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Newly diagnosed last week.

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NotWorriedAtAll

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Type 2
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Hello,
I was diagnosed last week with Type 2 and I immediately leapt into action online and found what seemed to be a brilliant resource called the low carb program.

It seemed to be offering a very pared down service (food planning and food diary) free of charge and said it would be around twenty quid to get the full monty if one was inclined to get all the other bells and whistles. I was thinking about it but it also said that you might be able to get a voucher from the NHS instead of paying - so as I have my first appointment at the diabetic clinic next week I thought I'd stay with the free option to start with until I found out if I was eligible for the voucher.

So far so good. Taking my Metformin as prescribed
Sticking to my low carb diet and filling in my food diary
Added loads of personal data into the app.

Then today I logon to find all my access to my data has been blocked and all I get is a subscribe page offering options of around £70 a year or £14.99 a month.

Which is a bit disappointing. I was hoping to be able to print out my food diary (every single thing I've eaten listed in minute detail for a whole week and it was a lot of work doing that) to take to my diabetic clinic and there were nice graphs and everything showing my carbs and proteins and fat intake.

I liked the app but this sudden block of access and demand for money (which appears to have gone up a lot from £20-ish a year makes me feel quite nervous about giving them my card details etc and I am anxious about them having control of my personal data too.

Does anyone know anything about this site to help put my mind at rest - or not?
https://www.lowcarbprogram.com/
 
It's the sort of thing that irritates me no end. Somebody trying to make money out of you drags you in - ok fair enough they are a business - but does not tell you anywhere near the whole story at the outset. No doubt in their terms and conditions, somewhere around clause 155 there will be some convoluted sentence telling you that after a couple of weeks further access would be denied without payment and your data would be blocked. There is also a fair chance that they have been mining your phone for all that info you have been loading up together with whatever else they can find and although that won't do you any harm they will be using it to compile large data sets which they can make money on. Not a business worth dealing with and I would write off the data, learn from the experience and go nowhere near that company again - and be wary of anyother "app" which seems to solve all your problems for free.

Faced with the same issue - data recording - I got a notebook and dug out my old Mont Blanc pen. Everything goes in there, it sits on my desk next to my bg test kit. Its my data and is only accessible to those who need to know. I then put some of the data into a spreadsheet so I can see trends graphically. Periodically I print out the graphs and stick them in the note book. I then take the book to appointments. Its as easy to cart about as a phone and two of you can look at the data at the same time!

I wonder, what do other people do to keep records?
 
I know that it's the brainchild of Warwick University Medical School, the one 'attached' to University Hospital Cov and Warwick and that yes, similar to their previous T2 course, either you or the NHS have to pay for it. Except the previous one, individuals couldn't access it except via their GP. How good bad or indifferent it is, I don't know.

Question from me - have you cleared your Cookies recently?
 
Don't worry about it - quite honestly, someone somewhere always finds an angle to 'help' - particularly if it involves you giving them money.
In just a few weeks you will be fully converted to low carb living, have a good idea what to eat and what to avoid, and you could do the whole thing of shopping meals etc using a small notebook you can keep in a pocket for reference, and you have already noticed how much time it takes up to use the app.
If your health care works like mine no one has the slightest interest in low carb, what your blood glucose level is or anything like that.
I am not minimizing the importance of getting back to normal - but for me it has been far easier to just do it in the simplest way - a couple of shopping lists from the time I was eating 50 gm of carbs a day for controlling my weight and getting used to the meals I can make from those foods.
 
NotWorriedAtAll said:
Hello,
I was diagnosed last week with Type 2 and I immediately leapt into action online and found what seemed to be a brilliant resource called the low carb program.

It seemed to be offering a very pared down service (food planning and food diary) free of charge and said it would be around twenty quid to get the full monty if one was inclined to get all the other bells and whistles. I was thinking about it but it also said that you might be able to get a voucher from the NHS instead of paying - so as I have my first appointment at the diabetic clinic next week I thought I'd stay with the free option to start with until I found out if I was eligible for the voucher.

So far so good. Taking my Metformin as prescribed
Sticking to my low carb diet and filling in my food diary
Added loads of personal data into the app.

Then today I logon to find all my access to my data has been blocked and all I get is a subscribe page offering options of around £70 a year or £14.99 a month.

Which is a bit disappointing. I was hoping to be able to print out my food diary (every single thing I've eaten listed in minute detail for a whole week and it was a lot of work doing that) to take to my diabetic clinic and there were nice graphs and everything showing my carbs and proteins and fat intake.

I liked the app but this sudden block of access and demand for money (which appears to have gone up a lot from £20-ish a year makes me feel quite nervous about giving them my card details etc and I am anxious about them having control of my personal data too.

Does anyone know anything about this site to help put my mind at rest - or not?
https://www.lowcarbprogram.com/
Click to expand...

It's an initiative of what is sometimes referred to here as the "Red Place" - https://www.diabetes.co.uk/ A for-profit diabetes tools/info/forum operation, with a rather narrow focus on low-carb approaches.

There was a puff piece on them the other day in Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/nichol...e-diabetes-in-10-million-people/#5c7b42b1487b Kind of thing in my experience which suggests the company is trying to raise capital.
 
So its from a University TW. Another thing that irritates me, using public money to develop something and then making private money exploiting the development. All the universities are at it one way ore another.
 
Thanks for the replies. I am now better informed 🙂
I was enjoying using the part of the site that told you exactly how many grams of fat/carbs/proteins were in all the foods I was using - it even drilled down to different brands of products. I might end up buying it if it turns out to be legit and just not very good at presenting itself as trustworthy. It is a silly way to try and sell a service - by behaving like a scammer and hijacking someone's data so crudely.
 
NotWorriedAtAll said:
Thanks for the replies. I am now better informed 🙂
I was enjoying using the part of the site that told you exactly how many grams of fat/carbs/proteins were in all the foods I was using - it even drilled down to different brands of products. I might end up buying it if it turns out to be legit and just not very good at presenting itself as trustworthy. It is a silly way to try and sell a service - by behaving like a scammer and hijacking someone's data so crudely.
Click to expand...
The carbs and Cals book or app for your phone is fairly comprehensive, but it would require you to keep a record of things yourself. I found a paper log book certainly helped me at the start to see patterns, I know others set up spreadsheets. I guess some of these packages are just doing these bits for you.
 
I started off with a spreadsheet but bought a small chep diary for this year .
 
I use My Fitness Pal for macro and micro nutrient information on what I eat. It’s very easy to use, and free.
 
I started to eat low carb 45 years ago and used a notebook and a couple of postcards.
 
I like this site better than Carbs & Cals - https://www.calorieking.com/foods/ - put in a food and it will tell you all the nutritional information for it, including total carbs - and you can alter the serving size to choose grams, or a cupful, or a whole one (if it's something like fruit), or whatever is most appropriate. You still need to keep your own diary, but it's useful if you want to look up individual foods.
 
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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
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