Low carb diet help please

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sweetsatin

sweetsatin

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hi there
Hope someone can help me i am seriously thinking of going on a low carb diet,but how low can i go,
I am not on any meds just diet control. I don't think i do bad now but would like to know.
Is there anyone on a low carb diet and what do you eat?
Any suguestions will be helpfull and very much apreciated.

This is just an example of what i may eat in a day

breakfast is either porride with goats milk or skimmed milk, a small banana,2 slices of burgen bread toasted with pro active spread or a mullerlight yoghurt.

Elevensies could be mullerlite yoghurt, or a packet of snack jacks

Lunch could be a mugshot of cous cous or pasta and a mullerlight yoghurt

Tea could be a salad with quorn burgers or quorn chicken fillet

Before bed maybe a packet of snack jacks or a biscuit.

In between meals to stop me munching i have sugarfree chewing gum or sugarfree mints Trebor are doing well out of me i order and buy the chewing gum in boxes not packets :D
 
Hi, well I'm not best placed to advise on low carb food, but it might be a good idea to work out just how many carbs are in the food you're currently eating - then you'll have a good yardstick to measure against some of the low carb/extreme low carb/restricted carbs options. I think a 'normal' amount of carbs is supposed to be around 230 grams a day, and low carb is normally around 140 grams a day. Extreme low carbing is less than 100 (I will be corrected if this is all nonsense, I'm sure!).

What you also want to do is see what you can tolerate comfortably without impacting what you enjoy eating too much - so reduce things gradually if you need to, until your levels are telling you you've found the right balance.

I'm sure others will have suggestions for possible carb replacements!🙂
 
Thank you for your reply Northerner much apreciated as usual :D
 
Have you got a GI Diet book or a carb counting book? that might help. On my desk at work I have the Colins Gem Carb Counter which everyone in the office seems to think is wonderful.

There are lots of low and no carbers on the forum, so I'm sure they will give lots of tips too.
 
Northerner gives good advice as ever. I'd start by working out what you actually have now - results might surprise you as the carbs abound in some unexpected foods

Best summary of clinical guidelines for Type 2 I've found is on Joslin Centre for Diabetes

http://www.joslin.org/docs/Nutrition_Guideline_Graded.pdf

This gave me my benchmark of not going below 130g chd per day but others are very happy on less. I seem to be able to go up to about 150g chd a day with no significant impact on my fasting blood glucose but also find I need to be very careful with the amount and type of carbs I have for breakfast to stay within the DUK range of <8.5 2 hours post food. Again others aim for lower than this

Joslin Centre also has some general advice on their standard pages - explains why it is difficult to say how many carbs different individuals need
 
not sure i can advise on this as my dietian has said low g.i food but i wanted to say that want u are eating the now sound good with the pasta is it white or brown?
 
Vanessa said:
Northerner gives good advice as ever. I'd start by working out what you actually have now - results might surprise you as the carbs abound in some unexpected foods

Best summary of clinical guidelines for Type 2 I've found is on Joslin Centre for Diabetes

http://www.joslin.org/docs/Nutrition_Guideline_Graded.pdf
Click to expand...

Joslin are a good source of information and their book "The Joslin Guide to Diabetes" is excellent.

BUT ... they are still publishing innumerate nonsense as their diet guide ..
40% of calories from carbs
30-35% from fats
20-30% from protein
Nonsense because if you get 40% of calories from carbs and the MAXIMUM of 35% from fats you CANNOT get 20-24% ( as they are saying) from protein - you would need a minimumof 25% from protein to make their carb and fat recommendations work.
It's staggering, staggering , staggering that a reputable body such as Joslin with an international reputation could let this laughable maths blunder be published in their name.
 
Northerner said:
I think a 'normal' amount of carbs is supposed to be around 230 grams a day, and low carb is normally around 140 grams a day. Extreme low carbing is less than 100 (I will be corrected if this is all nonsense, I'm sure!).
Click to expand...

Defining "low" carb is a problem and its a term used by people who get very evangelistic about things. Technically 229 is low carb....so is 20. Various figures are bandied about including 80 and 100. Extremists even talk about zero carb which is just mad.

However, the numbers are not really important. What is important is how things affect your BG. So you can take a different approach and work out what works for you instead. Try this:
http://www.diabetes-support.org.uk/joomla/jennifers-advice

Its based on testing the effects of food on the BG and allows you to learn about the effects of what you eat so that you can build up over time a picture of how combinations of foods affect you. You can work out then what to eat without going too high and tailor everything to what suits you, rather than a book. It also avoids getting caught up with evangelists who appear to look down their noses at anyone having more than 20 carbs a day (despite eating 80-100 per day themselves)

Because at the end of the day its about how things affect YOU and making changes to your diet aimed at helping YOU.

Hope that helps.

p.s. That breakfast would give me an absolutely scary test result at 1 hour. Your diet appears to be mostly carbs which I am sure dietitians love, but their advice is not aimed at keeping BG under control.
 
The advice is good to work out how many carbs you are currently eating and then you can look to reduce that number. Each person is individial and some can manage on the low 30g that Dr Bernstein reccommends, others find that they need more than that.

For me I know my blood sugars are better when i eat around 100g per day, but I like to have a varied carb diet so don't stick to reduced carbs.

Maybe you could try making one of you meals a day low carb and see how that goes. Rather than goign totally low carb for all meals, it might be too much and you won't be able to stick to it. Changing one meal will be a start and allow you to see how it suits you.
 
Hi Sweetsatin,
I am a type 1 diabetic who is attempting to follow a low carbohydrate diet. My meal plan consists of:

Breakfast: Carbohydrate 6.0g Protein 3.0oz
Lunch: Carbohydrate 12.0g Protein 4.0oz
Dinner: Carbohydrate 12.0g Protein 5.0oz

This works out something like:

Breakfast: 2 boiled eggs, 1.5oz cheese, 1.5 Melba toasts
Lunch: Salad consisting of 1.5 cups of lettuce, 1oz parmesan cheese, 2.5oz chicken, 1 slice bacon, 4.5 cheddar biscuits, small portion of caesar dressing
Dinner: 4.5oz steak, turnip chips, 1 portion of broccoli

I can, of course, vary these meals around (I hate having a repetitive diet).

WARNING: Having a low carb diet can really make you crave carbohydrates. I've found, personally, that after six weeks, it goes but if you do cheat, you do really then crave carbs and can end up eating all kinds of stuff. Therefore, if you choose to follow this kind of diet, I really recommend that you follow it to the point... NO CHEATING!!

Before you decide whether to go on this kind of diet, I recommend you read Dr Bernstein's Diabetes Solution (you can buy it off Amazon). He suggests that a low carbohydrate diet is the only good way to look after diabetes (he covers both type 1 and type 2 in his book). It's his diet that I follow. I warn you, though, that his recipes are horrible! Everything turns out tasteless and grey in colour!!

On the positive side, I have never had better control (my last HbA1c was 6.5%) and I've never been able to predict my blood sugar results with such accuracy before (and that's after 28 years of diabetes!).
 
Just wondering natalie did you drop your carb intake straight away to what it is now or did you do it graudually?

I have been reading bloodsugar101 and she suggests way's of going 'off plan' and how this is acceptable and normal. So maybe you will be able to do that once you are confident in sticking to it then rest if the time.
 
I did it at once... It may be a better idea to drop the carbohydrates one meal at a time. However, the programme I follow was quite difficult to get your head round to start with (it initially took me AGES to work out what I could have for dinner... my calculator was well used!!), and hence I didn't want to make it any more complicated by mixing two kinds of meal plans together. Being more experienced on it now, I know that it would definitely be possible to do that (in fact, I do this when I go out for a meal or have a celebration). It all comes with experience...!
 
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