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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.
Hi My Name is Tony, Im 48, recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, im trying my best to get my head around everything, but have found it difficult researching online as you seem to get conflicting stories on what to do and whats good and not good to eat.
I am determined to lose the weight and put my diabetes into remission, i am under no illusion that it will be a hard long journey, but that is my ultimate goal.
Everything in moderation, but aim for an active healthy lifestyle over the temptation of takeaways and couch potato. .. small steps at first and don't stress. Good luck.
Hi, Tony. Sorry you've had to join us but welcome to the forum. Yes, there is a lot of conflicting info online but at least you're here and able to ask questions and get advice from people wno are managing their diabetes day-to-day.
Would you like to share some info - HbA1c, any diabetes meds prescribed?
The issue of diet is indeed the hardest thing to get a handle on due to the range of approaches that are advised. If you're planning to lose weight though you have some time to decide on your long-term approach to diet - in the meantime you can't go wrong by cutting down on both carbs and fats. The day you hit your target weight is the time when you'll have to decide on where to get your calories from to maintain your weight in the long term.
I'm nearing my own weight target now roughly 6 months since I was diagnosed. So far I've lost over 4 stone and I've seen huge improvements in my blood glucose levels. The approach I took was calorie counting and gradually increasing exercise - as much walking as I could do in a week without pain in my ankles and shins. I did not go low-carb in any meaningful way for the first few months as I was focussed purely on calories, though in retrospect I could and probably should have taken carbs into account more from the beginning.
If the simplicity of a very low calorie diet appeals to you then many people have had success with the Newcastle Diet - a variant of which is now offered by NHS England as the Path To Remission programme - this booklet outlines the approach: Link
If you can't see yourself living on meal replacement soups and shakes for months then I would suggest an app or device for calorie counting (which also counts carbs). I myself used a smart food scale which came with an app with a built-in food diary - the one I bought was made by Arboleaf, currently £29 on Amazon, though there are many alternatives. The advantage of that is being able to quickly weigh fruit and veg for example and have the app calculate and track the calories and carbs. If you already own a kitchen weighing scales then the free version of an app like MyFitnessPal will do the same job of calculating and tracking calories and carbs. My approach was to track everything I was eating, use the data to eliminate the worst foods and meals from my shopping list, make adjustments to portion sizes or find good alternative meals, and kept doing this until I hit my target weight-loss rate. It took around six weeks to hit my target rate of 1Kg per week for two weeks in a row. Once I hit that rate I stopped tracking everything as I had all the information I needed in the food diary in my app - I just kept buying and eating the shopping list that got me to my target weight-loss rate.
Many others have had success with weight loss by adopting a low-carb diet without any food tracking. If tracking food intake does not appeal to you then just cutting way down on carbs will probably work, though to achieve rapid weight loss I would suggest going easy on high-fat foods like cheese and butter until you hit your target weight.
Hello and welcome. Excellent replies above. The thing is, every person is different, so what one person can eat, may not be suitable for another. That's why so much of the information seems conflicting, and you have to work out what suits you best.
The best tips that worked for me:
Work your way through the Learning Zone
Test immediately before and 2 hours after first bite (to see the effect certain foods have on you). I stopped this once I worked out what suited me, and I just test for new foods now
Get a food tracking app and use it first thing each morning to plan your day (I use NutraCheck)
Slowly reduce your daily carb intake to 130gm or below (too quickly can have a temporary effect on your eyes)
Moderation not abstinence (nobody's that disciplined or perfect)
Don't beat yourself up if you have a bad day!
I will just put my two pennyworth in and point you to this link which man/y have found successful in reducing blood glucose and losing weight, developed by a GP surgery who found the standard NHS advice did not work. It is suitable if you are adopting diet only or diet plus metformin, any other medication you may need to be more cautious. https://lowcarbfreshwell.com/
Hi My Name is Tony, Im 48, recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, im trying my best to get my head around everything, but have found it difficult researching online as you seem to get conflicting stories on what to do and whats good and not good to eat.
I am determined to lose the weight and put my diabetes into remission, i am under no illusion that it will be a hard long journey, but that is my ultimate goal.
Hi Tony, I too have recently been given the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes and I agree its a minefield of information out there! I have always thought I ate well, had a healthy diet and moderately exercised, however, I am still very overweight. After undergoing a series of blood tests for a short illness, my blood sugars have spiked from 45 to 66 and now 110 ! I now have to do the finger pricks and test my blood 3 x a day for a whole month as my pancreas is not doing as it should.
I will join you on your journey x (I have just been writing down different foods that it says I am allowed, then trying to make something exciting 🙂 haha xxSarahxx
Just a quick question, while i'm online.... I have a blood testing machine ( what is a normal reading?) What should I be?
Last night it was 7.2 This morning 19.4 Lunch 24.4 Dinner 20.2 what does this all mean compared to HbA1c ?
I don't have an appointment until June 4th any simplified advice would be gratefully recieved
Hi Tony, I too have recently been given the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes and I agree its a minefield of information out there! I have always thought I ate well, had a healthy diet and moderately exercised, however, I am still very overweight. After undergoing a series of blood tests for a short illness, my blood sugars have spiked from 45 to 66 and now 110 ! I now have to do the finger pricks and test my blood 3 x a day for a whole month as my pancreas is not doing as it should.
I will join you on your journey x (I have just been writing down different foods that it says I am allowed, then trying to make something exciting 🙂 haha xxSarahxx
Illness can increase blood glucose but if you have had to take steroids then they are renowned for raising blood glucose significantly in some people. That does sound to be a substantial increase in your HbA1C. Have you been prescribed any medication?
With blood glucose so high you would be advised to keep an eye out for ketones if your finger prick readings are in the high teens. You can get urine dip sticks to use to test as high ketones and high blood glucose puts you at risk of DKA which would need immediate medical attention.
Who has said what foods you are allowed?
Many will be guided by their monitor by checking what foods are tolerated by testing before eating and after 2 hours when an increase of no more than 3mmol/l indicated your meal is OK.
We can help with some menu suggestions if you say if you are on any medication as that will affect what is safe.
Just a quick question, while i'm online.... I have a blood testing machine ( what is a normal reading?) What should I be?
Last night it was 7.2 This morning 19.4 Lunch 24.4 Dinner 20.2 what does this all mean compared to HbA1c ?
I don't have an appointment until June 4th any simplified advice would be gratefully recieved
The readings you get form your monitor are a moment in time and will go up and down throughout the day and night in response to the food you eat, exercise, stress, illness and lots of other actors but mainly food. the units are in mmol/l. An HbA1C simply is an average of blood glucose over the previous 3 months and the units are mmol/mol. They measure something different but the higher your HbA1C, the higher your finger prick readings are likely to be.
What is the aim once people start to manage their condition is 4-7mmol/l fasting/ morning reading and before meals and 8mmol/l 2 hours after eating. However when newly diagnosed people may well be nowhere near that. People then look for their tolerance to their meals by aiming at no more than an increase of 2-3mmol/l and by doing that readings overall will start to come down as they find meals which don't cause excess blood glucose.
Those readings you mention when are they taken.
Keeping good record, a food diary of what you are eating and your blood glucose reading will be useful for your appointment.
It is the carbohydrates which convert to glucose so reducing those is important.
Just a quick question, while i'm online.... I have a blood testing machine ( what is a normal reading?) What should I be?
Last night it was 7.2 This morning 19.4 Lunch 24.4 Dinner 20.2 what does this all mean compared to HbA1c ?
I don't have an appointment until June 4th any simplified advice would be gratefully recieved
You would need 10-12 weeks of finger prick readings to be able to make any meaningful comparison with HbA1c, and even then it would only give you a rough idea of where you might be. Having said that, if the readings are just random then they don't tell you anything meaningful anyway - you need a testing regime and you then stick to it, ie
Test on waking (not literally, although some have done so) - this is a fasting test as you won't have eaten or drunk anything overnight. Test as soon as possible after getting up, and don't eat or drink anything until you've tested. The target range is to be between 4 and 7.
Test just before eating and then again 2 hours later. The target range for pre-meal is also to be between 4 and 7, and the target for post-meal is to be below 8.5 and no more than 3 higher than pre-meal. This will tell you how well your body coped with what you had to eat. Above 8.5, or more than 3 higher, indicates that whatever you ate was too high in carbs and a cut in portion size might be in order, or in a worst-case scenario don't have it again.
It also pays to keep a food diary and record what you've eaten and then what your pre- and post-meal readings were. This is how we sort out our diets. My food diary has so many entries in it that I no longer test after some meals as it would be a waste of lancets and test strips.
Glad you have both joined us! Hope you find it helpful to compare notes with our friendly and experienced members.
As @Felinia suggested, setting up an account with the learning zone (orange tab in the main menu) can be a great way to get a good grounding in the basics.
There’s no one approach to eating that suits everyone and their diabetes. You sort of have to work out what works for you and gives you the results you are looking for 🙂
There are a variety of different meal plans here that might give you a few ideas?
Eating nutritious, healthy and downright delicious food is that bit easier with our meal planners. We've created multiple different weekly meal plans to suit all types and tastes. They're nutritionally balanced, are calorie and carb counted, and can help if you want to lose weight. They also...
