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Newbie here...

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Snowwy

Snowwy

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Hi all,
Diagnosed at Christmas T2 with HbA1c of 51.
Just attended a DESMOND course today, brain still reeling!
Still trying to get my head around healthy eating carbs vs cals.
Seen some good food choice options on here, wondering which route?

Thanks
 
As you are type two then I suspect that your options are somewhat restricted.
A type two diabetic can't deal with carbohydrate - I struggled to eat a diet of healthy carbs for years - always went back to eating low carb as per Atkins, and all was well again until the forces of doctor and dietician pressed me into compliance again.
From the moment of diagnosis I have eaten low carb, and what is considered high fat these days - have once again felt better, lost weight and had more energy, and not been in the diabetic range when tested. It is over three years since I was diagnosed.
 
Hi Drummer,
Many thanks for this.
What about the Mediterranean diet?
Seems achievable...
 
Hi and welcome

Most people who have been successful in lowering their BG have done so via a low or very low carb higher fat (LCHF) way of eating rather than the healthy eating plate advocated by the NHS. Many type 2s cannot tolerate even so called healthy wholemeal/grain carbohydrates and dramatically reduce or remove them from their menu. A side effect of low carb eating is usually to lose weight without worrying about calories.
The only way to know what your body will tolerate is to self fund a Blood Glucose meter and test before and 2 hours after food to see what effect it has had on your BG readings. Anything which increases your BG by more than 2-3 mmols in that time frame contains too many carbs and you need to reduce portion size or find a lower carb substitute. It takes time to build up a picture of what carbs you can tolerate and what you can't or even what time of day is best to eat them, so keeping a food diary along with your readings helps you to see trends and make the necessary changes.

It is the test strips which run up the cost of self testing and for that reason the SD Gluco Navii or the Spirit Health TEE2 Blood Glucose Meters are recommended by members of the forum as these have the cheapest test strips @£8 for a pot of 50. The meters themselves are relatively inexpensive to buy @ approx. £15.

Diabetes can be really overwhelming and it is worth remembering that it is a long term condition, so don't feel like you have to take everything in all at once. Many people liken it to a marathon, not a sprint, so take your time and make slow steady changes. Once you see better readings and perhaps weight dropping off, it helps motivate you to keep moving in the right direction.
 
Diagnosed in November HbA1c 77. Lost 20llbs and it was 62 last test. Diabetic nurse recommended low carb and metofrmin so I am getting my head round it all. Hoping to lose more weight and perhaps stop meds one day.
 
It all depends on what you call the Mediterranean diet - there are variations.
Way back when I did the Atkins diet - or way of eating, as it should be called, I found that my weight was controlled and I felt great on 50 gm of carbs a day - fast forward from 1970s to three years ago and I found that my blood glucose normalised on 50 gm of carbs a day - not a surprise really. I avoid foods which are dense carb - my limit is 10 percent, except for chocolate, but I don't eat much of that, and not frequently.
Basically, any meat, fish seafood, eggs, cheese, full fat yoghurt are good choices, then salad stuff or low carb veges, berries are OK, as is cream in coffee and on berries - avoid grains, potatoes and other starchy veges, and sugary foods.
 
Mediterranean is definitely a good option and can be combined with low carb.
 
DingoBlue said:
Diagnosed in November HbA1c 77. Lost 20llbs and it was 62 last test. Diabetic nurse recommended low carb and metofrmin so I am getting my head round it all. Hoping to lose more weight and perhaps stop meds one day.
Click to expand...

Wow! An enlightened Diabetic Nurse who recommends low carb....lucky you! Well done on your fantastic progress so far!
 
Thank you for your encouraging comment! The nurse was lovely - she gave me a sheet with red, amber and green carbs on it and told me to avoid low fat and to use butter, cream etc. When I saw my GP she said to avoid fat - so I told her nurse recommended low carb and not low fat - she seemed confused?? I am a bit confused though as Diabetic UK use skimmed milk and low fat dairy on their low carb diet?
 
Wow!
Thanks for all the info...
I like the comment 'Marathon not sprint', have run a few over the years and know all about commitment.
Will investigate further
 
DingoBlue said:
Thank you for your encouraging comment! The nurse was lovely - she gave me a sheet with red, amber and green carbs on it and told me to avoid low fat and to use butter, cream etc. When I saw my GP she said to avoid fat - so I told her nurse recommended low carb and not low fat - she seemed confused?? I am a bit confused though as Diabetic UK use skimmed milk and low fat dairy on their low carb diet?
Click to expand...
That is because the official guideline is still to recommend low fat, even though there is a growing wave of scientific thought that the low fat advice was based on flawed and possibly even cherry picked research 50+ years ago and may well have contributed to the diabetic epidemic we are seeing today. Fat is slower to digest, so it keeps you feeling fuller for longer and provides slow release energy compared to carbohydrates which are broken down quickly to release glucose into the blood stream leaving you feeling hungry again within a few hours.
I would follow the nurse's advice as she is clearly more enlightened. GPs tend to know very little about diabetes and it is often the nurses who are the experts in this field.
 
Thank you for your reply - yes I am going to follow nurses advice. Thanks for the info - really interesting.
 
Hello @DingoBlue and welcome to the forum.
As you can see from the replies there is a great deal of experience and knowledge here.
It sounds as if you are doing very well already with a good weight loss, and the blood sugars coming down.

There is no 'one size fits all' and we all need to find out what works for us.
Carbohydrates have an effect on diabetes, but we all have different levels of tolerance and it helps to find out what they are.
As @rebrascora says using a meter is a big help with this. There is more information on
https://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com/2006/10/test-review-adjust.html
Loosing weight is one of the biggest ways to improve results, and whatever way suites you best be it low-carb, Mediterranean, Intermittent fasting - if it works and fits your lifestyle then it is good. It is Low-carb that has worked for me.
Fats are another controversial area, but again it has to be what is right for you. Personally I avoid all the off-the-shelf low fat products, and buy full fat yoghurt etc, but tend to use unsaturated oils, nuts etc rather than butter and cream.- but that is just what is right for me.
The other 'big player' that helps is exercise - again no absolute guidelines - just do more than you used to.

Very best wishes, and I hope you keep posting and let us know how it goes.
 
I feel that some people reading @Toucan 's comment will think that intense exercise is the answer - it isn't. In fact if you already got the recommended 30min brisk walk 5 or more times per week then doing more or more intense exercise will hardly have any effect compared with a LCHF way of eating.
Strenuous exercise will raise your Blood Glucose (temporarily) and make you hungry - this will make it more likely that you will eat some carbs , thus raising your BG and reducing weight loss. However resistance exercise builds muscle which means you can safely absorb more glucose from your diet.
 
Always makes me laugh that skimmed and semi skimmed milk have a greater carb content per 100ml than 'non skimmed'.

Nobody can ever reasonably expect to totally avoid carbs because even the much vaunted green leafy veg - including lettuce - contain carbohydrate. It's such a tiny amount though that in practice it's negligible. When your body can't cope at all, or very efficiently, with carbohydrate - best choose the ones you do eat carefully. I kind of treat carb in food as if it were money. Is that thing a bit too expensive for me to afford to eat? Or cheap?
 
Welcome to this group from a very new member!! I too was diagnosed with HbA1c of 51 at beginning of January. To begin with I found this all very overwhelming. What has helped me is buying the book “Carbs to Cals” by Chris Cheyette, it shows how many carbs in each food in picture form. I was surprised at some of the results. For instance there is only 1g in a large glass of red wine compared to 17g in a pint of ale!!!
My wife is now preparing low carb meals and I never feel hungry, even without potatoes, rice or pasta.
‘The other thing that has helped is buying the blood glucose monitor. All this I have learnt from fellow members. Definitely worth reading these posts. all the best. Reg.
 
Reg said:
Welcome to this group from a very new member!! I too was diagnosed with HbA1c of 51 at beginning of January. To begin with I found this all very overwhelming. What has helped me is buying the book “Carbs to Cals” by Chris Cheyette, it shows how many carbs in each food in picture form. I was surprised at some of the results. For instance there is only 1g in a large glass of red wine compared to 17g in a pint of ale!!!
My wife is now preparing low carb meals and I never feel hungry, even without potatoes, rice or pasta.
‘The other thing that has helped is buying the blood glucose monitor. All this I have learnt from fellow members. Definitely worth reading these posts. all the best. Reg.
Click to expand...
Hi Reg,
From one newbie to another, we are not alone! Seeing you have (and others) a blood glucose monitor I have shied away as I wondered if I need it and didn't want to turn into a tea-bag! No offence to tea-bags! I think I am just trying to take in the wealth of knowledge here whilst working out whai I do as an individual. I think I have a lot to learn but don't need to learn it all at once! Thanks again.
 
I liken not having a glucose meter when starting out to reverse type two to driving a car with no speedometer. The advice not to test but wait for the Hba1c is akin to judging your speed by the number of fines coming through the letterbox.
Just as in driving, once you have driven for a while paying attention to your speed when you come to a speed limit sign you are able to adjust without thinking about it. These days, three years from diagnosis I might check my BG once a month but too many carbs is far more likely to show on the weight scales than the BG meter. I really have reversed things, back to 30 years ago when I saw exactly the same thing.
 
DingoBlue said:
Thank you for your encouraging comment! The nurse was lovely - she gave me a sheet with red, amber and green carbs on it and told me to avoid low fat and to use butter, cream etc. When I saw my GP she said to avoid fat - so I told her nurse recommended low carb and not low fat - she seemed confused?? I am a bit confused though as Diabetic UK use skimmed milk and low fat dairy on their low carb diet?
Click to expand...
Your DN sounds fab!
I do LC and tend to not go for Low Fat options as they are higher in carbs and some of the fats are necessary. My DN told me semi-skimmed milk is fine.
 
Welcome @Snowwy - this is a great forum and a real asset to the newly diagnosed. Great that you are on your DESMOND course already! I have had to wait a few months for mine. You will keep learning as you go, but this is a good place to start.
 
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