HELP!

[Sunny65]

Hi all,
So I'm a newbie and looking for lots of advice. I'm 55 years old and was diagnosed 6 years ago with type 2, and basically I have been living in denial ever since. I take the medication on and off but as for diet I just eat whatever I want and I'm a big sweet fan and the white carbs of course. So what I'm looking for is practical advice on how to incorporate these things into a diabetic lifestyle and I know I need to change but don't know how.
Thanks for reading,
Debbie x

 

[Sunny65]

Hi, Debbie. Welcome to the forum.

What keeps me motivated in managing my diabetes is knowing what might happen if I don't. Diabetes complications are serious and life-changing and I'm doing everything I can to reduce my risk. That means a low carb diet, nothing sugary and more exercise. I didn't have a weight issue (14st but a fraction under 6ft) but have nonetheless shed 2st and am now a healthier 12 and feel a lot better for it.

There's plenty of diet advice on this and other sites. I took it all on board. It means giving up a lot of what you're eating but there are alternatives and at the end of the day it's about eating healthily.

Martin

Thanks Martin, I know I need to change and my sister who is a nurse has told me some horror stories. I will try my hardest to be "good" and will search out healthier choices. Thank you for replying

 

[KARNAK]

Hello Debbie welcome to the forum.🙂 Being a T1 its different than a T2 but diet has to be controlled in both cases or problems will eventually mature. Check all your food for carbohydrates and try to reduce them gradually, reading the carbs on a packet of food usually says of which are sugars, please ignore this and just count the carbs which is turned to glucose when consumed. If you are already aware of this accept my apologies, keep posting on your attempts and we will try to help you as much as possible, take care.

 

[Sunny65]

Hello Debbie welcome to the forum.🙂 Being a T1 its different than a T2 but diet has to be controlled in both cases or problems will eventually mature. Check all your food for carbohydrates and try to reduce them gradually, reading the carbs on a packet of food usually says of which are sugars, please ignore this and just count the carbs which is turned to glucose when consumed. If you are already aware of this accept my apologies, keep posting on your attempts and we will try to help you as much as possible, take care.

Thanks Ted, I do look at the contents of foods occasionally but I did tend to look at the sugars so this is very helpful, Thank you

 

[SueEK]

Hi Debbie and welcome to the forum, lots of friendly people here to help give advice and support. I’ve only been diagnosed since January so you probably know more about it than me! Do you know what your latest HbA1c result was and are you on Metformin. Certainly it is an up and down road isn’t it. I, like you, love my carbs, though not sweet things, and can’t deny I struggle with the lack of bread etc. Having said that I have managed to adapt my diet to a much healthier one and I do still have white bread, croissants etc but in a very much reduced amount. Salads feature quite a bit in my diet and also just smaller meals, though was not overweight to begin with. Testing has been the most important factor for me and being able to see what foods do and don’t like me. I don’t know if you have one but would recommend it as it gives a really good indication of particular foods that you should avoid. For example I can get away with a small amount of rice or small jacket potato but any amount, no matter how small, of pasta sends my bg levels sky high so I know to avoid this. As @Anitram says there are so many complications of diabetes that all we can do to help ourselves to avoid them makes sense. Good luck to you and keep posting. Sue x

 

[rebrascora]

Hi Sunny and welcome

I had had an horrendous sweet tooth for years when I was diagnosed and ate a lot of bread and potatoes as well. It helped to motivate me that my HbA1c reading was huge at diagnosis and I was symptomatic, so I could not ignore or deny it and it was not easy to cut these things out of my diet but I can tell you that I feel so much better for kicking my sugar habit and being more in control of my diet and I really enjoy my very low carb menu. I no longer suffer from migraines and I can even drink wine again now without problem and that was a main trigger. I also love that I have lost a couple of stone in weight and my partner's pet name for me now is "Slim" even though I wasn't desperately overweight before
.
I think it helps to find low carb treats that you enjoy and can substitute for the sweet stuff.... cheese works well if you like cheese (I am now addicted to blue cheese when I hated it before) or olives if you like those or nuts.... Lidl sell big 200g bags of unsalted nuts for less than £2. I really enjoy the brazils and they are the lowest carb nut I have found so far.

I wonder if it would help you to buy a blood glucose meter and test yourself because then you will see what the carbs do to your BG and that might give you an incentive to keep them down. The problem with Type 2 is that you often don't feel ill or have symptoms so it is easy to deny or ignore it. Having evidence by testing your blood after a high carb meal or naughty treat may focus you on the problem and encourage you to find better choices. They are not expensive to buy at about £15 but the on going cost of test strips for them does have financial implications, so it is best to choose one which has the cheapest test strips and the SD Codefree model is recommended on the forum for that reason as they are only £8 for a pot of 50 strips. (strips are not interchangeable with different makes/models of glucose meter)

Good luck getting to grips with it. As others have said the long term implications are not worth risking, but it is so easy to think that those will not happen to you, but that is a very dangerous mind set..

 

[Ljc]

Hello Debbie welcome to the forum. As you probably know only too well only you can do it, yes we can and will support you , give you lots of helpful info but only you can do it. The fact that you have come here shows you are ready to start getting a handle on this condition.

When you fall off the wagon, as most of us do from time to time as we are mere humans not saints, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start again 🙂.

Most of us find that self testing helps us an awful lot in finding out how the various carbohydrates affect us, it may well help you when you see what happens to your blood glucose (BG) levels when you eat too many carbohydrates.
Have you been provided with a glucose meter , test strips and lancets .
If not do ask, though it’s most likely you will be told no, like most t2s are, it’s a cost cutting measure.

I know you are not new to diabetes but I am hoping you will find these links helpful.
maggie-daveys-letter-to-newly-diagnosed-type-2s

If you decide you want to self test and they won’t provide a meter and strips this is one of the cheapest meters to self fund the ongoing cost of the testing strips, around £8 for a pot if 50, other brands are over &15 for 50 , the strips and meters are not interchangeable.
When your testing directly before then two hours after eating cost is important.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Codefree-G...&linkId=f39210144fdc26c27738e45b6d957003&th=1.

You will find the above and lots more in the thread called
Useful links for people new to diabetes, which at the top of the newbies forum.

Ask all the questions you need to, we’ll do our best to help

 

[karloc]

Hi all,
So I'm a newbie and looking for lots of advice. I'm 55 years old and was diagnosed 6 years ago with type 2, and basically I have been living in denial ever since. I take the medication on and off but as for diet I just eat whatever I want and I'm a big sweet fan and the white carbs of course. So what I'm looking for is practical advice on how to incorporate these things into a diabetic lifestyle and I know I need to change but don't know how.
Thanks for reading,
Debbie x

Welcome, lots of good help, advise and support available here.

I am a massive fan of that glorious sugar but took the choice to go cold turkey and just stop. I believe there is evidence that just stopping is easier than reducing over time - but we are all different and deal with these issues differently.

I think the first step is actually deciding you want to make a change, it has to be for you. I hope you are at this point and wish you the best of luck.

I did get a BG tester (the codefree one recommended around here) and found it very useful in understanding what my body was doing and for me helped focus on the massive changes I am going through.

 

[CathyB]

Hi Debbie, when I first started I was convinced I would starve to death if I cut out my beloved carbs and sugar, I especially love fruit so realising I would be so restricted in what I could have was more devastating than losing cake and chocolate 😱
I wallowed in misery for a few weeks, then spent a few more loitering in the background here, reading as much as I could, it was so clear that the lived experience was undeniable in low carb so I had to give it a go. It wasn’t an instant switch, it took a while to find my groove through testing, tracking and tweaking. I had conditions I had to meet or I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it up and it was clearly a rest of my life change rather than a just for a while thing. I couldn’t give up bread, so I now have LivLife, a really low carb but tasty compromise, makes good toast & nice sandwiches, I like jam sometimes so use no added sugar jam, not ideal but a compromise. I ‘need’ something sweet daily, at first I had a few squares of high cocoa dark chocolate each day, now switched to Aldi gluten free nut bars with dark choc & sea salt, lower in carbs and I get more 🙄 I have a sugar free jelly as an evening snack, sweet but safe 😛 I always carry a little pot of mixed nuts in my bag for a snack attack. I can also tolerate 2 small apples a day now!
I’m over a year in now, bloods in normal range, 4 stone lighter and feeling better than I have in years! I don’t miss carbs at all, just don’t appeal to me anymore, I wouldn’t swap my diet for anything, love what I eat, love creating new things from ideas shared here, in fact I couldn’t have done it without these guys

 

[belugalad]

Thanks Martin, I know I need to change and my sister who is a nurse has told me some horror stories. I will try my hardest to be "good" and will search out healthier choices. Thank you for replying

Once you have discovered healthy foods and break away from the sugars/carbs you should crave them less as when I was eating them it made me crave sugar more,your in a great position to make changes to your health and life.
The way I looked at things was that if things didn't work out well for me and I ended up ill after poor control of diet and blood glucose,I wouldn't have wanted to have looked back with massive regret knowing that I hadn't taken my chance.