New Score

[Red K]

Hi Guys
First off Happy New Year, hope you all have a happy and healthy 2025.
So I got a score 6 moths ago of 45 and given a generic sheet of A4 saying we will test again in a year. I got an interim check and score is 46. I had made changes to my diet and tried unsuccessfully to lose weight so need to double down on it. I find the thought of it quite depressing. Life is hard enough at the moment. Does anyone else have trouble like this? If so how do you keep going?

 

[Vonny]

Hi, and a happy new year to you also.
Yes, it's a depressing fact that you need to change your eating and life style. When I was diagnosed I felt utterly bereft, as I knew for a fact I had to cut down on all carbs, not just sugars, which involved a reduction in my beloved potatoes, bread, rice and pasta.
I took it one day at a time, it was the only way I coped. One day became two, became a week, became a month and so on. If I'd thought of all the weight I had to lose (5 stone) I could never have done it, and the craving for carbs stopped after a few weeks.
I started a food diary (which I still keep!) noting the carbs and calories consumed against the calories expended via my fitbit. I weigh myself just once a week. I also tested by blood sugars via the prick method just before eating and 2 hours after. That way I knew what I could eat and what I couldn't.
On the plus side, you are only just into the pre-diabetic range so you should be able to make just a few tweaks to your diet. I also find reading posts on this forum helps. No one will judge you, there are no such things as silly questions, just positive support and inspiration to keep on going!
Very best of luck to you

 

[Leadinglights]

Welcome to the forum
You are still just in the prediabetic zone so some changes to your diet should be enough to get it down. What people don't sometimes realise is that it is all carbohydrates that convert to glucose and by reducing your intake will bring down your blood glucose and help with weight loss if you need to.
I started with a HbA1C of 50mmol/mol so just into the diabetes zone and by following a low carb approach as outlined in this link https://lowcarbfreshwell.com/ I reduced my HbA1C to 42 in 3 months. It is based on no more than 130g carbs not just sugar per day but to be fair I did go lower than that at about 70g which I found very doable basing meals on meat, fish, eggs, cheese, dairy with vegetables and salads and fruit like berries. I don't have rice, wheat based pasta, rarely have potatoes but I do have some bread.
It is now just my new way of eating and I don't miss anything in particular.

 

[pjgtech]

Hi, can you give an example of what sort of things you eat? you may then get some useful alternatives being offered, and if you are happy to say, do you need to lose some weight?
Just making some small changes may be enough to bounce you back into the normal zone.
Bear in mind that general advice is to reduce ALL carbs if you can, not just sugars, so potato, rice, pasta, bread, cakes, sweets, crisps, cereals, etc, etc. Not saying you cannot eat them, but you might just need to cut down on portion size or similar.
And even a little exercise, every day, will help too, even if its just walking round the block or gentle "chairobics" or similar.
Let us know how you get on....

 

[Alan44]

Hi @Red K as others have said, you are only just in the pre-diabetic range, so no need to panic, in fact your hba1c of 46 is the same as mine, I was 54 four months ago, but with diet, weight loss and exercise reduced it to my current 46.

Self motivation can be difficult, so if you can, set yourself smallish targets and within your capabilities, that's a start.

Losing weight can really help if you are over weight, cutting down on the carbs/sugars will be good and add in some extra exercise if possible will help, just keep it simple to start with.

You ask how we keep going which is difficult to answer as we are all different, some of us don't have an option, ie those who are insulin dependant or on other medications, others like you and I are not at that stage yet and that is my motivation.

Keep asking the questions and we will do our best to answer them

Alan 😉

PS, I lost 2st and my wife thinks I look sexy, now that's motivation

 

[Red K]

Thanks for the replies and advice. As for my food intake, it is pretty carb heavy. Cereal or thin bagel for breakfast,Butty for lunch and pasta,rice,spuds for tea. Ive swapped to wholegrain rice and pasta and now dont have them every night.
The thing I have found hard is knowing whats 130g of carbs. If I wanted a baked potatoe something I love or mash is working it all out. Ive downloaded a diet diary with a scanner as suggested, so hopefully that will help.
I have around 6 stone to lose, 3 pound this year so far.
I think I just need more discipline from now on

 

[Leadinglights]

Thanks for the replies and advice. As for my food intake, it is pretty carb heavy. Cereal or thin bagel for breakfast,Butty for lunch and pasta,rice,spuds for tea. Ive swapped to wholegrain rice and pasta and now dont have them every night.
The thing I have found hard is knowing whats 130g of carbs. If I wanted a baked potatoe something I love or mash is working it all out. Ive downloaded a diet diary with a scanner as suggested, so hopefully that will help.
I have around 6 stone to lose, 3 pound this year so far.
I think I just need more discipline from now on

All those foods you mention are high carb and you are going to be wise to look carefully at your portion size. I'm afraid wholegrain versions of the foods are just as many carbs as the white.
Getting some scales which live on your work top will enable you to weigh your portions and by looking at the carbs on the packet or on the internet you can work out how many carbs your portion would be, supermarket websites are good for finding the carbs under nutritional information for the product, you need to look at the carbs not the sugar.
The book or app Carbs and Cals is also useful for giving carbs for various portion sizes, you will be surprised at how many carbs some foods are, just to give you an idea, the size of jacket potato you would normally be served in a cafe (350g) would be about 75g carbs, a100gportion of cooked spaghetti about 30g carbs, a slice of bread about 16g carbs, a 45g portion of a breakfast cereal like fruit and fibre 35g carbs.
Those are foods many of us Type 2 or prediabetic would be avoiding.

 

[Red K]

Thanks for the reply, will look into that app. I also unfortunately have a heart condition which they recommend porridge or wholegrain cereal like shredded wheat for breakfast. I have 30g per portion with skimmed milk and berries. Will have to look into alternative lunches for work. It is a learning curve

 

[Leadinglights]

Thanks for the reply, will look into that app. I also unfortunately have a heart condition which they recommend porridge or wholegrain cereal like shredded wheat for breakfast. I have 30g per portion with skimmed milk and berries. Will have to look into alternative lunches for work. It is a learning curve

It is always a balancing act when you have multiple conditions but some people are OK with oats others not.
I think All Bran is one of the lowest carb cereals unless you look at the Keto Granolas like the fruit and nut grain free from M & S or the Keto Hana ones.
You could just have 1 slice of bread or crisp bread, the Dr Karg protein crackers or the Kallo crispbreads which are only about 7ish g carb each.

 

[rebrascora]

You can get beneficial soluble fibre from chia seeds and psyllium husk instead of oats/porridge and they have almost no carbs compared to oats which are high carb. Porridge is an easy "recommendation" for doctors and nurses for beneficial soluble fibre but there are others, it's just that many people haven't heard or chia seeds and psyllium husk and might not know where to get them or what to do with them. They are beneficial for good gut health as well as helping with cholesterol. I have mine in flavoured water each day, because porridge really spikes my BG levels. I have creamy Greek style natural yoghurt with berries and seeds and cinnamon for breakfast

 

[Red K]

Thanks for all your replies, grateful for all the advice and support. I started logging my food today on an app and was surprised. I kept to 135g of carbs but it was difficult, I ate three apples throughout the day and that was 51g in all not even big apples. So tomorrow I'm swapping one apples for a carrot. Breakfast will be fat free Greek yogurt and berries, lunch cottage cheese and salad then see what I'm left with in the evening to take me to the 130g target. I have lost 6lbs since NY day.
Will be hitting the gym next week so seriously batter this into submission. I'm ex military so I'm designing my own basic training. 5 stone 8 lbs to lose!

 

[Leadinglights]

Thanks for all your replies, grateful for all the advice and support. I started logging my food today on an app and was surprised. I kept to 135g of carbs but it was difficult, I ate three apples throughout the day and that was 51g in all not even big apples. So tomorrow I'm swapping one apples for a carrot. Breakfast will be fat free Greek yogurt and berries, lunch cottage cheese and salad then see what I'm left with in the evening to take me to the 130g target. I have lost 6lbs since NY day.
Will be hitting the gym next week so seriously batter this into submission. I'm ex military so I'm designing my own basic training. 5 stone 8 lbs to lose!

You may find you are going to feel hungry as there doesn't seem to be much protein in what you are having and unless you need to for other health conditions there is no need to have such low fat. So full fat Greek yoghurt will fill you up more and takes much better. Something higher protein like eggs, cooked meat, tuna with lunch would be more balanced. Having some cheese with your apples would help but many would only have 1 apple. You could swap an apple for carrot sticks and hummus.
It probably seemed difficult because you blew nearly a half of your carbs on 3 apples.
More meal ideas in the Freshwell link if you haven't seen it, https://lowcarbfreshwell.com/

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

If I wanted a baked potatoe something I love or mash is working it all out.

Ah I feel your pain!

Yep it’s all very well for ingredients in packets (as long as you have some digital scales), and ready many things (but eating too much ready made stuff is no good for you at all), but all that lovely fresh veg needs working out!

My first DSN gave me a ready-reckoner, which was that a raw peeled potato about the size of a hen’s egg is approx 10g of carbs.

You have to be careful when things have cooked (especially when trying to estimate jacket spuds) because they’ll have lost a lot of water, look much smaller, and be more ‘concentrated’ carbs.

I have a note in my phone where I’ve got various staples listed and brown / white versions with eg the dry weight of pasta I’d need to weigh out for the portion size I usually aim for.

Quite a few of those dry-weight portion sizes I now know by heart.

But it can feel like a real faff doing a new recipe from scratch

 

[Red K]

Hi everyone,
Been a while, hope you are all doing well. I thought I'd update this thread with my new score. I started at 45 went up to 46 and now am down to 43. As you can imagine I'm very happy with this.
Have also lost a stone and half since beginning of December so things heading in right direction, just got to keep it up!
How are you all doing?

 

[Ieva DUK]

Congrats on the improvement @Red K ! Was it mostly the tracking with the app that you found most helpful or did you do any other changes too?

 

[Red K]

The tracking app has been a big help thanks but also getting out and exercising again. Had to start off very easy but building it up slowly. Have to remember I'm 51 not 31 now, a mistake I'd made in the past. Plus it may sound silly but stopped feeling sorry for myself and accepted life has to change!