Thank you for the replies, appreciated
So what do you have instead of carbs?
From what I’ve read bread, potatoes, pasta and rice are all out?
A bacon butty without the butty just isn’t the same lol
First off I'd advise caution if you have been prescribed gliclazide. That medication forces your pancreas to produce insulin all day, regardless of how much you've eaten. That can cause a 'hypo' - hypoglycaemia - or low blood sugar, if you haven't eaten enough carbs for the insulin to work on. A hypo can be dangerous. If you're on that medication making drastic changes to your diet without having a blood glucose monitor on hand and knowing how to use it is not a good idea, particularly if the dose is high. That said - reducing your portions of bread, potatoes, pasta and rice (and eliminating junk food - biscuits, cake, chocolate, sugary drinks including fruit juice, crisps etc.) is a great first step.
We are all different in the severity of our diabetes and our response to particular foods, so people with Type 2 on the forum may eat quite differently. Many of us use a blood glucose meter to test just before eating and 2 hours later, looking for a rise of no more than 2 (ideally) or 3 (at a stretch) mmol/L on the meter 2 hours after eating. This is an indication of how well your body has processed the amount of carbs you've eaten in that meal. This helps to figure out what you should and shouldn't be eating right now. It's worth noting that significant weight loss can improve things to the point that you might have more freedom down the road with what you can eat while keeping below a 2 mmol/L rise.
In my case:
- For breakfast I eat a 3-egg omelette with peppers in it followed by a small piece of fruit, or full fat Greek yogurt with blueberries and milled seeds sprinkled on top for some crunch, again with a small piece of fruit - a fun-size apple of the kind you'd put in a child's lunchbox, or a clementine/satsuma size orange for example. I generally avoid anything with lots of carbs for breakfast, like bread, and I don't feast on fruit.
- For lunch I'd typically eat a pre-prepared salad (e.g. 3-bean salad in a plastic tub from Tesco) with tuna. Or I'd have soup with a turkey sandwich made with low-carb bread.
- For dinner I still eat potatoes though I stick with no more than 3 small baby potatoes. I've swapped normal pasta for edamame pasta, which is made with green soya beans I believe, and is much lower in carbs. Fairly tasty with plenty of olive oil on it. I've swapped normal rice for cauliflower rice, which is just shredded cauliflower. It soaks up the sauce in a stir fry or curry for example, so it tastes like the sauce and you can fool yourself into thinking it's rice. It's convenient - you can get it in single-portion microwave bags - it's very low carb and great for losing weight.
Don't panic though - nothing you ate yesterday will do you much harm today. It's all about making changes that you can live happily with in the long term. Finishing whatever you have in the freezer or the cupboard won't kill you.. just don't have a carb feast
😉
