit Tee2 - which both have test strips at around £8 for 50. I recognise that this may be difficult for you with your limited income, but unfortunately it’s unlikely you would get a meter from your GP unless you were on a medication likely to cause hypos

If there were any way you could fund a meter though, you’d be able to check your individual response to different sources (and portion sizes) of carbs by checking immediately before eating and 2hrs after the first bite (initially in a way the numbers themselves matter less than the differences between them). Ideally you would want to see a rise of no more than 2-3mmol/L at the 2hr mark.

Once you can see how you respond to different meals you can begin experimenting with reducing portion sizes of the carbs where you see bigger rises. You might find that you are particularly sensitive to carbohydrate from one source (eg bread), but have more liberty with others (eg oats or basmati rice) - It’s all very individual! You might even find that just having things at a different time of day makes a difference - with breakfast time being the trickiest.

If you can’t access a meter, you can simply aim to reduce the amount of total carbs in your menu, and aim for ones (including rye bread) which have a reputation for being slowly absorbed.

Good luck with it all and let us know how your BGs respond to the Metformin - hopefully that will help to reduce any insulin resistance you are experiencing. 🙂

 

[Drummer]

@Christine Moneypenny I don't eat any bread as there isn't one which I can't digest and drag the carbs out of resulting in a spike.
It is all very well to suggest trying a food which some people might find is manageable, but we are all different, and for some brown carbs are just about identical to the white version. That is why it is best to test rather than take advice as gospel - legumes for instance. for some they are a good low carb food - my gut just sees them as a challenge and manages to extract almost twice the listed amount of carbs from all the different peas and beans I tried before giving up and settling for half size portions.

 

[42istheanswer]

I had been on a food control for a long time and have found it hard to try to diet because of being on universal credit and could only eat what I could afford which wasn't alot of the healthy foods I had being food controlling for over a year

Hi Christine! I have mentioned it in a money-saving thread somewhere, but if you have a smartphone (not sure if you're accessing here on phone or computer) then try downloading the Olio app if you haven't yet. It's a free app (they ask if you want to pay to subscribe but you can cross that off, those that do don't get any advantage) designed to reduce food waste, and in many areas there are volunteers who collect food waste from supermarkets and then other app users can request and collect from them. Use By has to be picked up the same day (usually evening) but often you can go and collect best before the next day. It's helped me out a lot with vegetables and eggs and occasionally even some mince. So that might be a way to help your money stretch to healthier foods, if you then only have to buy some of them. What supermarkets have left over can vary so some days there's nothing interesting but other days there is.

 

[Christine Moneypenny]

If there was any way your budget could stretch to a BG meter you would be able to check how your body copes with these for yourself.

The most affordable meters members here have found are the SD Gluco Navii or the Spirit Tee2 - which both have test strips at around £8 for 50. I recognise that this may be difficult for you with your limited income, but unfortunately it’s unlikely you would get a meter from your GP unless you were on a medication likely to cause hypos

If there were any way you could fund a meter though, you’d be able to check your individual response to different sources (and portion sizes) of carbs by checking immediately before eating and 2hrs after the first bite (initially in a way the numbers themselves matter less than the differences between them). Ideally you would want to see a rise of no more than 2-3mmol/L at the 2hr mark.

Once you can see how you respond to different meals you can begin experimenting with reducing portion sizes of the carbs where you see bigger rises. You might find that you are particularly sensitive to carbohydrate from one source (eg bread), but have more liberty with others (eg oats or basmati rice) - It’s all very individual! You might even find that just having things at a different time of day makes a difference - with breakfast time being the trickiest.

If you can’t access a meter, you can simply aim to reduce the amount of total carbs in your menu, and aim for ones (including rye bread) which have a reputation for being slowly absorbed.

Good luck with it all and let us know how your BGs respond to the Metformin - hopefully that will help to reduce any insulin resistance you are experiencing. 🙂

I've got a bg meter I've had it for a good couple of years and my GP put the lancets and test strips onto my repeat prescription I've just done a pre breakfast reading and I've attached a screenshot of my reading from my agamatrix wavesense app

 

[Docb]

If your GP has put your test strips on repeat prescription, then great, you can do some proper monitoring without too much worry. Your first move is to order up a couple of pots of test strips.

Basically, what is best is if you get yourself a notebook and pencil (in the early days it beats all the apps in my view) and start a simple diary. Record what you eat as a meal and test before the meal and a couple of hours after it. No need to do every meal, perhaps breakfast one day, lunch another, evening meal another. Do that for a week or two, write it all down and then look for patterns. What you are looking at is how your system reacted to what you ate. If your before and after readings are close to each other, say no more than a couple of units or so apart, then whatever was in the meal you can consider to be not a problem. If it isn't then something, or maybe more than one thing is problematical. Then look for common factors amongst the things you ate. With a bit of luck you will spot things that may be a big problem and make some relatively minor tweaks around those to get things back in order.

I did this and what I found was that wheat flour was a common factor. Could be in my breakfast toast, lunchtime sandwich, cake or Naan bread with a curry. Changing to a low carb bread, that is one incorporating flours other than wheat flour, going for some crackers rather than bread with my lunch and swapping the naan for poppadom turned out to be good moves, confirmed by my meter. A few other silly thing also turned up... coffee shop cappuccinos were a real problem and for some strange reason so were shop bought apples although picked off the tree were OK. Shop bought cakes (combination of wheat flour and sugar) were definitely out but my home made brownie, so chocolaty that a small square siffices was OK.

From my experiences, and reading of other people experiences on here you, can only conclude that cutting back on carbohydrate is a key factor when it comes reducing HbA1c but how you go about it is depends very much on you - there is no magic method which will suit everybody. Wise use of a meter will help you find your way.

 

[Christine Moneypenny]

If your GP has put your test strips on repeat prescription, then great, you can do some proper monitoring without too much worry. Your first move is to order up a couple of pots of test strips.

Basically, what is best is if you get yourself a notebook and pencil (in the early days it beats all the apps in my view) and start a simple diary. Record what you eat as a meal and test before the meal and a couple of hours after it. No need to do every meal, perhaps breakfast one day, lunch another, evening meal another. Do that for a week or two, write it all down and then look for patterns. What you are looking at is how your system reacted to what you ate. If your before and after readings are close to each other, say no more than a couple of units or so apart, then whatever was in the meal you can consider to be not a problem. If it isn't then something, or maybe more than one thing is problematical. Then look for common factors amongst the things you ate. With a bit of luck you will spot things that may be a big problem and make some relatively minor tweaks around those to get things back in order.

I did this and what I found was that wheat flour was a common factor. Could be in my breakfast toast, lunchtime sandwich, cake or Naan bread with a curry. Changing to a low carb bread, that is one incorporating flours other than wheat flour, going for some crackers rather than bread with my lunch and swapping the naan for poppadom turned out to be good moves, confirmed by my meter. A few other silly thing also turned up... coffee shop cappuccinos were a real problem and for some strange reason so were shop bought apples although picked off the tree were OK. Shop bought cakes (combination of wheat flour and sugar) were definitely out but my home made brownie, so chocolaty that a small square siffices was OK.

From my experiences, and reading of other people experiences on here you, can only conclude that cutting back on carbohydrate is a key factor when it comes reducing HbA1c but how you go about it is depends very much on you - there is no magic method which will suit everybody. Wise use of a meter will help you find your way.

Thanks I had just done a post breakfast and my reading was 9.8 after a bacon seeded sandwich which I had at 8 am this morning also I have been referred to slimming world by my dietitian so hopefully that will help me as well

 

[Leadinglights]

Thanks I had just done a post breakfast and my reading was 9.8 after a bacon seeded sandwich which I had at 8 am this morning also I have been referred to slimming world by my dietitian so hopefully that will help me as well

That is rather high for a post meal reading but as just mentioned testing before and 2 hours after eating is the best way to see if you have tolerated the meal as initially it is the difference which will be the best guide.
Just be cautious of S W plans as they can be too high in carbs as carb are suggested as free foods and they tend to go for low fat which is not an issue for blood glucose management whereas carbs are. But it can work for some people with some modification and substitution of some of the higher carb things. Make sure you tell them you are Type 2 diabetic and hopefully they will direct you to a suitable plan.

 

[Christine Moneypenny]

That is rather high for a post meal reading but as just mentioned testing before and 2 hours after eating is the best way to see if you have tolerated the meal as initially it is the difference which will be the best guide.
Just be cautious of S W plans as they can be too high in carbs as carb are suggested as free foods and they tend to go for low fat which is not an issue for blood glucose management whereas carbs are. But it can work for some people with some modification and substitution of some of the higher carb things. Make sure you tell them you are Type 2 diabetic and hopefully they will direct you to a suitable plan.

Will do

 

[Spathiphyllum]

Will do

If you haven't done this already: Ask your GP whether you can go on the NHS Low Calorie Diet Programme. Designed to help people with T2D lose enough weight to "improve their diabetes control, reduce diabetes-related medication and, in some cases, put their type 2 diabetes into remission (no longer have diabetes)." See https://www.diabetes.org.uk/about_u...iet-to-help-people-with-type-2-into-remission

This programme has been rolled out to more and more areas over the past couple of years, and it was in the news again today. Under this programme, you get the diet foods for free-- and, if you lose enough weight, you are likely to be effectively be cured of your T2D.