Welcome to the forum
@Nemesis
One of the biggest questions when trying to get to grips with your diabetes is often ‘what can I eat’ and while there are obvious things like cakes, biscuits, sweets and sugary drinks that you will want to cut out straight away, you might be surprised how much *all* carbohydrate affects your BG levels, including rice, pasta, potatoes, bread, pastry, grains, cereals and many fruits.
I agree with
@adrian1der - it can be wise to make changes gradually and sustainably, rather than starting ‘full tilt’ only to find you fall off the wagon in a few weeks. Diabetes is a marathon, not a sprint!
Many new members find it can be really helpful at the start to keep a food diary for a week or two. Be brutally honest! Note down everything you eat and drink. Along with an estimate of the amount of carbohydrate in the meals and snacks. This will allow you to easily spot the ’low hanging fruit’ and give you an idea of which foods are the main sources of carbs in your menu.
The really tricky thing is that blood glucose responses to various foods are highly individual, and as
@Cherrelle DUK rightly suggests, it can be impossible to say which types and amounts of carbohydrate will ‘spike’ your BG without checking for yourself.
Some members choose to use a BG meter, taking a reading before and again 2hrs after eating, to see what the differences are, to identify any carbs that seem to be spiking their BG (initially in a way the numbers themselves matter less than the differences between them). Once you can see how you respond to different meals you can begin experimenting with reducing amounts of carbs and trying different types (sometimes just having things at a different time of day makes a difference). Gradually tweaking and tailoring your menu to find one that gives your the BG results you are looking for and which you can sustain ling-term
Unfortunately it is unlikely you will be offered a BG meter by your BG (though some do, so worth an ask?). And while all meters need to meet accuracy criteria, some make more use of the permitted variation than others, especially at the more affordable end. Plus there is a wide variety of ongoing costs for the strips, some of which are as much as £30 for a pot of 50 strips. If you need to self fund your BG meter, the most affordable meters members here have found are the
SD Gluco Navii or the
Spirit Tee2 - which both have test strips at around £8 for 50
Good luck with everything - keep asking questions, and let us know how you get on
🙂