To worry or not?

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Ranger

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Being a newbie I'm still treading on eggshells so forgive me if this is a silly question.
I have been between 4.5 and 6.9 all day, tonight after eating I have gone up to 8.9.
I considered a "fairly sensible meal" would be battered fish, literally half a dozen chips, small portion of Petite Poi's peas, one slice of wholemeal bread.
Is 4.9 before, and 8.9 after 2 hours dangerous? If it is, any suggestions to where my food selection let me down?. Beginning to think (after just 4 days) will I ever get my head round this.
Thanks in anticipation.
 
Ranger said:
Being a newbie I'm still treading on eggshells so forgive me if this is a silly question.
I have been between 4.5 and 6.9 all day, tonight after eating I have gone up to 8.9.
I considered a "fairly sensible meal" would be battered fish, literally half a dozen chips, small portion of Petite Poi's peas, one slice of wholemeal bread.
Is 4.9 before, and 8.9 after 2 hours dangerous? If it is, any suggestions to where my food selection let me down?. Beginning to think (after just 4 days) will I ever get my head round this.
Thanks in anticipation.
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My money's on the batter and the bread, but to be honest chips and peas aren't ideal either. Did you add up the carbs? My guess is you had 40g or more.
 
That increase is not "dangerous" but it is higher than desirable and your body is showing you via those results that you had too many carbs.
Assessing that meal, you had 3 different sources of carbs.... the batter, the chips and the bread. Whilst peas are not high carb, they are higher carb than many other veg so again not the best choice of accompaniment to a meal which already has quite a few carbs.
Generally I limit myself to a small portion of one carb rich food if I am going to have any at all. I think you can get something called lightly dusted cod which has less coating and therefore less carbs and maybe have half a dozen chips and some other low carb veg, like broccoli or cabbage or cauliflower and the peas but skip the bread and test that and see what results you get.
 
No Martin I didn't unfortunately I don't understand what is good/bad, high/low carbs it is all beyond me. I literally got a phone call Friday saying you are Diabeti and when a foot check was being done..that's it! Just left hanging basically, can't believe the attitude they have towards it because it scares the life out of me.
 
rebrascora said:
That increase is not "dangerous" but it is higher than desirable and your body is showing you via those results that you had too many carbs.
Assessing that meal, you had 3 different sources of carbs.... the batter, the chips and the bread. Whilst peas are not high carb, they are higher carb than many other veg so again not the best choice of accompaniment to a meal which already has quite a few carbs.
Generally I limit myself to a small portion of one carb rich food if I am going to have any at all. I think you can get something called lightly dusted cod which has less coating and therefore less carbs and maybe have half a dozen chips and some other low carb veg, like broccoli or cabbage or cauliflower and the peas but skip the bread and test that and see what results you get.
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This is one of my struggles to get my head round, what is considered Low/High carbs? It just seems a nightmare.
 
Ranger said:
This is one of my struggles to get my head round, what is considered Low/High carbs? It just seems a nightmare.
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Hi carbs are bread, pasta,rice,potatoes. I personally try not to have more than 130g per day. Learn to read food labels. It will say how many carbs there are in food. It will say how many carbohydrates per 100g or per item. There are lots of books and diets concentrating on low carb diets. Find one that suits you. I hope I have been helpful
 
snowball12 said:
Hi carbs are bread, pasta,rice,potatoes. I personally try not to have more than 130g per day. Learn to read food labels. It will say how many carbs there are in food. It will say how many carbohydrates per 100g or per item. There are lots of books and diets concentrating on low carb diets. Find one that suits you. I hope I have been helpful
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Thanks for that, at least I have a startibg figure to go on now 130g until now high/low daily carbs was an unknown to me so thanks very much for that .
 
Ranger said:
This is one of my struggles to get my head round, what is considered Low/High carbs? It just seems a nightmare.
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The book or app Carbs and Cals gives carb values of various portions of a whole range of foods so you can compare the relative carbs of different things.
Simply meat, fish, eggs, cheese, dairy, green veg and salads and fruit like berries are low carb but starchy veg, bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, bananas, pastry, cakes, biscuits, sugary drinks are all high carb foods.
There will be some which are high but portion size would usually be small.
Information about the carbs of various foods is on the back of packets, tins etc in the nutritional information where the number you are looking for is the carbohydrate value, can be per 100g and per item like per cracker or slice.
Have a look at this link for good information about modifying your dietary regime. There are some menu plans and recipes. https://lowcarbfreshwell.com/
It is good you have a monitor so you can test out your meals, your aim is 4-7mmol/l before meals and no more than 2-3mmol/l increase after 2 hours or no more than 8-8.5mmol/l after 2 hours.
I also have the lightly dusted fish fillet but do not have chips.
It is suggested that no more than 130g carbs per day is a good starting point for reducing carbs but some do need to go lower. Also better if spread throughout the day rather than 1 carb heavy meal.
 
Leadinglights said:
The book or app Carbs and Cals gives carb values of various portions of a whole range of foods so you can compare the relative carbs of different things.
Simply meat, fish, eggs, cheese, dairy, green veg and salads and fruit like berries are low carb but starchy veg, bread, rice, potatoes, pasta, bananas, pastry, cakes, biscuits, sugary drinks are all high carb foods.
There will be some which are high but portion size would usually be small.
Information about the carbs of various foods is on the back of packets, tins etc in the nutritional information where the number you are looking for is the carbohydrate value, can be per 100g and per item like per cracker or slice.
Have a look at this link for good information about modifying your dietary regime. There are some menu plans and recipes. https://lowcarbfreshwell.com/
It is good you have a monitor so you can test out your meals, your aim is 4-7mmol/l before meals and no more than 2-3mmol/l increase after 2 hours or no more than 8-8.5mmol/l after 2 hours.
I also have the lightly dusted fish fillet but do not have chips.
It is suggested that no more than 130g carbs per day is a good starting point for reducing carbs but some do need to go lower. Also better if spread throughout the day rather than 1 carb heavy meal.
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Thanks for that I have just been told about the 130g per day which was all news to me. My wife has been asking me in every aisle, is this low or high in carbs? looking at the labels, until now I have not had any concerns over carbs so did not know what to consider high or low. I will aim for 130g a day now and see how it goes, I'm guessing I will be told I'm underweight soon🙂
 
Ranger said:
This is one of my struggles to get my head round, what is considered Low/High carbs? It just seems a nightmare.
Click to expand...
OK, I get why you're struggling but we're all here to help and if there's something you don't understand please don't be afraid to ask.

Like @snowball12 I aim to stay under 130g per day, aiming for no more than 30-35g per meal (breakfast - lunch - dinner) which leaves a bit left over for snacking. The carb info you need is on packaged food, or you can look items up on supermarket home delivery websites.
 
Ranger said:
Thanks for that I have just been told about the 130g per day which was all news to me. My wife has been asking me in every aisle, is this low or high in carbs? looking at the labels, until now I have not had any concerns over carbs so did not know what to consider high or low. I will aim for 130g a day now and see how it goes, I'm guessing I will be told I'm underweight soon🙂
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If there is a risk of that then making sure you have plenty of protein and healthy fats will help with that.
 
Martin.A said:
OK, I get why you're struggling but we're all here to help and if there's something you don't understand please don't be afraid to ask.

Like @snowball12 I aim to stay under 130g per day, aiming for no more than 30-35g per meal (breakfast - lunch - dinner) which leaves a bit left over for snacking. The carb info you need is on packaged food, or you can look items up on supermarket home delivery websites.
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The 130g was key information Martin as I knew about labelling but not a level to aim at so all this advice is really helpful. Thanks again
 
I have a large cod and mushy peas from the fish and chip shop.
I know that eating low carb almost every day gives me some leeway, so I can eat the odd chip which gets stuck to the fish, but I am still careful. I don't have carbs during the day if I have battered fish.
 
Leadinglights said:
If there is a risk of that then making sure you have plenty of protein and healthy fats will help with that.
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Drummer said:
I have a large cod and mushy peas from the fish and chip shop.
I know that eating low carb almost every day gives me some leeway, so I can eat the odd chip which gets stuck to the fish, but I am still careful. I don't have carbs during the day if I have battered fish.
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That's brilliant Drummer cheers. Am I over thinking this?
I have (I think) as a starting point 130g for carbs a day.
So what is a starting point for sugar per day?
Or as I say! am I over complicating things?
 
Ranger said:
That's brilliant Drummer cheers. Am I over thinking this?
I have (I think) as a starting point 130g for carbs a day.
So what is a starting point for sugar per day?
Or as I say! am I over complicating things?
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I'm not sure if - by 'sugar' you mean blood glucose level or grams of carb.
I was left unaware of high blood glucose showing up in a test 10 years before I was diagnosed. So many people seem to have discovered the same thing it is quite frightening. During that decade I was pushed to eat 'healthy' carbs, so even though I have really reduced my intake I can't get below the top end of normal in HbA1c, but at least my blood glucose levels after eating are very good.
I used a Tee2+ meter from Spirit Healthcare to monitor my blood glucose levels after eating and got below 8mmol/l. That seemed to be the turning point. I was eating 50gm of carbs a day, maximum, but I think few people need to go that low if they are diagnosed fairly promptly.
These days my maximum is 40gm of carb a day, but it has not lowered my HbA1c.
Testing is the way to get to know what you can eat.
Once settled into the way of eating it became very simple to stick to it.
I used to have two postcards with shopping lists and used them alternately for variety. Even now I don't usually have both tomatoes and mushrooms in the fridge at the same time. I also use herbs and spices to keep food interesting.
 
Are we saying then that carbs and sugar are the same? I can easily work out carbs I guess.
I was wondering if I should be looking at sugar content as well Carbs and if so what was a starting point of how many grams of sugar a day.
Sorry for being an idiot but this is doing my nut in.
 
Ranger said:
This is one of my struggles to get my head round, what is considered Low/High carbs? It just seems a nightmare.
Click to expand...
It may help to remember that other than items such as potatoes rice and pasta, flour has carbs, therefore anything made with flour has carbs
 
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