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Guineapig Sarah

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Hello. I am prediabetic, tried to eat well (low carb) for nearly two years, lost two stone and the numbers haven't changed!! Drat!! Because of this the NHS gave me someone to advise me, I was guided to this forum and it really does look helpful as I have been reading bits before joining. Thank you for all the helpful comments and threads to members. I look forwards to being part of this community.
 
Hello @Guineapig Sarah, good to have you with us. We are a friendly bunch, full of lots of great advice and lived experiences. Well done on the weight loss. It’s disheartening the numbers having changed as a result but reassuring they haven’t increased either. Did they tell you what your blood test result is?
 
Two years ago I was 48 then 46 a couple of weeks later. This time I was 48 and then 45 in Feb. So not much different, but there is always hope! I have been trying to be low carb, the food bit of the forum has been really interesting.
 
Credit where credit is due though, to go from 48 down to 45 is nothing to dismiss. That’s brilliant progress. Don’t forget that the sugars took a long time to get to 48 in the first place. You’ve taken steps to reduce your risk which is paying off.

Yes lots of dietary support here and plenty of people have found low carb works for them. How long have you been trying a low carb diet. There’s lots of different amounts of low carb that people have each day. Are you measuring how much you’re having or just reducing what you’re consuming?
 
Hello. I have been trying a low carb diet for 15 months now. I probably need to be stricter still, I'm not sure. I try to keep my carbs to 50g per day, around there, but I don't count the carbs in veg or low sugar fruits and I don't know how careful other prediabetic people are. I was told by the NHS advisor person that whole grains and pulses are ok, so I have been eating more of those over the last few weeks but still not a lot....basically I am not sure what to do for the best. I read the Dr Cavan book 'Busting the Diabetes Myth' which is why I started the low carb diet. Is Dr Cavan the best advice? If he is then I think I need to be a bit more strict overall.
Thank you in advance for taking the time to respond, it is lovely to talk to others with this problem. I am literally the one and only in my family!!
 
Low carb usually works for many people but it depends on how you as an individual reacts to carbohydrates. When you say low carb how much do you aim at per day. It could be there are some particular foods which are higher carb than you can tolerate and to identify those may help get that HbA1C down.
Having a home blood glucose monitor can be very useful to find out both what it is OK to eat but what should be avoided.
Testing before you eat and after 2 hours will give you an indication that your meal is OK of the reading is no more than 8mmol/l
Have a look at this link for some ideas. https://lowcarbfreshwell.com/
 
Guineapig Sarah said:
Hello. I have been trying a low carb diet for 15 months now. I probably need to be stricter still, I'm not sure. I try to keep my carbs to 50g per day, around there, but I don't count the carbs in veg or low sugar fruits and I don't know how careful other prediabetic people are. I was told by the NHS advisor person that whole grains and pulses are ok, so I have been eating more of those over the last few weeks but still not a lot....basically I am not sure what to do for the best. I read the Dr Cavan book 'Busting the Diabetes Myth' which is why I started the low carb diet. Is Dr Cavan the best advice? If he is then I think I need to be a bit more strict overall.
Thank you in advance for taking the time to respond, it is lovely to talk to others with this problem. I am literally the one and only in my family!!
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That is pretty low carb for it not to have made more difference to your HbA1C.
You may need a different tack.
 
I was just going to mention that 50g per day for yourself who is at risk of diabetes (not living with diabetes) is really low. If anything I’d say you’re being super strict, cut yourself some slack. Worth mentioning, which you may already know, that carbs are our main source of energy. Our liver releases stored glucose to keep us going if we’re not getting enough from food, so might be worth increasing your daily carb intake. Any amount below 130g of carbs per day is considered a low carb diet so there’s room to increase your daily intake. Check out the Diabetes UK low l-carb meal planner for extra help too. There’s a pdf you can download too: https://www.diabetes.org.uk/guide-t...eating-with-diabetes/meal-plans/low-carb#plan
 
To keep my Hba1c in the low 40s I eat no more than 40gm of carbs a day, all from low carb veges and fruits.
I was unlucky in that I was left unaware of a high test result for 10 years. The GP dealt with it by not doing the test again but I suspect it left me deteriorating in my ability to deal with carbs year on year.
Although over 100 gm of carbs a day is considered good, not everyone can cope with that much.
I know I cannot cope with grains, and I have very small portions of peas and beans, because they seem to supply me with more glucose than their listed content.
I used a blood glucose tester to check my reaction to meals until I knew what I could eat.
 
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Thank you very much for your responses. I will look into blood glucose testers to find out how I respond to the different carby foods - beans, grains and so on. That should help me to refine my diet to help myself better. I didn't realise that bellow 130g per day is considered low carb, thanks for that info as well.
 
Guineapig Sarah said:
Thank you very much for your responses. I will look into blood glucose testers to find out how I respond to the different carby foods - beans, grains and so on. That should help me to refine my diet to help myself better. I didn't realise that bellow 130g per day is considered low carb, thanks for that info as well.
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A couple of monitors which are ones people find OK are the GlucoNavii, TEE2 and Contour Blue, the thing to look at is the price of the test strips rather than the monitor but all those are inexpensive bought on line and have the cheaper strips.
 
Keep us posted on how you get on. 🙂
 
Welcome to the forum @Guineapig Sarah

Well done on your low carb approach. Dr Cavan’s book has helped several members here.

I’m not sure quite what you are counting to get to your 50g, but it might be worth keeping a food diary where you keep track of everything including all fruits, wholegrains, pulses, and veggies.

As your overall carb intake reduces, the remaining carbs need to be counted a bit more carefully, as they begin to make up more of the whole - even things like root veg, tomatoes, milk, and even onions can start making a difference 😱

It may be that you are having a few more carbs than you realise, and you might have a bit more room for manoevre?
 
Guineapig Sarah said:
Hello. I am prediabetic, tried to eat well (low carb) for nearly two years, lost two stone and the numbers haven't changed!! Drat!! Because of this the NHS gave me someone to advise me, I was guided to this forum and it really does look helpful as I have been reading bits before joining. Thank you for all the helpful comments and threads to members. I look forwards to being part of this community.
Click to expand...
Hello and welcome to the Forum. You will certainly find a lot of help here. It has certainly helped me.

I went pre-diabetic in 2016, got back to normal but, unfortunately, it has crept back to 42. I was only ever able to get back to the higher side of normal despite cutting carbs and not even being overweight to start with. At 5 ft 7 in and 9 stone 2 lbs I was fine but after cutting the carbs I ended up 7 st 10 lbs. GP was horrified and told me to stop weight loss and not a factor. He thought it was increased insulin resistance as I was getting older.

What I did want to say to you though was you say you have been trying for two years. Mine actually, despite ending up underweight, ended up going up to 43 then back to 42. It took 3 years to come down to normal and then I could not get below 40. This could be a normal thing and you need to give yourself a little longer.

You are not diabetic so will probably not see a drastic reduction. I told the Diabetes Nurse at the surgery the other day that I wanted to get my hba1c to 30 to 35 and she felt I was being unrealistic now due to my age but just to see what i could do and be satisfied to get it back to normal. I saw her because, although the GPs were not too concerned, I was very upset and they arranged for me to have a chat to the DN.
 
Guineapig Sarah said:
Hello. I have been trying a low carb diet for 15 months now. I probably need to be stricter still, I'm not sure. I try to keep my carbs to 50g per day, around there, but I don't count the carbs in veg or low sugar fruits and I don't know how careful other prediabetic people are. I was told by the NHS advisor person that whole grains and pulses are ok, so I have been eating more of those over the last few weeks but still not a lot....basically I am not sure what to do for the best. I read the Dr Cavan book 'Busting the Diabetes Myth' which is why I started the low carb diet. Is Dr Cavan the best advice? If he is then I think I need to be a bit more strict overall.
Thank you in advance for taking the time to respond, it is lovely to talk to others with this problem. I am literally the one and only in my family!!
Click to expand...
I think Dr Cavan talks a lot of sense. Also Michael Moseley. You could try the freshwellowcarb project which a lot of people on here have mentioned. I had not heard of it but have looked at it and will give some of it a go.

Have you tried a blood glucose monitor which tells you how you suit particular foods. Could be an idea as everyone is different.

Vegetables should be OK apart from potatoes. I think some people struggle with parsnips too but I am OK with them.

Fruit you have to be more careful. Pineapple, melon, bananas, grapes are particularly high in sugar so you need to be careful there. Most seem to think apples, berries and a small amount of pears are OK.
 
Anna DUK said:
I was just going to mention that 50g per day for yourself who is at risk of diabetes (not living with diabetes) is really low. If anything I’d say you’re being super strict, cut yourself some slack. Worth mentioning, which you may already know, that carbs are our main source of energy. Our liver releases stored glucose to keep us going if we’re not getting enough from food, so might be worth increasing your daily carb intake. Any amount below 130g of carbs per day is considered a low carb diet so there’s room to increase your daily intake. Check out the Diabetes UK low l-carb meal planner for extra help too. There’s a pdf you can download too: https://www.diabetes.org.uk/guide-t...eating-with-diabetes/meal-plans/low-carb#plan
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Would agree with that. I wonder if going too low can sometimes make your body reject carbs and perhaps cause more problems. I am not a doctor or an expert so not really sure on that one.
 
Anna DUK said:
I was just going to mention that 50g per day for yourself who is at risk of diabetes (not living with diabetes) is really low. If anything I’d say you’re being super strict, cut yourself some slack. Worth mentioning, which you may already know, that carbs are our main source of energy. Our liver releases stored glucose to keep us going if we’re not getting enough from food, so might be worth increasing your daily carb intake. Any amount below 130g of carbs per day is considered a low carb diet so there’s room to increase your daily intake. Check out the Diabetes UK low l-carb meal planner for extra help too. There’s a pdf you can download too: https://www.diabetes.org.uk/guide-t...eating-with-diabetes/meal-plans/low-carb#plan
Click to expand...

It'll release stored glucose, but also make it as well, and does so when we are fasting during the night:

Gluconeogenesis - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

It's not carbs that are the energy source, but blood sugar, and this can be made without dietary carbs.
 
Maz2 said:
Would agree with that. I wonder if going too low can sometimes make your body reject carbs and perhaps cause more problems. I am not a doctor or an expert so not really sure on that one.
Click to expand...

It can. I believe it's called 'physiological insulin resistance' or 'glucose sparing'.
The pancreas also becomes less responsive to blood sugar rises. This is why before an oral glucose test, you are supposed to eat some carbs as it can give a false positive.

I notice that when I have 25g-30g or carbs for breakfast (Oats with my yoghurt) levels are generally a lot lower for the day (Using a CGM).
 
Hello. Thank you for all the information, it really helps me focus. I have bought a TEE2 test strip kit and read all the pamphlet, even watched a video. (Just arrived this morning) I want to find out how I respond to different carbs, grains, beans etc and I really need to know when to test before and after the food. Is it just before? Is it one or two hours after? I am simply looking to see if I digest things differently so I am really looking for before and after comparisons I think. Am I best comparing food at the same time each day? Eg porridge, or beans, or ryvita for breakfast? Am I best comparing a whole meal with all the food groups or isolating the one I am looking at?
I didn't realise apples were lower glycemic index - I have been learning a lot. Thank you for lowcarbfreshwell, this is a learning curve! Lots of good meal ideas too.
Thank you in advance for any answers to my questions. They may have been answered already somewhere else on the forum but I haven't found it.
 
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