Still very much at the 'Overwhelmed, but Coping' stage of things. However, I'm doing my research to counteract the anxiety and I really appreciate everyone's offers of support!
Welcome to the forum
@Potato Paul
‘Overwhelmed‘ is very common, and give yourself credit for the ‘coping’ bit - which some folks have to work towards gradually!
Good to hear you have some gadgets incoming too. Hopefully being able to monitor things will provide you with motivation to make positive choices, and allow you to track progress.
One of the biggest questions when trying to get to grips with your diabetes is often ‘what can I eat’ and while there are obvious things like cakes, biscuits, sweets and sugary drinks that you will want to cut out straight away, you might be surprised how much *all* carbohydrate affects your BG levels, including rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, pastry, grains, cereals and many fruits.
The really tricky thing is that blood glucose responses to various foods are highly individual, and it can be impossible to say which types and amounts of carbohydrate will ‘spike’ your BG without checking for yourself.
You can use a BG meter, taking a reading before and again 2hrs after eating, to see what the differences are, to identify any carbs that seem to be spiking BG (initially in a way the numbers themselves matter less than the differences between them). Ideally you would want to see a rise of no more than 2-3mmol/L at the 2hr mark. Once you can see how you respond to different meals you can begin experimenting with reducing portion sizes of the carbs where you see bigger rises. You might find that you are particularly sensitive to carbohydrate from one source (eg bread), but have more liberty with others (eg oats or basmati rice) - It’s all very individual! You might even find that just having things at a different time of day makes a difference - with breakfast time being the trickiest.
Over weeks and months of experimentation you can gradually tweak and tailor your menu to find one that suits your tastebuds, your waistline, your budget
and your BG levels - and a way of eating that is flexible enough to be sustainable long-term.
🙂
Good luck, and keep asking questions on the forum… or just use it as a safe place to offload and vent about any frustrations you are feeling.
