I've never bothered testing it carefully enough that I could see if it does anything for me.
If your tech savvy and have a smart phone download the carbs and Cals app, it tells you everything about your meals especially the dreaded carbs by portion size, if not get the book by the same name does the same but you have to do a bit of calculating, it would be a good Xmas gift suggestion if anyone asks you what you want for xmas
Good morning rebrascora many, many thanks for your interesting and informative post I can now start aiming for certain targets given the excellent advise given yesterday and today, I’ll certainly send for the Tee2 monitor my Hb1 recorded in November was 56, that’s when I started on Sukkarto, review expected in February next year . Never been offered any follow up advice etc from my GP
Fingers crossed and the BG monitor will be a great help for you, don’t forget test before you eat and again 2 hours later and your aiming to be only 2-3 higher after the 2 hours, if your more than that = too many carbs in the meal. Once you start monitoring it’s useful to make a diary for each meal, it will help you pinpoint how t manage your foods
If you don't already have one - I recommend getting a bread machine. Often relatives have one gathering dust you can commandeer and I started out with one I inherited from my father that he bought in the 80s or 90s and it was okay while I worked out whether I would want a more sophisticated model - in the end I bought a very basic model for around fifty quid from Amazon and it has made life even easier. It is all well and good making bread by hand when the bread is an occasional treat but if the bread is going to become an everyday staple then a bread machine (especially one that has a dough cycle so you can make individual rolls and freeze them for convenience and/or make pizza bases that you can freeze) makes things less of a faff.
Hi again.
Great that your family are going to get you a BG meter for Christmas. You will get through a lot of test strips and lancets in the first few weeks so it might be worth mentioning to them that buying a couple of extra pots of test strips and a box of lancets with the meter would be a good idea to keep you going. The 10 strips in the meter kit usually only last a couple of days by the time you waste a few figuring out how to operate it. I bought myself a special BG monitoring device with my birthday money and it was the best present I could have been given... after all what is more important than your health.... and having the confidence to know what is going on so that you can take control of it makes a huge difference compared to wondering if you are eating the right things and then finding out 3 months or 6 months later when you get a blood test, that you got it wrong.
Unfortunately your Slim Well ready meal was likely not a great choice either. Slimming foods are usually low fat and low fat foods usually have extra carbohydrates added in the form of sugars and starches to improve the texture and flavour because the natural fat/oil has been stripped back. Rice is also a high carb food and I would imagine it was probably white rice which will release it's glucose quite quickly.... hence you were still sleepy, even if not as bad as the previous night and of course not having lunch will have helped your levels to come down before your evening meal sent them back up again.
Most of us diabetics go for the normal fat or even creamy versions of things (yoghurt milk etc) because the fat helps to stabilise our BG levels, keeps us from feeling hungry and provides slow release energy but eating more fat has to be combined with eating less carbs otherwise you just put on weight. I have double cream in my morning coffee instead of milk because it is lower carb (milk contains a small amount of carbs in the form of lactose)
I appreciate that you have probably been told to lose weight or follow a low fat diet by health care professionals but eating more fat and a lot less carbs is an easier and more sustainable way to lose weight for many of us. There is a lot of misinformation about fat and many of us find we are a whole lot slimmer, fitter and healthier by eating it and it often happens that cholesterol levels reduce despite eating more fat.... providing you eat less carbs. The thing I find amazing is that I just don't feel hungry anymore like I used to and I eat so much less than I did. The difference now is that I buy quality, mostly basic ingredients and cook from scratch.
Just so you don't get the idea that food is going to be unenjoyable. I had a fillet steak last night, fried in lamb fat (done rare) and I had that with a large plate of salad (mixed lettuce leaves, 3 cherry tomatoes and cucumber) and a big dollop of cheese coleslaw (not low fat but a creamy one). I am on a low budget but it was in the "reduced for quick sale" section and it took 4 mins to cook.... Can't get much faster food than that! The fat and protein are slower to digest so they keep you feeling full for longer but they don't spike your Blood Glucose levels and therefore don't put you to sleep.... on the other hand, the shot of rum (no carbs in spirits) I had with my bedtime hot chocolate may have helped me to sleep!
Brilliant advice love the sound of your meal and I would never have thought about putting cream in my morning coffee cos every one says that’s bad !! I’ll definitely be having a coffee with thatHi again.
Great that your family are going to get you a BG meter for Christmas. You will get through a lot of test strips and lancets in the first few weeks so it might be worth mentioning to them that buying a couple of extra pots of test strips and a box of lancets with the meter would be a good idea to keep you going. The 10 strips in the meter kit usually only last a couple of days by the time you waste a few figuring out how to operate it. I bought myself a special BG monitoring device with my birthday money and it was the best present I could have been given... after all what is more important than your health.... and having the confidence to know what is going on so that you can take control of it makes a huge difference compared to wondering if you are eating the right things and then finding out 3 months or 6 months later when you get a blood test, that you got it wrong.
Unfortunately your Slim Well ready meal was likely not a great choice either. Slimming foods are usually low fat and low fat foods usually have extra carbohydrates added in the form of sugars and starches to improve the texture and flavour because the natural fat/oil has been stripped back. Rice is also a high carb food and I would imagine it was probably white rice which will release it's glucose quite quickly.... hence you were still sleepy, even if not as bad as the previous night and of course not having lunch will have helped your levels to come down before your evening meal sent them back up again.
Most of us diabetics go for the normal fat or even creamy versions of things (yoghurt milk etc) because the fat helps to stabilise our BG levels, keeps us from feeling hungry and provides slow release energy but eating more fat has to be combined with eating less carbs otherwise you just put on weight. I have double cream in my morning coffee instead of milk because it is lower carb (milk contains a small amount of carbs in the form of lactose)
I appreciate that you have probably been told to lose weight or follow a low fat diet by health care professionals but eating more fat and a lot less carbs is an easier and more sustainable way to lose weight for many of us. There is a lot of misinformation about fat and many of us find we are a whole lot slimmer, fitter and healthier by eating it and it often happens that cholesterol levels reduce despite eating more fat.... providing you eat less carbs. The thing I find amazing is that I just don't feel hungry anymore like I used to and I eat so much less than I did. The difference now is that I buy quality, mostly basic ingredients and cook from scratch.
Just so you don't get the idea that food is going to be unenjoyable. I had a fillet steak last night, fried in lamb fat (done rare) and I had that with a large plate of salad (mixed lettuce leaves, 3 cherry tomatoes and cucumber) and a big dollop of cheese coleslaw (not low fat but a creamy one). I am on a low budget but it was in the "reduced for quick sale" section and it took 4 mins to cook.... Can't get much faster food than that! The fat and protein are slower to digest so they keep you feeling full for longer but they don't spike your Blood Glucose levels and therefore don't put you to sleep.... on the other hand, the shot of rum (no carbs in spirits) I had with my bedtime hot chocolate may have helped me to sleep!
Be careful with increasing your fat intake. It is a brilliant way to improve your blood levels but taking in lots of fat will only improve your health if you are also vastly decreasing your carbs at the same time. If you increase your fats a lot without reducing your carbs hugely - all you will do is increase the fat swooshing around in your system and that can have bad results. If you reset your system to metabolise fats for energy instead of carbs by making fats your main fuel then you should find your blood sugars stabilise and your liver function and blood pressure starts improving too.
Hi Rebrascora hope you are well, I’ve been given the Spirit Tee 2 by one of my sons for Christmas, we gave it a try yesterday and my reading was bang on it was 8.2 before dinner and 9.1 after dinner which I thought was pretty good come today I was9.1 before dinner and I’m just waiting for 8.30 pm to take my after dinner reading I really can’t work out why the reading yesterday was so good and yet today it’s quite a bit higher have you any thoughts on it ? any advice would be welcome.
Are you saying you had 2 slices of brown bread toast before your dinner yesterday? If so, how long before. If it was within 2-4 hours, then your pre and post meal readings were a waste of time because the carbs from the toast will totally compromise the test... which is why your pre meal reading was so high at 11.4.
