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holbeckjubilee

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Type 2
Hello. I have just joined. Have had T2 for about 4 years. Not been able to control it much mainly due to my job. I have recently retired, and after a health scare over Xmas have now bitten the bullet. Joined Slimming World and after 2 weeks am already 4.5 lbs lighter. At the beginning of Jan my HBA1C was 111. Next blood tests in April so hope to be a good bit lighter by then and the HBA1C somewhat reduced. Have also totally overhauled my food intake. Eating much less in quantity, cut out the carbs and increased the fruit and veg. Here's hoping
 
That is a rather high Hba1c to have after 4 years - have you been tracking your carbohydrate intake and blood glucose levels?
You do need to be aware of the amount of sugar and starch in fruit and vege in order to keep count of the total daily intake, along with grains, which are often touted as healthy but can cause havoc for type twos.
 
Welcome to the forum @holbeckjubilee

Well done for deciding to tackle your diabetes head on - sounds like you have made some great and substantial changes. Hopefully your efforts will be rewarded in a lower HbA1c, which will come down gradually over the next few months (it’s easier on the system to change BG over a period of time).

Many members here find it very beneficial to monitor their own BG levels, so that they can see the effect of different foods on them as an individual, rather than just relying on general advice (different people can react quite differently to different types and amounts of carbohydrate). If your surgery is reluctant to prescribe a meter you may want to buy your own - in which case the SD Gluco Navii is one of the cheaper options as it has test strips at around £8 for 50

Then you can examine your Slimming World meal choices to see which options suit your BG best, and where some swaps and tweaks might be worthwhile. Alan S’s Test Review Adjust is a useful framework using before-meal and after-meal checks to evaluate the BG rise of any meal or snack, to try to keep your BG as stable as possible.

https://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com/2006/10/test-review-adjust.html

Keep us posted with how you are getting on, and ask away with any questions 🙂
 
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Hi @holbeckjubilee , welcome to the forum , am relative newbie here and not diabetic myself but parent/carer to my son who is T2... you will get some good advice from much more experienced folk than me but I would just add that slimming world often advocates unlimited pasta and rice which is not good for many T2. But well done for loss so far and for decision to try and lower your levels....
Debbie
 
Hi @holbeckjubilee Welcome to you. You will find loads of helpful info here, my advice would be to take your time on here - I hope you're enjoying your retirement and sorry you had a scare with your health over Xmas, I hope you are recovered/recovering? Good news on the weight loss front, thats a very encouraging result. Well done you! I cut out all obvious sugars, started reading labels on things in the larder. Its quite a surprise how much hidden sugar these things contain! Im also finding if i only have a couple of pieces/ small handful of berries a day, I only eat veg grow above ground rather than below it. I believe the latter contain a little more carbs. Ive also taken to weighing a few things, because i always over estimate what a portion is supposed to look like 😳 !. Good luck
 
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Hello @holbeckjubilee. Welcome to the forum.
It sounds as if you are off to a really good start for 2020.
I hope you enjoy retirement. I certainly found it a lot easier to deal with diabetes issues, when I retired and had more time, to think it all through and monitor, and prepare food.
The other thing there is more time for is exercise, and I started a few new things that get me moving a lot more, as well as providing new interests and new friends.
I hope you enjoy the forum, and please keep posting and asking questions, and let us know how it goes.
 
Welcome to the forum Holbeckjubilee, from a fellow T2.
 
Hi and welcome, as the others have said it all, I just wanted to say that I was following slimming world when I was diagnosed, thinking I was doing all I could to be healthy, I would take a bag of fruit to eat in the car rather than sweets or snacks, now when I look back, knowing what I know now its no wonder my blood sugar was 22 with all that fruit and so called ‘free food’, so be cautious with slimming world as its not the best way for type 2!!
 
CathyB said:
Hi and welcome, as the others have said it all, I just wanted to say that I was following slimming world when I was diagnosed, thinking I was doing all I could to be healthy, I would take a bag of fruit to eat in the car rather than sweets or snacks, now when I look back, knowing what I know now its no wonder my blood sugar was 22 with all that fruit and so called ‘free food’, so be cautious with slimming world as its not the best way for type 2!!
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Hi @CathyB yes I agree James did SW for year and a half ... also ended up with T2 and BG if 20!!! His weight also yoyoed with 7lbs up and down each week... so now LCHF 4.5 stone gone in 4 -5 months..... wish I’d known before like you , but we know what works for us at least now, best wishes Debbie x
 
Interesting comments about SW. However whilst taking some things on board I am not taking others. For example breakfast is usually a small bowl of oats porridge and a cup of tea. The only real carbs is a small portion of new pots or a jacket pot. Tend to eat quite a bit of chicken and lean meat. Also eggs are popular with me. All the chocolate, cakes and ice cream have all gone. Not had any of those since xmas. I have apples bananas, and mixed berries most days with sugar/ fat free yoghurt.
In the past I was on Metformin and Ramiprill, neither of which did me any good. Diarrhoea and persistant urination were the side effects. Neither of which I could cope with in the job I was doing. I am now on Glimepiride and Sitagliptine, as well as Statins. Do I feel as if I'm getting on top of it ? No not a chance.
 
Drummer said:
That is a rather high Hba1c to have after 4 years - have you been tracking your carbohydrate intake and blood glucose levels?
You do need to be aware of the amount of sugar and starch in fruit and vege in order to keep count of the total daily intake, along with grains, which are often touted as healthy but can cause havoc for type twos.
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Wouldn't know how to track carb intake, except that I have massively reduced intake of those. Yes I do the fingerprick thing daily but only once. When I was working I had to do it every 2 hours (DVLA requirement) and my finger ends were like leather in the end. The big issue with foods etc. is that if I didn't eat everything that it's said I shouldn't, then I would end up starving to death. So many foods I dislike or hate the sight of. All I can hope is to lose a decent amount of weight and go from there.
 
Hello @holbeckjubilee welcome to the forum.🙂 No advice at the moment but please do ask any question you like, not easy we all know but doable, take care.
 
holbeckjubilee said:
The big issue with foods etc. is that if I didn't eat everything that it's said I shouldn't, then I would end up starving to death.
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What about eating more of the foods you do eat, to keep your weight up? You can eat loads (as in plate food) of veg as a diabetic. (Well, as far as I know!) Also cheese, meats, fish (mackerel is recommended for general healthy eating) is all ok for diabetics.
 
I do eat plenty of lean meat but not too much cheese as I have to "syn" it. But the crux of the matter is I need to lose weight and quite a bit of it. I am currently around 20 stone and that is definitely not healthy, diabetes or not. Veg is a problem for me the only ones I can tolerate are carrots peas and sweetcorn on a plate. My wife makes a savoury mince with very lean minced beef, and puts God knows what veg in it. That's the only way I can eat stuff like courgettes, cabbage swede and others. As I say I don't really know what she puts in it. Probably better that I don't
 
Hi again, you're making progress. Dont be too hard on yourself, the important thing is you recognise the need for change. Remember you.ve had a tough time .things will get easier as you get used to smaller portions, monitoring you blood glucose levels, making appropriate/healthier choices that stop your BG level spiking too high (although you enjoy some foods, they may be raising your levels too much, we are all unique in that respect, one food item suits one person and not another, diabetes does that! So testing yourself is vital in this instance to see what suits. Daily exercise to your routine will help. I do brisk 10-20 min walk every other day, a 10 min home exercise programme from Brit Hearth Foundation on You tube twice a week. I modify parts of the vid to suit my ability. With the low carb Mediterranean diet i seem to gravitate toward and this increase in movement after 20 days i have now lost 8 lbs. I have made changes I intend to keep for life. I hope this helps you and I wish you well. All the best.
 
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It might come as a surprise, but sweetcorn is a grain, not a vegetable, and carrots are fairly high in carbs.
When you cut out the carbohydrates there is a need for fats - which, rather surprisingly, are not the reason for being overweight.
As a diabetic's ability to metabolise protein and fat is not broken, there is no reason to avoid them, but carbohydrate triggers all sorts of problems, with a threat of complications arising.
When I tried out the Atkins diet after yet another battle with my GP about eating 'healthy' carbohydrate, I was losing a Kg a day - half a stone in three days - which is why my aim was for 50 gm of carbs a day rather than going down to 20.
When I abandoned the 'healthy cholesterol lowering' diet upon diagnosis, I went back to 50 gm of carbs a day and in 80 days was no longer diabetic, with Hba1c of 47, down from 91.
The safe foods for a type two are meat, fish, eggs, cheese, full fat yoghurt, adding in salad and low carb veges up to what you can tolerate according to your blood glucose meter.
Things to avoid high carb veges such as potatoes parsnips carrots, all grains, and sugary fruit and anything else very sugary or starchy.
I have put on a bit of weight this winter, so I dropped my carbs, still eating the chicken thighs and the fatty mince so I don't go all cold. I overdid it and lost 2Kg in five days so it was back to the stir fries and I even had bacon and fried egg toasted sandwiches using Livlife bread, which is 4 gm of carb per slice.
I will check my weight again at the start of March and make a rather less enthusiastic reduction in carbs to get back to where I was.
 
holbeckjubilee said:
Interesting comments about SW. However whilst taking some things on board I am not taking others. For example breakfast is usually a small bowl of oats porridge and a cup of tea. The only real carbs is a small portion of new pots or a jacket pot.
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I too used to eat Porridge Oats for breakfast, I had it almost every day for 10 yrs when I was on the GP advised so called heart healthy diet'. I cut Oats out completely as soon as I got a BG meter and saw what they did to my Blood Glucose levels. I substituted eggs instead - Boiled, poached, fried, omelettes etc.
Some T2's find they can eat a small quantity of carbs in the morning, but I found it was better for me to eat any carbs later in the day - so either lunch or dinner, though even then I only eat a total of between 20gm to 50gm of carbs per day. That is less than most (non T2's) would eat at a single meal, or even a 'snack'!
 
My morning porridge was the last carb I reluctantly cut out before my BG came down into single figures.
 
Well, been to SW this morning, and have lost a further 3.5 lb. I have now lost 9lb in 4 weeks. Feeling really chuffed. It seems that at the moment SW along with the slight changes I've made to suit is working. BG is now around 10 --11 so that's slowly heading in the right direction also
 
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