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Newly diagnosed yodsy

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Ladyc

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At risk of diabetes
Hi
After rubbing a huge hole in my heel my doctor put me on antibiotics and gave me a blood test. Today I was told my reading was 47 just one point away from being diabetic. She told me to change my diet and avoid carbs and anything low fat. And to have full fat milk and yoghurts among other food stuff. As I have several heart and lung problems my husband is worried that this new way of eating might damage my health. What should I do ? Thanks
 
Ladyc said:
Hi
After rubbing a huge hole in my heel my doctor put me on antibiotics and gave me a blood test. Today I was told my reading was 47 just one point away from being diabetic. She told me to change my diet and avoid carbs and anything low fat. And to have full fat milk and yoghurts among other food stuff. As I have several heart and lung problems my husband is worried that this new way of eating might damage my health. What should I do ? Thanks
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If you have other serious health issues, I would advise you talk to your GP as soon as possible.
 
You don't know how refreshing and hopeful for the future it is to hear of a GP giving that advice!

As Martin says you are only just under the diabetes threshold so some slight adjustment to your diet as advised should see things get pushed back towards the normal range. With high blood glucose levels your injury will take longer to heal and the risk of repeated infection is high. Lowering the amount of carbohydrate you eat.... that is the obvious sweet stuff but also reducing portion size of bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, breakfast cereals and even fruit should improve your levels and give your body a better chance of healing that sore.
 
pm133 said:
If you have other serious health issues, I would advise you talk to your GP as soon as possible.
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Hi Martin
Thanks for your reply. I am making a shopping list and checking the sugar and fat contents very carefully. Think I will avoid all carbs and low fat goods until I have my next blood test.
 
rebrascora said:
You don't know how refreshing and hopeful for the future it is to hear of a GP giving that advice!

As Martin says you are only just under the diabetes threshold so some slight adjustment to your diet as advised should see things get pushed back towards the normal range. With high blood glucose levels your injury will take longer to heal and the risk of repeated infection is high. Lowering the amount of carbohydrate you eat.... that is the obvious sweet stuff but also reducing portion size of bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, breakfast cereals and even fruit should improve your levels and give your body a better chance of healing that sore.
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Hi Barbara I am so pleased with the high standard of care I get from my doctors surgery and the nhs as a whole. This is another wake up call for me to take care of my health as I have lapsed during lockdown.
Thank you for replying.
 
Do be aware that many foods contain carbs, so it is nigh on impossible to avoid them all..... even lettuce and cabbage which are good for us diabetics contain a small amount of carbohydrates. You should be just looking to reduce your carb intake. Eating a little more fat will help to fill you up and make you less hungry. Berries are the best choice fruit wise but stick to just one small portion a day. Nuts and seeds appear a lot on my shopping list and whole milk natural Greek yoghurt is a staple on many of our lists and meat and fish and lots of veggies and salad. Full fat coleslaw or my preference cheese coleslaw and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar dresses my salads. Mushrooms are good and avocados if you like them. I love to make a big pan of ratatouille and have it with chicken or gammon or high quality beef burgers/meat balls or high meat content sausages. Cauliflower is a must for your list. So versatile. Can be mashed with cream cheese and a teasp of wholegrain mustard instead of potato or grated and used instead of rice or cut into steaks and roasted with garlic and olive oil and herbs and who doesn't love cauliflower cheese? Most of us will extol the virtues of cauli in one form or another....
.... Anyway, just some ideas for your list.
 
For guidance though of course sugar itself (in its many forms ie anything ending ~ose eg glucose, fructose, dextrose, maltose) is getting on for 100% whereas you need to eat 'approx half a ton of lettuce and cucumber' to ingest the same amount of carb as in, say, a packet of mince pies! Approx 40g carb in a mine pie - same as in two slices of thick sliced bread. The mantra calling for low carb and high fat is a bit of an exaggeration really. Should be 'lowER' carb paired with 'normal' fat really.

In the past, many reduced fat products produced commercially, had carbohydrate added to make them more palatable and more popular, ie to sell more of it and bunk up profits for the producer - whist actually fooling a lot of people into thinking they were eating a 'healthy' diet when quite a lot of them in reality were doing the diametric opposite of that and making their health worse.

There is basically, more carb per 100ml skimmed milk, than in full fat but you have to ask yourself, how much milk you actually consume in a day? Would changing back to full fat actually make a shedload of difference one way or the other, to your health overall? Someone this morning was saying on here he has 100ml of it in every drink. Someone else said she was surprised they could taste the tea or coffee in that case. Most people generally don't have more than c. 50ml max, do they? - though spose it rather depends whether your cups are as big as a bucket or dainty small ones, and how strong you like your tea and coffee!
 
I have cream in my one morning coffee and I might only have one other cup of tea all day after that so not worth worrying about the small amount of carbs in a few mls of milk in that. It very much depends upon your consumption of hot drinks with milk.
Cream is lower carb than milk, the fat helps to fill me up and it tastes heavenly so I don't feel deprived and it provides slow release energy to power me through the day's activities.
 
Welcome to the forum @Ladyc

I agree with @Anitram’s earlier post - at an HbA1c of 47 it seems likely that a few modest tweaks could well turn things around for you. It could well be that wholesale changes may not be necessary for you.

Perhaps a useful first step might be keeping a food diary for a week or two? Note down everything you eat and drink - be brutally honest! If you can, scour packets and get the scales out to keep a note of the total carbohydrate content of everything too. That way you can begin to see where the largest BG disruption is likely to be coming from, and where the ‘easy wins’ might be.

Good luck and let us know how you get on!
 
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