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MarvinPA

MarvinPA

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Relationship to Diabetes
At risk of diabetes
Hi All,

I’m an 82 year old male, about 80 kilos and 5'8"or 173cms in new money. I used to reasonably fit, gym sessions twice a week with longish walks in between. Since atrial fibrillation in December 2020 (not much effect I thought) then the first Covid jab in Jan 2021 (that one knocked me flat 24 hours later) a lot of muscle tone has disappeared. I had given up the gym at the start of the pandemic, but was managing with a few weights, excercise mat etc, and a three mile walk inside an hour up to four times a week. Since then it's been a long slow decline in fitness.
Medication - statins, water retention, blood thinning, and more recently arthritis.

About three weeks ago I got the pre-diabetic warning, so made a sudden dramatic drop in my sugar intake. Out went muesli, in came boiled string (shredded wheat). Salad and egg/tinned fish for lunch, dinner didn't change much except to reduce potatoes. Supper simply stopped. Biscuits went from thee packets a week to zero. I'll admit to one packet meal a week from the Charlie Bigham range, and half a bottle of wine spread over three days (actually just Wednesday and Saturday, we are very predictable).

About a week ago, my front thighs started to hurt for no obvious reason, this has got worse and it is now very difficult to bend enough even to put (oversize) socks on. Could this be the result of the sudden dietary changes?
 
Welcome to the forum @MarvinPA

Sorry to hear you are experiencing some aches and pains.

Some people who rapidly reduce their carbohydrate intake describe feelings of ‘keto flu’ as their body adapts to burn dietary ketones instead of the dietary carbohydrate that are more usually available (and which the body usually targets first). Though it doesn’t sound like you’ve reduced carbohydrate intake dramatically enough to get into the keto zone.

Aches and pains aren’t a hugely common topic from members making menu changes on the forum though - so it may be unrelated to the changes you’ve made to your diet.

It does seem like quite a bit has changed for you over recent years, and your inability to get to the gym could perhaps mean your generally reduced fitness and flexibility have played a part?

Are you looking for ways to get a little more active again?
 
Thanks for your prompt reply. I would like to increase my exercise levels, which are virtually nil at the moment. Walking is actually painful (and painfully slow), weights tire my arms very quickly, mat work just shatters me, and the rowing machine is out of the question. It's difficult to raise any enthusiasm for anything much, I'm afraid. I try to convince myself that the thighs are slowly getting better of there own accord, perhaps they are. I wish I had more enthusiasm for the new diet!
 
Sorry to hear you are finding it a bit of an uphill struggle :(

Do you know what your glucose levels are at the moment? High glucose (or erratic levels that spike and crash) can be exhausting to live with. Do you have a way of checking your levels at home?
 
Good point, that was one of the things I meant to ask about. What options are available for testing glucose levels, and which would you recommend?
Must say, I'm impressed with the speed of your responses on a Sunday afternoon!
 
MarvinPA said:
Must say, I'm impressed with the speed of your responses on a Sunday afternoon!
Click to expand...

Haha! I just happened to be on at the time 🙂

You may be able to get a BG meter from your GP, but many surgeries din’t grasp how helpful they can be for optimising dietary changes, and restrict BG meters to T2s who are on meds that can cause hypoglycaemia.

The major cost with a meter comes from the strips you need to get a reading. Lancets can be reused by the same person until they feel a bit sore, but the strips are single-use. And cost of strips varies massively. If you need to self fund your BG meter, the most affordable meters members here have found are the SD Gluco Navii or the Spirit Tee2 - which both have test strips at around £10 for 50 - some brands can be nearly 3x that!

Members here have some pretty effective ways of using the results they get around meals to tweak their menus. Just ask if you decide to give ‘eating to your meter’ a go 🙂
 
Hi, Marvin. Don't forget to consider swimming as an exercise if you're able. It's non weight-bearing and you can put as much effort into it as you want.
I hope it goes well.
 
If you have had recent blood tests then check that they have done one to check your B12 as if low then it can cause aches, tiredness etc.
 
Hi @MarvinPA. I consider myself to be in the same age bracket as you and my approach of dealing with an ever more creaking body is to apply liberal doses of pragmatism. For example, there is little point in worrying about things that might happen as a result of elevated blood glucose when I get to be old - I'm old already.

As a result I'm quite happy if I keep my HbA1c below the diabetes diagnosis limit. That will avoid short term issues, for example difficulties with an already recalcitrant urinary system or possible complications with healing processes should I need surgery or suchlike. I don't feel it necessary to strive to get my HbA1c down to below the "at risk" diagnosis level. Any benefit to be gained is not balanced by the hassle involved.

To do this I have made changes to my diet which I would call nudges rather than wholesale changes with objective of an overall carb intake of around 120 g/day. If one day it is higher then I don't fret about it, another day it might be lower. It does help that I have never really been fond of sweet things so biscuits and cakes and the like never featured much in my diet.

As regulars on here know I like measuring things to check the state of affairs. Much more useful than opinionated guesswork. So, I keep an eye on my weight and would do something if it showed a steady and sustained rise. I keep an eye on my blood glucose by finger prick measurement. Provided my 90 day average is below 8 then I'm happy that my HbA1c will be below 50. If, and probably when, it shows signs of creeping up, I would look to medication rather than a more restricted diet to control it.

I tend to think that poor blood glucose control in us wrinklies can be thought about a little differently from how the whippersnappers might think about it.
 
My apologies for the late reply, dealing with Companies House when they are undergoing a software upgrade intervened. Sounds more impressive than it is, honest.

in my impatience I ordered a Contour Blue Plus from your shop, so expect that any day now.

I'm also signed up to a local group session series under the auspices of the NHS, starting next Tuesday.

Carb intake measurement I evidently have to start working on, not sure I understand it yet.

Life is a journey………
 
To give you a better understanding about the role of carbohydrates in managing diabetes then this link may be helpful to you. https://lowcarbfreshwell.co.uk/
It is a low carb approach which is suggested as being no more than 130g per day total carbs for all meals, drinks and snacks. Generally it is better to spread your carbs between meals so you don't give your system a bit hit with lots of carbs. As you will have your monitor then you can check out your meals by testing before you eat and after 2 hours aiming at an increase of no more than 2-3mmol/l, if it is then reducing the portion size of the carby part or cutting it out or finding a lower carb substitute.
Keeping a food diary of everything you have with an estimate of how many carbs is useful in seeing where savings can be made and where your starting point is for making some reduction.
 
Thank you all, I must apologise, I'm afraid I've only just noticed multiple contributors.
if 100 grams of cashews contains 22 carbs, how many carbs in
45g shredded wheat?
100g potatoes?

The guidance fo diabetes avoidance diets seems to conflict with cholesterol avoidance? Have I got that right?

Still learning!
 
MarvinPA said:
Thank you all, I must apologise, I'm afraid I've only just noticed multiple contributors.
if 100 grams of cashews contains 22 carbs, how many carbs in
45g shredded wheat?
100g potatoes?

The guidance fo diabetes avoidance diets seems to conflict with cholesterol avoidance? Have I got that right?

Still learning!
Click to expand...
32g carbs in shredded wheat and depends a bit on the potatoes and how you cook them but about 15g in boiled new potatoes, but a baked jacket potato is more like 20g.
You may find the book or app Carbs and Cals useful as it gives carb values of various portion sizes of a whole range of foods.
 
MarvinPA said:
Thank you all, I must apologise, I'm afraid I've only just noticed multiple contributors.
if 100 grams of cashews contains 22 carbs, how many carbs in
45g shredded wheat?
100g potatoes?

The guidance fo diabetes avoidance diets seems to conflict with cholesterol avoidance? Have I got that right?

Still learning!
Click to expand...

It depends on what you think about cholesterol.
Some low carbers believe higher cholesterol is better than the numbers NHS advise.

I took a holistic view initially, and chose a way of eating that satisfied all health markers, and made sure I ate to keep all blood test results in the right ballpark.
I then set out to reverse my diabetes, I decided very early on diet control wouldn't work for me.
 
MarvinPA said:
My apologies for the late reply, dealing with Companies House when they are undergoing a software upgrade intervened. Sounds more impressive than it is, honest. ...

Carb intake measurement I evidently have to start working on, not sure I understand it yet. ...
Click to expand...
If you're sufficiently on the ball to be dealing with Companies House, you're sufficiently on the ball to deal with carb calculations. ; ) Of course the easy case is: all you're having is a ready meal, and it says on the back of the package how many grams of carbs it contains. But for normal healthy eating-- avoiding ultra-processed foods and instead preparing your own meals, however simple:

You get kitchen scales. You weigh each ingredient that contains any carbs. You note down the weights. Then, for each ingredient, you look at the back of the packet/container to see how many carbohydrates per 100g, and you do the maths. If it doesn't come in a packet/container-- say you bought some loose carrots at the supermarket-- you look at the supermarket's webpage for loose carrots and in the 'nutritional information' section of that page it will give you the carbs per 100g; and then you do the maths ...

*BUT* ... Carb counting is essential for Type 1 diabetics. We have to know how many carbs are in what we eat, because it is the most important factor in working out how much insulin we need to inject. I find this a massive, massive pain in the neck!! But, as a T1, I have no choice.

By contrast, carb counting is *not* essential for Type 2 diabetics, or people at risk of T2. Some T2s *choose* to use a low-carb diet to manage their T2. Some just use drugs to manage their T2. And some, like Travellor, go for trying-- in his case, and that of others on this forum, successfully-- to reverse their T2, essentially cure it, by losing the excess visceral fat (fat in and around your liver and pancreas) that causes T2.

If you used to get a lot of exercise but for the past few years have got very little-- you will not only have lost muscle but also gained visceral fat. If you lose a good deal of weight and also get back to regular and sufficient exercise, you should be able to reverse your pre-diabetes rather than merely managing it.

If you're finding it difficult to start exercising again, ask your GP or your local sports centre or at the "local group session" you mention. There are lots and lots of older people in the same position you are-- who want to get back into exercise but have lost a lot of fitness so find getting back to exercise very hard-- so there are lots of people who have worked out ways to address this problem! Gently graduated forms of exercise to get you, safely, back to where you want to be.

Transistor's right-- swimming, or aqua aerobics, is the obvious choice; but, if that doesn't appeal, there are other options. Just ask, and I'm sure you'll find people to help you and a type of exercise programme that works for you.

Finally: research in recent years has shown that older people-- people over 50-- need a *lot* more protein in their (our!) diets than was previously thought. (The older you get, the less efficient your body is at converting dietary protein into muscle.) It seems the reason why so many older people suffer from muscle wasting ('sarcopenia'), which is the main cause of frailty in the elderly, is not only lack of exercise but not consuming enough protein.

Anyway-- apologies for length, and wishing you all the best!
 
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