New to type 2 and struggling with foods to eat

[Loubelle1969]

been told by my doctor today I have type 2 diabetes and not sure what foods to eat. Been given a small booklet but doesn’t shed much light on what you can and can’t eat
Any advice would be appreciated thanks

 

[Drummer]

The basic thing to keep in mind is that you can't cope with sugars and starches, not to the extent considered normal these days.
You can eat protein and fats, so meat or fish, shellfish, eggs, cheese, cream, butter, lard, coconut oil, olive oil are all fine.
The seed oils PUFAs, or polyunsaturated fatty acids are not good.
Avoid sugars - even ones which claim to be healthy - honey, various syrups, fruit juices, are all just the same to your body, high sugar fruits are going to cause spikes - but many people find that a small serving of berries with yogurt or cream are OK - I eat that as a dessert a couple of times a week.
Starches are anything made from grains, breakfast cereals, bread pasta etc. Potatoes are high starch as are many root vegetables, rice and oats are usually off the menu too.
Salad stuff and above ground vegetables, mushrooms, and anything with 10 percent carbs or less are usually safe. I add in high cocoa chocolate in small amounts.
It seems to be a diet many people thrive on and the lucky type twos can find that they get normal numbers and even lose weight as a bonus.

 

[Martin9]

Hi @Loubelle1969 welcome to the club no one wants to be in, I too was diagnosed T2 diabetic just over 3 months ago at that time I had an HbA1c of 77 and was prescribed Metformin and felt totally in the dark about how to improve my condition.
On searching google I luckily stumbled across this forum and the lower carb, higher healthy fat diet was advised (LCHF)as @Drummer advises above
So I limited my carbs to around maximum 50-60g per day, also lost a bit of excess weight I was carrying (almost 2 stones ) and upped my exercise a bit, and lo and behold my HbA1c at the 3 months point was 35 putting me into the non diabetic range.
While not everyone is capable of this, as everyone’s body is different, as is everyone’s Type 2 diabetes, I can only say that the advice here helped me, and is more than likely to improve your condition.
I suggest you get yourself a blood glucose meter so you can monitor your blood glucose levels especially in response to foods as some T2s can tolerate small amounts of carbohydrates without spiking blood sugars, whereas some need to be much stricter in their diet.
For BG meters could I recommend either the Codefree or the Tee2+ meters both are relatively inexpensive to buy, and more importantly the testing strips are some of the cheapest on the market.
Good luck

**It is possible**

 

[Radders]

Hi Loubelle, glad you found the forum.

 

[CathyB]

I’ll ad my welcome......and my support for the low carb high (good) fat approach 🙂 My starting bg was 22, now averaging 5.5 to 6 thanks to cutting out rice, pasta, potatoes and the only bread I eat is Burgen, a soy and linseed low carb option. Along with the obvious summer salads I eat a lot of stir fry’s, above the ground veg and cauliflower rice with a curry or chilli. Mashed cauliflower with butter and a dab of whole grain mustard replaces potatoes and is yummy🙄 to be honest, if my diabetes magically disappears overnight, I really don’t think I would go back to my old diet! I feel better than I have in years, sleep better and my weight is dropping you will find loads and loads of good info between the threads here so do take some time to wander through and ask any questions you have.