Not so newbie

[Lurcher-Lady]

Hello everyone, I was diagnosed with T2 diabetes about 5 years ago and have been struggling along on my own. I was referred twice to dietitians to help me with my eating plans, but neither could offer any real help. The extra issues I have is that I have coeliac disease and can't eat anything with gluten in it, and my husband is a vegetarian. So cooking and eating the same meals is difficult. I'm 72, and not coping very well with the restrictions of COVID. Can anyone offer any ideas or suggestions to where I can find a diet plan that I can alter? I need to lose weight. Sorry to sound so negative!

 

[Docb]

Hi @Lurcher-Lady and welcome to the forum. First off I don't see your post as negative, quite the reverse, you are looking for some input and to me that is a positive.

Some questions which will help us to give you some ideas. Do you know what your HbA1c is? Your GP should be getting this tested quite regularly and the value will give some idea about where you are on the diabetes spectrum. Do you take any medication? Do you self test for blood glucose? How much weight do you want to lose? What sort of things do you eat now?

Sorry for the questions but it will help us to make suggestions. If you read around the forum you will begin to see why I have asked them.

Look forward to hearing from you.

 

[Vonny]

Hi @Lurcher-Lady and welcome from a fellow type 2. I think that people with coeliac disease can go low carb, but I'm not 100% sure. My boss has coeliac and diabetes but she is a type 1, so maybe her low carb gluten free diet can be managed via her insulin.

Assuming your husband can eat dairy, you can do an amazing amount with eggs and cheese that don't involve a lot of carbs, although I'm a bit of a stick-in-the-mud and stick to my daily 2 egg cheese omelette for breakfast - I'm too lazy to be creative!

I've lost nearly 3 stone going low carb, so if that is an option given the coeliac complication that is a good way to lose weight. I've just cut out refined carbs such as bread, rice, pasta and potatoes, although I cook these for the rest of the family, and just have whatever they are having minus the carbs.

As you'll see when you look round the forum though, there is no one-size-fits-all. Monitoring blood sugar has helped me to know what I personally can and cannot eat. As @Docb says, giving us more information will help people (with much more knowledge than me!) to make suggestions.

Best wishes

 

[Drummer]

Avoiding gluten is a good idea as it is in wheat, a high carb food.
A type two diabetic can eat meat, fish and seafood, eggs and cheese so there should be no problem with your meals, and adding a salad, stirfry or roast veges up to the amount of carbs you can cope with should work well.
You'll need to find suitable options for your husband to eat - but there should be some overlap between your menus.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @Lurcher-Lady

Sorry to hear you are struggling with your T2, and finding it tricky to adapt a meal plan that suits your additional needs.

Generally the T2s on the forum find that a moderate or low carb way of eating helps them manage their blood glucose levels - and since flour is approx 70+% carbohydrate many find that avoiding bread, pastry, biscuits, cakes and items made with flour is a good strategy.

I’m not sure what other restrictions coeliac disease places on your diet, but many find that using a BG meter (checking before and 2 hrs after eating) is a very immediate and clear way to observe how well your body is coping with the meals you are eating, and specifically the amount and types of carbohydrate in them. There’s a suggestion of how to undertake this sort of test-review-adjust approach here.

If you are wanting to fill out your T2 knowledge a little you might find Maggie Davey’s Letter to the newly diagnosed helpful. For a more thorough overview Gretchen Becker’s book Type 2 Diabetes the First Year, is very well regarded by forum members. It may be that being a few years in, you will have gleaned a lot of this, but there may still be some useful pointers - though nothing specific to coeliac.

Good luck and let us know how you are getting on.