Newbie needing advice please

[JaneyM]

Hi. Diagnosed Type 2 in November. Just into the range for diabetes. Doc simply said ‘It can be fixed by diet.’ No more information, no meds. Just begun a six week Diabetes Education course. Haven’t had another blood test yet, although I may ask for one this week.

I thought reducing carbs, cutting out sugar, would do the trick. Now I’m told not to cut the carbs too low.

I need to lose weight. Have lost 6lb since November- pretty pathetic . Trouble is my social life is all about meals out, coffee and cake (which I rarely touch now). And I’m an emotional eater. I’ve always struggled with my weight but now it seems impossible to lose.

I think I was tipped over the edge from pre-diabetes by having to stop most exercise for six months because of a still-undiagnosed problem with my leg/hip. Gradually getting back to exercise but my ageing body (64) isn’t that keen the day after a session.

Is the weight loss the most important thing? Any advice? The teacher on the course says not to calorie count. But I think I’ll have to.

Also, should I be testing my blood glucose? No-one else is. What monitor should I buy?

 

[Docb]

Hi JaneyM. The thing I have found in diabetes management is that there are no absolutes but there are some generalities . Two which stand out are that getting your weight down is a good thing and that carbohydrate intake is important. Getting you weight into a "normal" range will have general benefits to health as well as giving your system a better chance of controlling blood glucose without intervention with medication. Controlling your carbohydrate intake will mean the body will produce less glucose and that means less work for your system in controlling it. Taking the two together, changing your diet to reduce carb content and loose a bit of weight is therefore a sensible way to go. You need to think about ALL carbohydrate, not just sugar. Another thing is that different people will cope with different things. Some will treat diabetes as an exciting challenge, others will treat it as an impossible burden and most will be somewhere in between.

Looks like you have just crept into the diabetes category because your GP is talking diet and not pills. I assume this is on the basis of a HBA!C measurement. Do you know what it was was? Personally, knowing what I know now, I would target reducing carb content of meals to loose weight (lower carbs will also mean fewer calories) and check progress on the bathroom scales. I would then be looking for another HBA1C in a few months time to see what was happening to your blood glucose. Personally I would not be monitoring blood glucose in your position unless you are in the exciting challenge category. The HBA1C will tell you what you need to know. If you had an HBA1C of 80 and spot readings of 20 then I would be thinking differently.

Hope that is a starter.

 

[JaneyM]

Thanks for the advice. I was thinking I’d rather not go down the testing route if I don’t have to. My HbA1c was only 51 and I hope that by cutting out sugar and “white carbs” and reducing consumption of others I’ll already have made a difference. Should be tested again in May, so fingers crossed. Might have lost another few lbs by then too - although I struggle with losing weight. I know all the theory, just don’t often put it into practice .

 

[Docb]

I ran for years in the 50's and it is now that I realise that it was due to keeping my weight under control and cutting out the obvious carbs. Eventually the diabetes fairy caught up with me and things went a bit squiffy but holding her off for 11 years can only have been a good thing. You should be in "the system" and get annual checks. Don't miss those even if you seem to be doing OK because that damned fairy hasn't gone, she's just plaguing somebody else.

 

[Drummer]

With a Hba1c of only 51 you are in the lower foothills and heading for the car park and home.
Just watch out for all the 'healthy' high carb options we are sold - my fruit intake is frozen berries a couple of times a week, but if you just avoid the highest carb ones like bananas you should be able to eat some fruit every day - I'd advise testing for a few months as although my diabetes education team said that potatoes and beans were absolutely fine my meter showed that they were very much a bad idea.
Some people are lucky and their meter shows them that they can eat some higher carb foods - mine showed me that I could not cope with any of the usual suspects, bread, potatoes, starchy veges, rice pasta etc, but a few times a year I have Yorkshire puddings made with lots of eggs and cream and bread flour mixed with water, and don't even go over 6mmol/l which is pretty astonishing.