Hi everyone so I was officially diagnosed with an hba1c of 51 yesterday, I was pinpointed to this group from someone on a Facebook group. The nurse I spoke to explained about some foods to avoid, but said still to live... Since the initial tests I have swapped to wholemeal, no junk foods/takeaways and I am limiting carb intake, but I am worried as by limiting carbs, my fat intake seems to have increased and I need to lose weight so don’t really want to be doing this. There is so much contradictory advice on the amount of carbs we should eat - I have seen from 30g for day , to 30-40 per meal.. If anyone has any suggestions or advice I would be more than grateful! I just feel really overwhelmed right now. Thanks
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- Thread starter Jess1682
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Welcome to the forum @Jess1682
Sorry to hear you are feeling overwhelmed and a bit flummoxed by various different bits of advice.
One of the reasons for that is that diabetes can be infuriatingly fickle and individual, so there’s no simple ‘one size fits all’ answer. No one approach that works for everyone.
Certainly keeping an eye on the carbohydrate content of your meals is a very powerful strategy, but different people have vastly different tolerances, tastes, needs and aspirations. For some people towards the lower end of the diabetes spectrum (48 is the cut off for a diagnosis, and some members join in three figures) a modest reduction in carbohydrate intake, plus avoiding the obvious culprits like sweets, chocolate, high carb snacks, puddings and fizzy drinks may be all that is required.
For others a more intentional lowering of carb intake down to 100-130g a day, or 60-80g a day, or even down to below 50g a day may be what is needed to support their metabolism and provide more ‘in range’ BG levels.
When some members reduce carbohydrate intake, and balance with normal levels of good fats (rather than aiming to reduce fat intake wherever possible) they find that their weight goes down rather than up, and their cholesterol levels and splits actually improve.
Hope you can find an approach that works for you. Keep asking away with any questions 🙂
Sorry to hear you are feeling overwhelmed and a bit flummoxed by various different bits of advice.
One of the reasons for that is that diabetes can be infuriatingly fickle and individual, so there’s no simple ‘one size fits all’ answer. No one approach that works for everyone.
Certainly keeping an eye on the carbohydrate content of your meals is a very powerful strategy, but different people have vastly different tolerances, tastes, needs and aspirations. For some people towards the lower end of the diabetes spectrum (48 is the cut off for a diagnosis, and some members join in three figures) a modest reduction in carbohydrate intake, plus avoiding the obvious culprits like sweets, chocolate, high carb snacks, puddings and fizzy drinks may be all that is required.
For others a more intentional lowering of carb intake down to 100-130g a day, or 60-80g a day, or even down to below 50g a day may be what is needed to support their metabolism and provide more ‘in range’ BG levels.
When some members reduce carbohydrate intake, and balance with normal levels of good fats (rather than aiming to reduce fat intake wherever possible) they find that their weight goes down rather than up, and their cholesterol levels and splits actually improve.
Hope you can find an approach that works for you. Keep asking away with any questions 🙂
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