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Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
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- Thread starter Kel71x3
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stephknits
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- Type 1
Welcome to the forum- there is certainly a lot of info when newly diagnosed, but you have come to the right place for friendly help and support
- Relationship to Diabetes
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Welcome to the forum @Kel71x3
Did your diabetes come out of the blue? Or has it been building up for some time?
Have you been started on any medication? Or are you starting with changes to your diet, and increasing exercise and activity?
Are there any questions you have yet? There is a friendly bunch here, with lots of different approaches, and literally centuries of lived diabetes experience to share.
Did your diabetes come out of the blue? Or has it been building up for some time?
Have you been started on any medication? Or are you starting with changes to your diet, and increasing exercise and activity?
Are there any questions you have yet? There is a friendly bunch here, with lots of different approaches, and literally centuries of lived diabetes experience to share.
Hi, thanks for the welcome.
I had gestational diabetes 13yrs ago and have a FH of it so it's always been hovering around. I have high cholesterol as well and can only tolerated a low dose statin so far...so just trying to find satisfying things to eat seems like a hard job at the moment. I'm about to start on metformin so we'll see how that helps. I find all the info on here very helpful though.
I had gestational diabetes 13yrs ago and have a FH of it so it's always been hovering around. I have high cholesterol as well and can only tolerated a low dose statin so far...so just trying to find satisfying things to eat seems like a hard job at the moment. I'm about to start on metformin so we'll see how that helps. I find all the info on here very helpful though.
@Kel71x3 Is it high total Cholesterol you have, high LDL or high Triglycerides?
There is significant doubt as to whether people with only one of those can be lumped together
I don't know why it won't let me post this video from GBNews where Dr Aseem Malhotra (cardiologist) and Dr Malcom Kendrick (GP) mention the lack of evidence for the new Cholesterol lowering drug.
There is significant doubt as to whether people with only one of those can be lumped together
I don't know why it won't let me post this video from GBNews where Dr Aseem Malhotra (cardiologist) and Dr Malcom Kendrick (GP) mention the lack of evidence for the new Cholesterol lowering drug.
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rebrascora
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- Relationship to Diabetes
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- She/Her
Hi and welcome from me too.
Triglycerides often reduce by cutting carb intake.
What sort of things do you typically eat (and drink) for breakfast, lunch and evening meal? Perhaps we could suggest swaps or alternatives which might help with both your diabetes management and maybe your Trigs too..... and still be tasty.
Triglycerides often reduce by cutting carb intake.
What sort of things do you typically eat (and drink) for breakfast, lunch and evening meal? Perhaps we could suggest swaps or alternatives which might help with both your diabetes management and maybe your Trigs too..... and still be tasty.
Well I know I've been picking a chocolate and biscuits too much so that's now cut out..almost . I know I've started to eat too much cheese again and crisps. Typically I'd have porridge or weetbix for breakfast. Lunch maybe a ham sandwich or tuna , yogurt and fruit if I'm at work. Tea would be a chilli , curry or a dinner sometimes a quick tea of fish fingers and chips all depends on work and my mood and what the hubby fancies to eat . I know the things I need to change ..its just doing it I struggle with. I know I need to eat more veg and cut down portion size. What snacky things do you all eat?
@Kel71x3 High Triglycerides are often caused by eating too many carbohydrates and not enough fat. Yes, that's right - not enough fat.
When I switched from a low fat high carb way of eating to my present low carb Higher fat my HDL almost doubled and my Triglycerides almost halved. So it fixed my problems with lipids (cholesterol) which statins hadn't fixed. All statins did for me was to raise my Blood Glucose a little, just what I didn't want when already pre-diabetic.
When I switched from a low fat high carb way of eating to my present low carb Higher fat my HDL almost doubled and my Triglycerides almost halved. So it fixed my problems with lipids (cholesterol) which statins hadn't fixed. All statins did for me was to raise my Blood Glucose a little, just what I didn't want when already pre-diabetic.
Felinia
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Hi and welcome
It does seem rather overwhelming at first but we all had to learn and adapt. It will soon become 2nd nature.
Do you know what your HbA1c was? If you are having to take Metformin, it might well be above 60, although some doctors do go thundering in when it's much lower, without giving a person the opportunity to try lifestyle changes first. Metformin can have nasty side effects and usually takes a few weeks to settle down. If you find you're still doubled up and/or sitting on the loo all day, you can ask for the slow release version, particularly if it's affecting your work. I take Sukkarto slow release.
Many type 2 benefit from reducing their carb intake. I think you recognise that's cereals, bread, some fruits, rice, pasta as well as sweets, crisps, chocolate, biscuits, cake, pastries etc. But I would suggest you start by slowly reducing your portion sizes of these, as too much too soon can cause eye troubles. You will get to a level you are comfortable with. I experimented between 50gm and 130gm a day, settling on 90gm.
I normally breakfast on poached egg, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, or 80gm mixed berries and Greek yogurt. But sometimes I have a half portion (20gm) of proper rolled oats (not the packaged sweetened dust) made with unsweetened almond milk and topped with blueberries.
Lunch is normally home made soup (in a thermos when I worked) or mixed salad (made up in a container and refrigerated). Now I'm home it doesn't matter. I do try and avoid bread as much as possible, as I find more than one small slice spikes my blood glucose. However I do have the occasional open sandwich piled with salad, or a slice at breakfast.
Dinner is always 2/3 plate of vegetables (but rarely high carb root ones like potato, parsnips) plus 1/3 plate of protein, like chicken, fish. Cauliflower is my best friend, blitzed and steamed instead of rice, mashed instead of potato (topped with cheese sauce). There are other substitutes like courgetti or boodles, roasted squash instead of potato. The food/recipes part of the Forum will give you ideas.
Best wishes
It does seem rather overwhelming at first but we all had to learn and adapt. It will soon become 2nd nature.
Do you know what your HbA1c was? If you are having to take Metformin, it might well be above 60, although some doctors do go thundering in when it's much lower, without giving a person the opportunity to try lifestyle changes first. Metformin can have nasty side effects and usually takes a few weeks to settle down. If you find you're still doubled up and/or sitting on the loo all day, you can ask for the slow release version, particularly if it's affecting your work. I take Sukkarto slow release.
Many type 2 benefit from reducing their carb intake. I think you recognise that's cereals, bread, some fruits, rice, pasta as well as sweets, crisps, chocolate, biscuits, cake, pastries etc. But I would suggest you start by slowly reducing your portion sizes of these, as too much too soon can cause eye troubles. You will get to a level you are comfortable with. I experimented between 50gm and 130gm a day, settling on 90gm.
I normally breakfast on poached egg, grilled tomatoes and mushrooms, or 80gm mixed berries and Greek yogurt. But sometimes I have a half portion (20gm) of proper rolled oats (not the packaged sweetened dust) made with unsweetened almond milk and topped with blueberries.
Lunch is normally home made soup (in a thermos when I worked) or mixed salad (made up in a container and refrigerated). Now I'm home it doesn't matter. I do try and avoid bread as much as possible, as I find more than one small slice spikes my blood glucose. However I do have the occasional open sandwich piled with salad, or a slice at breakfast.
Dinner is always 2/3 plate of vegetables (but rarely high carb root ones like potato, parsnips) plus 1/3 plate of protein, like chicken, fish. Cauliflower is my best friend, blitzed and steamed instead of rice, mashed instead of potato (topped with cheese sauce). There are other substitutes like courgetti or boodles, roasted squash instead of potato. The food/recipes part of the Forum will give you ideas.
Best wishes
rebrascora
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Cutting out the chocolate and biscuits will help but all carbohydrates get broken down into glucose by our digestive system and absorbed into our blood stream, raising our blood glucose (BG) levels.
Your breakfast choices might not be ideal for your Type 2 diabetes. Porridge and Weetabix are both pretty high carb and we tend to be more insulin resistant in the morning so eating a lower carb breakfast like Creamy natural Greek (style) yoghurt with a few berries and seeds and maybe a sprinkle of low carb granola works well for many of us or eggs cooked however you like (omelette for me) but go easy on the bread/toast with them (1 slice max) and choose your loaf wisely. There can be a huge difference in carb content.
Assuming you have 2 slices of bread with your lunchtime sandwich there is room for carb reduction there too. You could make chaffles like large pancakes (beaten eggs ground almonds baking powder, a little psyllium husk oif you have any and grated cheese) and use those like a wrap to replace your sandwich bread and fill them with whatever you like. Flavoured yoghurts are usually full of additives including sugar and starch so best to get natural yoghurt and full fat rather than low fat because the low fat usually has more carbs. Fruit can vary widely in carb content but berries are generally considered the lowest carb and pack both a nutrient and flavour punch so a small portion goes a long way. Exotic fruits like bananas and mangoes and pineapple and grapes are best kept as an occasional special treat and choose a small banana or have half one day and the other half the next. Many of us combine higher carb fruits like banana with high fat food like cream or creamy yoghurt to slow the release of glucose and banana and cream go so well together, but for me it might be a 3 or 4 times a year treat, mostly I just have a few berries in my morning yoghurt and that is my fruit portion for the day.
Evening meal wise, the chilli is good but pairing it with salad and coleslaw or cauliflower rice rather than a baked potato or normal rice (even brown rice) will lower the carb load of your meal and help your diabetes.
As regards snacks, cheese is always on my menu and despite eating probably 3-4 times more cheese than I ever did pre-diagnosis, my cholesterol levels have reduced. I also have double cream in my coffee every morning. Olives with feta or cream cheese stuffed peppadew peppers or veggie sticks with sour cream and chive dip (the stuff from the chilled counter or home made, not the Doritos stuff in a jar) It is also really nice with steamed/microwaved broccoli. Boiled eggs with a teasp. of full fat mayonnaise also make a filling snack. Pork scratchings feature as my guilty pleasure.... an equal mix of protein and fat with no carbs. Nuts but you have to select wisely as some are higher carb than others.... walnuts and brazils and hazelnuts are lowest carb, peanuts and cashews are higher, but being disciplined with portion size with nuts is important as, like grapes, it is too easy to start eating them and only stop when the packet/punnet is empty. I now buy bars of 85% dark chocolate and have half a square with a spoon of crunchy peanut butter to make it more satisfying. I often open a jar of pickled gherkins or beetroot and have a few of those each day. Since I stopped eating all the sweet stuff, I have developed a real appreciation for sourness and savoury foods.
Anyway, hope some of that is helpful to you. Many Type 2s here on the forum who have got their diabetes under control mostly through diet, find that a BG meter to test before and 2 hours after a meal, is invaluable and enables them to see which foods cause them a particular problem and use that information to modify their diet by adjusting portion size or eliminating troublesome foods thereby tailoring their diet to their particular tastes and individual body's tolerance of specific carbs. Once an initial intensive testing period of a couple of months is complete then you usually have a good idea of what your body will tolerate and can ease back on the testing, just checking occasionally to ensure things are ticking along nicely or test new foods/meals. Home testing gives you an amazing insight into how your body responds to carbs and can be quite motivating both in terms of seeing the high readings you get after eating something "naughty" and getting progressively good results as you modify your diet.
I remember I ate a big bag of Jacobs salt and vinegar crackers in my early days of diagnosis and ended up with a BG of 27 which really scared me and definitely cured me of doing that ever again! I had to spend all night drinking pints of water to flush the excess glucose out of my system. Hitting 30 would likely have meant a trip to hospital and imagine how embarrassing that would have been, all because I was a glutton. It really helped me to get a grip of my eating.
Your breakfast choices might not be ideal for your Type 2 diabetes. Porridge and Weetabix are both pretty high carb and we tend to be more insulin resistant in the morning so eating a lower carb breakfast like Creamy natural Greek (style) yoghurt with a few berries and seeds and maybe a sprinkle of low carb granola works well for many of us or eggs cooked however you like (omelette for me) but go easy on the bread/toast with them (1 slice max) and choose your loaf wisely. There can be a huge difference in carb content.
Assuming you have 2 slices of bread with your lunchtime sandwich there is room for carb reduction there too. You could make chaffles like large pancakes (beaten eggs ground almonds baking powder, a little psyllium husk oif you have any and grated cheese) and use those like a wrap to replace your sandwich bread and fill them with whatever you like. Flavoured yoghurts are usually full of additives including sugar and starch so best to get natural yoghurt and full fat rather than low fat because the low fat usually has more carbs. Fruit can vary widely in carb content but berries are generally considered the lowest carb and pack both a nutrient and flavour punch so a small portion goes a long way. Exotic fruits like bananas and mangoes and pineapple and grapes are best kept as an occasional special treat and choose a small banana or have half one day and the other half the next. Many of us combine higher carb fruits like banana with high fat food like cream or creamy yoghurt to slow the release of glucose and banana and cream go so well together, but for me it might be a 3 or 4 times a year treat, mostly I just have a few berries in my morning yoghurt and that is my fruit portion for the day.
Evening meal wise, the chilli is good but pairing it with salad and coleslaw or cauliflower rice rather than a baked potato or normal rice (even brown rice) will lower the carb load of your meal and help your diabetes.
As regards snacks, cheese is always on my menu and despite eating probably 3-4 times more cheese than I ever did pre-diagnosis, my cholesterol levels have reduced. I also have double cream in my coffee every morning. Olives with feta or cream cheese stuffed peppadew peppers or veggie sticks with sour cream and chive dip (the stuff from the chilled counter or home made, not the Doritos stuff in a jar) It is also really nice with steamed/microwaved broccoli. Boiled eggs with a teasp. of full fat mayonnaise also make a filling snack. Pork scratchings feature as my guilty pleasure.... an equal mix of protein and fat with no carbs. Nuts but you have to select wisely as some are higher carb than others.... walnuts and brazils and hazelnuts are lowest carb, peanuts and cashews are higher, but being disciplined with portion size with nuts is important as, like grapes, it is too easy to start eating them and only stop when the packet/punnet is empty. I now buy bars of 85% dark chocolate and have half a square with a spoon of crunchy peanut butter to make it more satisfying. I often open a jar of pickled gherkins or beetroot and have a few of those each day. Since I stopped eating all the sweet stuff, I have developed a real appreciation for sourness and savoury foods.
Anyway, hope some of that is helpful to you. Many Type 2s here on the forum who have got their diabetes under control mostly through diet, find that a BG meter to test before and 2 hours after a meal, is invaluable and enables them to see which foods cause them a particular problem and use that information to modify their diet by adjusting portion size or eliminating troublesome foods thereby tailoring their diet to their particular tastes and individual body's tolerance of specific carbs. Once an initial intensive testing period of a couple of months is complete then you usually have a good idea of what your body will tolerate and can ease back on the testing, just checking occasionally to ensure things are ticking along nicely or test new foods/meals. Home testing gives you an amazing insight into how your body responds to carbs and can be quite motivating both in terms of seeing the high readings you get after eating something "naughty" and getting progressively good results as you modify your diet.
I remember I ate a big bag of Jacobs salt and vinegar crackers in my early days of diagnosis and ended up with a BG of 27 which really scared me and definitely cured me of doing that ever again! I had to spend all night drinking pints of water to flush the excess glucose out of my system. Hitting 30 would likely have meant a trip to hospital and imagine how embarrassing that would have been, all because I was a glutton. It really helped me to get a grip of my eating.
Drummer
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
I buy the 95% cocoa chocolate from Lidl - but these days a bar will last months as I only have a square at a time.
At Christmas I chop up brazil nuts fairly small and then drizzle melted chocolate over them in thin lines until they are all joined up, then cut it into squares to make something a bit special.
Can't help with the cholesterol, as when I began to eat low carb my levels went down, even though I abandoned low fat - though I have not found anywhere which states that the families with high levels actually suffer as a result, which might be some crumb of comfort maybe.
Your plan for more veges seems sensible, cutting out the high carb foods such as bread and other grains - though for me there is no such thing as too much cheese.
At Christmas I chop up brazil nuts fairly small and then drizzle melted chocolate over them in thin lines until they are all joined up, then cut it into squares to make something a bit special.
Can't help with the cholesterol, as when I began to eat low carb my levels went down, even though I abandoned low fat - though I have not found anywhere which states that the families with high levels actually suffer as a result, which might be some crumb of comfort maybe.
Your plan for more veges seems sensible, cutting out the high carb foods such as bread and other grains - though for me there is no such thing as too much cheese.
adrian1der
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@ianf0ster @rebrascora @Drummer important to note that familial hypercholestrolemia is a specific and quite serious genetic condition and is unlikely to follow along the anecdotal lines of those following a low carb approach. 🙂
www.england.nhs.uk
NHS England — London » Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH)
Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH) is a genetic disease which results in the reduced clearance of atherogenic LDL-cholesterol (“bad cholesterol”) in the blood, and an increased risk of early heart disease. People with FH have elevated LDL cholesterol levels from birth and children with FH show...
www.england.nhs.uk
trophywench
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Yes, but!!! - do you recall the lady on DSF who had familial hyperchol, became Type 2 and adjusted her diet completely with virtually nil carb - including loving juicy steak and being gobsmacked when Patti and I both said we thought 'Tournedos Rossini' would be an excellent choice of meal for her cos she'd never heard of it before and loved it - later requiring a heart valve replacement and her surgeon being gobsmacked himself once he physically saw her arteries with his own eyes and saying she had no trace whatsoever of arterial placque despite the familial thing and her age?
So at least reducing it, surely can't usually make blood tests for chol, worse?
So at least reducing it, surely can't usually make blood tests for chol, worse?
Not all people with FH get CVD and studies show no obvious difference in Cholesterol levels between those who do and those who don't.
So that might make one sceptical whether Cholesterol level in FH is as closely associated with CVD as people think. Also that it might not be that closely associated even in those without FH.
But in any case, isn't something that mostly improves HDL and Triglycerides worth trying?
So that might make one sceptical whether Cholesterol level in FH is as closely associated with CVD as people think. Also that it might not be that closely associated even in those without FH.
But in any case, isn't something that mostly improves HDL and Triglycerides worth trying?
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