Hello!

[Snoug]

Hi everybody! I'm incredibly impressed with the amount of information both on this forum and on Diabetes UK!
I was diagnosed with type 2 at the very end of October. As I don't have a sweet tooth and have always tried to eat healthily, I was shocked by how high my blood glucose levels were on diagnosis. I give blood so was surprised to have discovered, through an incidental blood test, that I'm diabetic: I always assumed that it would be picked up when my blood donations were sampled. However, prior to diagnosis I did know that something was wrong and had referred myself to my GP thinking that I had all the symptoms of cervical cancer. I was sent off to Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge for a raft of gynaecological cancer tests. Having been prodded and poked about internally until I and several others knew my insides quite intimately (it's all on screen) I received the results of my blood test confirming diabetes. And on comparison several of the symptoms can be explained by diabetes. (*)
I retired (early) in September 2016 and took up the sedentary pursuit of sewing as a living. My youngest no longer needed or wanted me to walk him to school and I had a smart new car to drive about in, so my exercise regimes fell through the floor. I gradually put on more weight than I realised and as I have genetic links to several diabetics I suppose it was inevitable.
But I am grateful for the wake up call it gave me and am determined to live a healthier, more physical lifestyle. I have put myself on a strict carb & calorie controlled diet with a view to losing 20kg (no timescale). I have also started accompanying a friend to walk her young and very energetic great dane (6K steps a day!). Since November I have lost approximately 7Kg so am feeling very hopeful of reaching my goal by summer. And this New Year I have also decided to join a gym for the first time in my life! It's a slightly more economic way of doing the aqua aerobics I want to do but also allows me to vary up the daily exercise I need - an added bonus being that in January my local gym has taken £10 off the monthly subscription and I get a personal trainer! I would have spent the same amount on one meal out!
My family is being hugely supportive - my husband has joined me on a reduced diet and we're setting a great example to our youngest, 14 year old, son who gets more finger exercise on a computer keyboard than is healthy for the rest of him. I'm eating about 1500 calories a day and seem to be losing on average about 0.2kg a day now, but am careful to vary the foods I eat and ensure lots of potassium in my diet like spinach, cabbage, pulses and bananas. My daily treat is homemade plain yogurt, made in the yogurt machine I bought as a student, with about half a cup of various fruits, particularly berries. Nothing added. My daily loss, which I mourn, is not having cream in my coffee anymore which I had to cut out due to high cholesterol. Except for the coffee I'm enjoying experiencing the better taste of things.
I've learned huge amounts from working my way through the UK Diabetes Learning Zone and the information contained in the leaflets. I'm looking forward now to working my way through the course DVD. I am sorry not to have a course nearer to home - due to county boundaries in the health service, the one I was offered took me 1 hour, 20 minutes of anxious morning rush-hour driving to get to, so reluctantly I decided to opt for the "at home" option. I miss the people factor though and at the moment can't find any local groups but am still looking. I'm about to join U3A so if I can't find one there I'll probably set one up myself. I know access to sites like this will be so helpful both in the meantime and going forward, so thank you to all you friendly administrators and members for all the support you give!
Dr Sue x

(*) Do we need better information out there on all the symptoms of diabetes, plus regular blood testing, particularly of eg larger over 50's and school children? Just saying because not only am I aware of diabetes and yet got my own symptoms so badly wrong, but my friends keep asking me how I found out!

 

[Deleted member 21371]

Sounds exactly the right regime.
It worked well for me.

 

[trophywench]

Dropping the cream in the coffee absolutely will NOT do anything for your serum chol, Sue. However of course - fats increase body fat so whilst you're trying to lose weight, it's a reasonable thing to drop some of them. OTOH to diabetics not injecting insulin, dietary fat can be useful - have fat with carbs and instead of hitting your bloodstream like Exocet, the fat slows the absorption down a bit.

Better info - yes - but is it newsworthy and will it sell papers if they printed 'Thousands of thin T2s' ?

 

[Barbara W]

Well done keep up the good work.

 

[Drummer]

I lost three stone whilst drinking coffee with cream - very few of the accepted 'rules' on weightloss hold true when tested.
Bananas are a high carb food and best avoided, and some people cannot cope with legumes, as they spike blood glucose levels.

 

[Deleted member 21371]

Dropping the cream in the coffee absolutely will NOT do anything for your serum chol, Sue. However of course - fats increase body fat so whilst you're trying to lose weight, it's a reasonable thing to drop some of them. OTOH to diabetics not injecting insulin, dietary fat can be useful - have fat with carbs and instead of hitting your bloodstream like Exocet, the fat slows the absorption down a bit.

Better info - yes - but is it newsworthy and will it sell papers if they printed 'Thousands of thin T2s' ?

Well dropping the cream will stop stop you dieing of the results of high cholesterol.
Beyond that, who knows what the results are, that's for the "Ghost Whisperer" to tell you.
Do I want a lot of fat hitting my bloodstream like an Exocet?

 

[trophywench]

Fat doesn't hit our BG like processed carbs do - and where did anyone say 'a lot of it' ? There's usually a good reason for foods being partnered, even though it was so long ago nobody knows who started it. The prime example is bread - and butter! It's still too expensive to cut a slice of and slap that on a slice of bread instead of a thin covering and another reason despite it being delicious to not eat fresh baguettes with plenty of holes in it, since the butter always fills those holes, when anyone with a couple of brain cells knows it ain't a good idea, healthwise.

LCHF is a misnomer really - LC alright, but normal fat. (OTOH if normal for someone would mean high to me - then it would have to be LCLF LOL)

 

[silentsquirrel]

Post-menopausal women are more likely to die with low cholesterol than a bit high! The occasional coffee with cream probably need not be avoided.

 

[JMyrtle]

Post menopausal women feel like they are dying of everything most of the time anyway, one more or less won't make much difference either way !

 

[Drummer]

I never even noticed menopause - it was during a time when I was low carbing, when my old doctor left the practice and the new one had not yet found out.
I don't know if there are symptoms associated with high cholesterol, but I do get some entertainment from HCPs taking my blood pressure - as it is normal and they expect it to be high.
My cholesterol is not, as far as I can tell, unusually high, not since stopping the 'cholesterol lowering' diet - which didn't.

 

[Deleted member 21371]

Post-menopausal women are more likely to die with low cholesterol than a bit high! The occasional coffee with cream probably need not be avoided.

Possibly as the majority don't put cream in coffee. And if they die eventually with low cholesterol, it's a lot better than dieing of high cholesterol earlier.