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Newcastle in USA

Trenton Tony

Trenton Tony

Active Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Hi everyone I'm doing the Newcastle thing in the US. No one knows it about it here and none of the products are available here either. Only option I have is to use things like Ensure which is like a weight-loss product for fats. Starting point for a1c was 10.3.

Today is day 1:
268 lbs
138 fbg

Just about to drink my first Ensure!
 
I also (RE)started my plan today, and at a very similar weight to you (118 kilos to your 121). Here's to becoming ex-fatties 🙂
 
beating_my_betes said:
I also (RE)started my plan today, and at a very similar weight to you (118 kilos to your 121). Here's to becoming ex-fatties 🙂
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Hahaha.

My Doc said 90% of his patients are 50 something fat guys with gray hear.

You're the first person who's ever told me my weight in kilograms.

Now I think about it 121 sounds a LOT better than 268, so I might just go with KGs from now on.
 
Trenton Tony said:
My Doc said 90% of his patients are 50 something fat guys with gray hear.
Click to expand...

Well, Im a 50-something fatty, but I have grey hair (I've been reliably informed that's pretty similar 😉 )

Trenton Tony said:
Now I think about it 121 sounds a LOT better than 268, so I might just go with KGs from now on.
Click to expand...

Just remember to switch back to lbs when telling others how much weight you've lost 😉

--
 
Trenton Tony said:
Now I think about it 121 sounds a LOT better than 268, so I might just go with KGs from now on.
Click to expand...
If you go to stones you can cut it down more, 19 stone 2
 
Trenton Tony said:
Hi everyone I'm doing the Newcastle thing in the US. No one knows it about it here and none of the products are available here either. Only option I have is to use things like Ensure which is like a weight-loss product for fats. Starting point for a1c was 10.3.

Today is day 1:
268 lbs
138 fbg

Just about to drink my first Ensure!
Click to expand...

Welcome to the forum @Trenton Tony

Hope it goes well, a few members have had success with the soup/shake Newcastle approach over the years

@pjgtech has recently had great success with it, and @Kreator was one of our first members to try the programme.

You’ll find several accounts documented in the T2 Remission section

forum.diabetes.org.uk

Community - Chat with People about Remission

forum.diabetes.org.uk forum.diabetes.org.uk
 
Good luck with it and keep us updated on progress.

I was on the soups and shakes diet for 12 weeks, limited to 800 cals per day, (my last day on the diet was Christmas Eve 2024!). I lost 30+lb and 8" off my waist, so it can be done.
My HbA1c is now in "normal" range and my average BG levels are also in the "normal" range, so its working for me (so far).

Beware on a very low cal diet, you will probably have very low energy, so be careful about how much you exert yourself!

I hated the soups, so was basically stuck with the shakes, but I ended up quite liking them after 4 per day for 12 weeks.
I did allow myself a small treat every now and again, eg: few nuts (almonds, pecans or walnuts) or few berries or a couple of grapes, or an apple and occasionally a small salad, but I basically stuck to the diet for about 95% of the time.

You will have good and bad days, but you gotta look at the long term goal, eg: significant weight loss which help with better all round health going forward, less weight to carry round, less stress on the joints and organs, lower risk of major diseases, possibly lower blood pressure, etc and (obviously) maybe remission from diabetes. It will be worth it, short term pain for long term gain. You can do it.... 😎
 
Trenton Tony said:
Just about to drink my first Ensure!
Click to expand...

Not sure quite sure what is involved in the Ensure mixture, but occasionally we’ve had discussions about weight loss shakes vs Total Meal Replacements.

The idea of the soups/shakes offered by the NHS is that they are intended to be nutritionally complete within their 800 calories.

You can approach the programme using real foods of course - some members here use Cronometer to keep track of the nutrients their menu is providing. If you’ve experimented with a vegan menu you may be used to keeping tabs on your protein input for example?
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
Welcome to the forum @Trenton Tony

Hope it goes well, a few members have had success with the soup/shake Newcastle approach over the years

@pjgtech has recently had great success with it, and @Kreator was one of our first members to try the programme.

You’ll find several accounts documented in the T2 Remission section

forum.diabetes.org.uk

Community - Chat with People about Remission

forum.diabetes.org.uk forum.diabetes.org.uk
Click to expand...
Thank you for the direction. Many of your posts in the path have really helped me get back to Earth over the weekend.
 
pjgtech said:
Good luck with it and keep us updated on progress.

I was on the soups and shakes diet for 12 weeks, limited to 800 cals per day, (my last day on the diet was Christmas Eve 2024!). I lost 30+lb and 8" off my waist, so it can be done.
My HbA1c is now in "normal" range and my average BG levels are also in the "normal" range, so its working for me (so far).

Beware on a very low cal diet, you will probably have very low energy, so be careful about how much you exert yourself!

I hated the soups, so was basically stuck with the shakes, but I ended up quite liking them after 4 per day for 12 weeks.
I did allow myself a small treat every now and again, eg: few nuts (almonds, pecans or walnuts) or few berries or a couple of grapes, or an apple and occasionally a small salad, but I basically stuck to the diet for about 95% of the time.

You will have good and bad days, but you gotta look at the long term goal, eg: significant weight loss which help with better all round health going forward, less weight to carry round, less stress on the joints and organs, lower risk of major diseases, possibly lower blood pressure, etc and (obviously) maybe remission from diabetes. It will be worth it, short term pain for long term gain. You can do it.... 😎
Click to expand...
Thank you.

Day 1 seems to be going OK.

Not hungry yet today.

But I suspect all will change in a 3 hours when my stomach is normally expecting a cheese steak and fries but gets an Ensure vanilla flavour and a bowl of broccolli instead.!!
 
Tony - what on earth is a cheese steak, please? IT can't be both cheese and meat. Does it just mean a beef steak with cheese on top, or what?

Comparisons between UK and US measurements are all batty, some are bigger numbers and some smaller - ISTR even the amount of a gallon is different and recipes have always driven me bats since you quote things in cups and we don't - always been the weight of ingredients and it was quite a while before I could convert 'what I knew already' from ounces/pounds/stones to grams/kilograms. Still can't do that easily.
 
trophywench said:
Tony - what on earth is a cheese steak, please? IT can't be both cheese and meat. Does it just mean a beef steak with cheese on top, or what?

Comparisons between UK and US measurements are all batty, some are bigger numbers and some smaller - ISTR even the amount of a gallon is different and recipes have always driven me bats since you quote things in cups and we don't - always been the weight of ingredients and it was quite a while before I could convert 'what I knew already' from ounces/pounds/stones to grams/kilograms. Still can't do that easily.
Click to expand...

Thank you! Cheese steak is thinly sliced chopped up steak with provolone cheese on a long white roll.

I've been eating them for 5 decades, but its in my past now.
 
Day 2
265 lbs
142 fbg

Day 1 was hard but not as tough as I expected. Once I mentally accepted that dinner was just a shake an broccoli it was OK. Work up with surprisingly good energy. Used my monitor for the first time and bit surprised that it actually rose from the original test.
 
The monitor is measuring Blood Glucose levels which wander up and down throughout the day and night so it is constantly changing. 142 is 7.9mmols/l so not too bad at all considering your HbA1c is in the 80s.
Was this a fasting reading and when did you take it? It can make a significant difference between taking it as soon as you wake up, before you get out of bed and taking it half an hour later when you are up ad dressed and having a coffee. Our liver acts a bit like a back up battery for when we don't have any food digesting and releasing glucose into our blood and first thing on a morning when we have fasted all night, our liver starts to pump out extra glucose from it's stores to give us energy for the day ahead. This surge of glucose is referred to as Dawn Phenomenon or sometimes Foot on the Floor Syndrome as sometimes it starts in the early hours before we wake up (DP) and sometimes it waits until we wake up and swing our legs out of bed and onto the floor (FOTF). I am insulin dependant and if I didn't inject insulin to cover it, my levels can rise by as much as 6mmols (108mg/dl) in the first hour after getting up as a result of FOTF. It is believed it is a throw back to prehistoric times when we needed energy to hunt or gather our first meal of the day, but obviously it doesn't take nearly as much energy to walk into the kitchen and open the fridge. People without diabetes also experience it, but their body releases enough insulin to cover it, so it is only really us people with diabetes who see a rise because our body is not able to efficiently balance our BG levels. Physical and emotional stress can also cause the liver to release more glucose, which is why very strenuous exercise can cause levels to rise whilst more gentle exercise will usually cause it to drop. Not that strenuous exercise doesn't have benefits in the long run for diabetes, but it can sometimes be discouraging to see a rise when you are really working physically and expecting levels to drop. Walking is probably one of the best exercises for lowering BG levels and costs nothing. Gardening is also really good for dropping your BG levels.

Anyway, what I intended to say was that BG levels go up and down a lot in response to all sorts of things (there are something like 42 factors which impact your levels but the main 3 are probably food, exercise and medication). The difference between your readings of 138 and 142mg/dl are negligible and well within the error margin of your test kit, so don't worry about these minir day to day fluctuations but develop a strategy of testing regularly at the same time in your day ie when you wake up even if it is 7am one day and 9am another or after you are up and dressed and about to have coffee and compare like with like and look for a general downward trend over weeks and months and ignore the day to day wavering of it. Hope that makes sense. 1 day down, good luck with Day 2!
 
As the post above from @rebrascora says, there are quite a few things that can affect your BG levels, see attached chart. Hope the info is useful to you, and so you don't panic if your BG goes up and down a bit, its normal, (whatever normal is?) and does not stay the same all the time, Cheers
 

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Trenton Tony said:
Thank you! Cheese steak is thinly sliced chopped up steak with provolone cheese on a long white roll.

I've been eating them for 5 decades, but its in my past now.
Click to expand...
The good news is that you can still eat the cheese and beef.
 
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