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Please Remember: Members are only permitted to share their own experiences. Members are not qualified to give medical advice. Additionally, everyone manages their health differently. Please be respectful of other people's opinions about their own diabetes management.
Newbie on metformin
- Thread starter bimsbims
- Start date
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Drummer
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
If you are an ordinary type two then reducing the amount of carbohydrate in your diet will reduce your blood glucose levels. You really need a testing meter so you can see what you can eat, or not - the one I am using is the Tee 2 from Spirit Healthcare, as the strips are not expensive.
I eat twice a day, morning and evening, and have meat, fish seafood, eggs cheese, full fat Greek yoghurt, cream in my coffee and with small amounts of frozen berries a couple of times a week at most. I have low carb veges and salad, I buy Livlife bread, and a protein bread from Asda, as they are low carb with 4 gm of carbs per slice, though I don't eat much of it.
I eat twice a day, morning and evening, and have meat, fish seafood, eggs cheese, full fat Greek yoghurt, cream in my coffee and with small amounts of frozen berries a couple of times a week at most. I have low carb veges and salad, I buy Livlife bread, and a protein bread from Asda, as they are low carb with 4 gm of carbs per slice, though I don't eat much of it.
Toucan
Forum Host
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
So good that you have joined the forum, and as you can see from @Drummer there is plenty of help and knowledge here.
I can still remember that shock of first diagnosis, it really knocked me off my feet, and there is a lot of confusing information about what to do. We are all different and there is no ‘one size fits all’ and you need to find what right for you.
There are 3 main things to consider:
Firstly, healthy eating, and the right solution for you to lower your blood sugars, (and if you are overweight, loosing weight will help a lot.); Secondly increasing exercise, and thirdly the medication which you have already been subscribed.
There are several options on diets available, but many of us find that, as well as cutting out all the sugary things, cutting down on the carbs particularly the ‘white’ ones (white bread and flour,rice,pasta,etc ) does lower blood sugars.
Here are some links to some further sources of information:
Firstly there is the Diabetes UK Learning Zone, and there is a link to this at the top of the page.
If you want to know more about the Low-Carb way of eating then Maggie Davey's letter, shows how this lady approached the problem.
if you are considering getting a glucose meter then SD Gluco Navii is one that many people use, and test-review-adjust gives information on how to go about testing.
It does all take time to find what’s right for you and adjust your lifestyle, but please be patient, it will be very worthwhile.
Hope you will let us know how it goes for you and please ask about anything you are concerned about.
I can still remember that shock of first diagnosis, it really knocked me off my feet, and there is a lot of confusing information about what to do. We are all different and there is no ‘one size fits all’ and you need to find what right for you.
There are 3 main things to consider:
Firstly, healthy eating, and the right solution for you to lower your blood sugars, (and if you are overweight, loosing weight will help a lot.); Secondly increasing exercise, and thirdly the medication which you have already been subscribed.
There are several options on diets available, but many of us find that, as well as cutting out all the sugary things, cutting down on the carbs particularly the ‘white’ ones (white bread and flour,rice,pasta,etc ) does lower blood sugars.
Here are some links to some further sources of information:
Firstly there is the Diabetes UK Learning Zone, and there is a link to this at the top of the page.
If you want to know more about the Low-Carb way of eating then Maggie Davey's letter, shows how this lady approached the problem.
if you are considering getting a glucose meter then SD Gluco Navii is one that many people use, and test-review-adjust gives information on how to go about testing.
It does all take time to find what’s right for you and adjust your lifestyle, but please be patient, it will be very worthwhile.
Hope you will let us know how it goes for you and please ask about anything you are concerned about.
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Welcome to the forum @bimsbims
The talk of remission has really increased recently, thanks in large part to a big study (Newcastle diet / 800 calorie) which had success in BG outcomes in a significant proportion of participants. However, that is a dramatic intervention, and while results are positive (the amount of weight loss seems to be key) the ‘remission‘ described is what we have been seeing happen to forum members over many years, except we called it ’managing your diabetes’.
In the study it is defined as maintaining and HbA1c of 48mmol/L or lower with no diabetes medication.
Many members here have been able to achieve that for years using the ‘test, review, adjust’ approach linked above, along with a BG meter to tailor their menu and mealplans to suit their tastebuds, their metabolism and their BG. But this is a long term approach, not a quick fix-and-forget thing. Old eating habits could soon see BGs rising again.
The tricky thing is that different people react very differently to foods - even supposedly ‘healthy whole grain’ ones, so you need to conduct your own experiments to se which types of carb do and don’t suit you as an individual. It’s all down to the gut biome apparently!
Keep asking questions, and perhaps have a dip into the ‘Food and carb’ section for some ideas of swaps and meals others are using.
https://forum.diabetes.org.uk/boards/forums/food-carb-queries-recipes.4/ (the ‘what did you eat yesterday’ thread is a treasure trove of ideas)
The talk of remission has really increased recently, thanks in large part to a big study (Newcastle diet / 800 calorie) which had success in BG outcomes in a significant proportion of participants. However, that is a dramatic intervention, and while results are positive (the amount of weight loss seems to be key) the ‘remission‘ described is what we have been seeing happen to forum members over many years, except we called it ’managing your diabetes’.
In the study it is defined as maintaining and HbA1c of 48mmol/L or lower with no diabetes medication.
Many members here have been able to achieve that for years using the ‘test, review, adjust’ approach linked above, along with a BG meter to tailor their menu and mealplans to suit their tastebuds, their metabolism and their BG. But this is a long term approach, not a quick fix-and-forget thing. Old eating habits could soon see BGs rising again.
The tricky thing is that different people react very differently to foods - even supposedly ‘healthy whole grain’ ones, so you need to conduct your own experiments to se which types of carb do and don’t suit you as an individual. It’s all down to the gut biome apparently!
Keep asking questions, and perhaps have a dip into the ‘Food and carb’ section for some ideas of swaps and meals others are using.
https://forum.diabetes.org.uk/boards/forums/food-carb-queries-recipes.4/ (the ‘what did you eat yesterday’ thread is a treasure trove of ideas)
Pine Marten
Well-Known Member
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Hi @bimsbims, and welcome to the forum.
I've nothing to add to the previous excellent advice either, except to echo that cutting out or reducing carbs is the main thing. As the others have said, everyone reacts differently, so testing with a meter is vital if you are to find out what effects different foods have on you. Keeping a food diary is helpful, so that you can see trends and adjust accordingly.
There are loads of tasty and interesting recipes to try even if you're not a cook (I'm not!) and often it's a matter of substituting low carb versions for the usual - eg., almond or coconut flour for regular flour - and eating more green leafy veg and good quality meat, fish, eggs, cheese.
Exercise is important too and losing weight if necessary. Have a read around the forums and get to know us, we're here to help 🙂
I've nothing to add to the previous excellent advice either, except to echo that cutting out or reducing carbs is the main thing. As the others have said, everyone reacts differently, so testing with a meter is vital if you are to find out what effects different foods have on you. Keeping a food diary is helpful, so that you can see trends and adjust accordingly.
There are loads of tasty and interesting recipes to try even if you're not a cook (I'm not!) and often it's a matter of substituting low carb versions for the usual - eg., almond or coconut flour for regular flour - and eating more green leafy veg and good quality meat, fish, eggs, cheese.
Exercise is important too and losing weight if necessary. Have a read around the forums and get to know us, we're here to help 🙂
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