Newbie T2 struggling with dietary changes

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Paula Lancett

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hi everyone
Was diagnosed in May and have managed to bring my blood sugars down really well but I'm not doing so well with my cholesterol.

I don't really eat the old traditional gravy dinner type meals not being much of a fan of veggies and much prefer pasta based dishes. Struggling with the `5 a day` as I'm not much of a fruit eater either. The thought of filling my plate half full of veg makes me not want to eat at all!

How have other people managed with making changes to their diet and do you have any suggestions for me?

Many thanks
Paula
 
Hi Paula. Welcome. You've joined for me 1 year aniversay of being diagnosed. I'd made changes before I knew I was diabetic. Cut out all crisps, biscuites, cake, pies.
What do you think of tomatoes? They go with pasta.
 
Paula - what actually are your cholesterol figures?

Only asking because they panic about these, these days, whereas sometimes they aren't actually dangerous. LDL of itself isn't dangerous at all - in fact it's very very necessary. The potentially dangerous thing is if it becomes excessive and out of proper balance compared to the other two components of our total chol. Reducing the amount of fat we consume won't affect your chol readings - it doesn't. However - certain fats aren't at all good for anybody anyway, so have a read up about that - there are reams written about it.

However - if you want to reduce your LDL, normalise your Trigs and increase your HDL (which are the things we all do really want! LOL) - the quickest and easiest way by far is to reduce the amount of carbohydrates we eat!

Oh - and protein keeps you fuller for a lot longer than carbohydrate does, anyway. You haven't mentioned protein other than to say you don't enjoy a meat and 2 veg meal. Neither do most Indians! LOL - so it isn't necessary to like it!

But your diet needs to be balanced - so you need to eat protein, fruit and veg, carbohydrate and fat - but none of them to the exclusion of anything else, and none of them in excess. And eg green veg tend to have a lot less carb than roots; berries have a lot less than other fruits - etc.
 
Hi Paula
Soup is a good way to get veggies in without really noticing too much, as is vegetable tomato sauce for pasta. I love vegetables but would cry if someone sat me down to a plate with meat and three veg, it's just so boring 😱. So here are some of my favourite ways to get veg, I've mentioned soup, roasted vegetables in tomatoe sauce with pasta (make your own sauce otherwise it will probably be full of sugar), homemade vegetable burgers, vegetable lasagne, roasted vegetable quiche (made with almond crust instead of normal pastry so high protein too), stir fried chicken with ginger and garlic on a bed of courgette spaghetti (more about that one in a minute), avocado spread instead of butter on toast (blitz avocado in a food processor add a bit of salt and pepper and a bit of lime juice and it's a creamy spread), aubergine Parmesan which I make and freeze in those takeaway containers so they're like a nice ready meal and a pizza I make that has cauliflower in the crust. Then there's snacks, carrot sticks, or any raw veg with hummus or peanut butter make a good snack and you can barely taste the veg it just gives good crunch 🙂. If you like pasta you may like the spiralizer concept, which is just a trendy name for a winding grater really, but as it turns out courgettes makes very respectable spaghetti shapes which if served with a pasta sauce give a similar effect to pasta. If you like Italian food then there's lots of good veggie options in most good Italian cookbooks because the Italians use vegetables like I would as an integral part of the dish rather than as a side. Hope my random ramblings help a little bit :D
 
Hi Paula, welcome to the forum. How about a veggie pasta sauce or pasta bake. That way the veggies are quite well hidden and not taking over your plate. I'm quite lucky I love veg. I made load of changes to my diet before finding out about my diabetes to help me lose weight. Hope you manage to find a good solution that works for you.
 
Thanks for all your replies. I'd been to a Desmonds session and was feeling quite depressed by it rather than it being helpful!
My levels on diagnosis were 5.1 and are now 5.2 with my HDL at 1.2 so not a massive concern (as far as I'm aware) but I would like to try and improve it before being put on statins (no problem with having them If I need them tho - I'm not in the anti statin camp).
I think I may have been over compensating with carbs/fats as I've got my sugar levels down from 79 to 45 by making changes to my diet and taking metformin twice a day.
Thanks for the recipe tips I will definitely try them out and I'll be watching my portion control.
I guess I need to get my cook books out and stop relying on Asda to do it for me!
 
I did note In Tesco's recently when I happened to actually look at the stuff on the 'prepared veg' counter (I don't need to pay extra for someone else to cut up a carrot for me LOL) that they had 'spiralised' butternut squash, amongst other things, and did think to myself that would be a jolly good idea to buy for someone to try it, and the basis if you don't own a spiraliser, and obviously you may not even like it when all's said and done, it could work out a bit expensive for starters in comparison to the price of the veg.

No idea if Asda have a similar counter as I hardly ever go near one (I mean there isn't one anywhere near, not that I'm avoiding it! LOL) but it's certainly worth looking in there for it, I think!
 
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