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Type 2 Newbie

Thanks for the tips guys...
Used to love food shopping, but went to Tesco today and hated everything about it!
Feels like we now need two lots of food shopping.. 'normal' food for the family, and then stuff that I can eat.

Good news is, that my Blood Pressure tests came back within margins, so no medication for that. Just cholesterol and sugar levels to bring down.

Anyone got any recommendations for bread?
Was used to Hovis Soft White, which family love, but I need to change. Was thinking of switching to 50/50? Not much I know, but saves buying two separate loaves.
I'm afraid brown versions of bread, rice, pasta are no better than the white as just as many carbs.
This is a lower carb bread which Tesco have which is not bad at 17.6g carbs for a 50g slice, Warburtons Protein Power Wholemeal Bread with Pulses, Seeds and Grains. You may find others with less but they may be a smaller slice. As a 50g slice then 1 is likely to be enough. You can always freeze the slices and just take out 1 at a time.
Looking on the shop web site for the nutritional information before you go shopping can save peering at the back of packets in the shop.
 
Sorry but the weetabix, cornflakes and porridge are all just as much carbs as the sugar.
Some people can cope with porridge, but you do need to test yourself - my gut just sees it as a challenge - like peas and beans, it hammers every last carb out of everything I swallow.
I was told by the Diabetic nurse that weetabix was fine as long as I switch out the sugar.. the documents she gave me, also said the same...
 
I was told by the Diabetic nurse that weetabix was fine as long as I switch out the sugar.. the documents she gave me, also said the same...
Weetabix is 70% carbohydrate and two biscuits would be around 25 gm of carbs - I might have rounded the figures a bit. If you add ordinary milk you could be close to 30 gm of carbs
If you consider that, to keep my numbers in almost normal range, I eat no more than 40 gm of carbs a day you might wish to reconsider the value of the advice and the paperwork you were given.
I always checked my blood glucose after eating - two hours after starting the meal, and that showed just how high 'healthy' choices sent my blood glucose levels.
 
I was told by the Diabetic nurse that weetabix was fine as long as I switch out the sugar.. the documents she gave me, also said the same...
Weetabix is 70% carbohydrate and two biscuits would be around 25 gm of carbs - I might have rounded the figures a bit. If you add ordinary milk you could be close to 30 gm of carbs
If you consider that, to keep my numbers in almost normal range, I eat no more than 40 gm of carbs a day you might wish to reconsider the value of the advice and the paperwork you were given.
I always checked my blood glucose after eating - two hours after starting the meal, and that showed just how high 'healthy' choices sent my blood glucose levels.

@Drummer is very sensitive to carbohydrate @Mickyd1969 - it may be that Weetabix would be fine for you. Unfortunately our bodies haven’t always read the instructions about ‘fast’ and ‘slower’ carbohydrate sources, and some types can have a reputation for slow release that our individual bodies completely ignores :(

Though personally I found something about the crushed up nature of the grains in Weetabix made them far faster to get into my bloodstream than was generally expected. Even though they are high fibre.

It’s a bit frustrating that diabetes can be so individual, but getting an affordable BG meter and checking before and 2hrs after you eat a meal can be a very direct way of identifying which foods raise your BG more than you’d like. If you can keep the rises down to 2-3mmol/L at the 2hr mark, your overall BG levels should coast gently downwards into the normal range.
 
I have Oatibix or porridge with Blueberries and cinnamon. I eat two slices of Warburtons No added sugar wholemeal bread. Lots of eggs,chicken and fish. Berries are the best fruit to eat..My hubby eats what I eat but more carbs. He's very supportive, I am lucky.
 
Nuts/non salted are a great snack. My favourite are walnuts with Apple and cubed cheese
My cholesterol is 2.9 so don't stress to much about that. Diabetes is enough to think about
 
@Mickyd1969, earlier in this thread you were asking either directly or indirectly about low carb bread. @Leadinglights said:
..... a lower carb bread which Tesco have which is not bad at 17.6g carbs for a 50g slice, Warburtons Protein Power Wholemeal Bread with Pulses, Seeds and Grains. You may find others with less but they may be a smaller slice. As a 50g slice then 1 is likely to be enough. You can always freeze the slices and just take out 1 at a time.
So a 50gm slice releases 17.6 gms carbs, ie 100gm (2 slices) would be c. 35 gms carbs. This makes that bread a little better than many breads, which typically can be between 40-55% carbs, depending on the constituents. The back panel of most bread packaging provides the nutritional content in terms of carbs per 100gm, and often also per slice. But how standard in weight is a slice?

I'm insulin dependent and I need to carb count with sufficient confidence to know I'm going to take the appropriate amount of insulin - each time. So I'm wary of using "per slice" figures. Periodically I've weighed a couple of slices and found only the most processed (and unhealthy) breads in their neat rectangular packages are near to their claimed weights per slice.

However there are a small number of genuine lower carb breads. One of these is Jason's Seeded Protein Sourdough bread at 22.2 gms carbs per 100 gm wt, or c.13 gms per slice. Beware, none of their slices are a standard size and weight!
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Jason's have many choices of breads, including 2 with purple labelling and most of their breads are in the normal >40% carbs category, so taking home the correct loaf needs a little care. Their bread seems to be sold in most of the big supermarkets, I get ours from Tesco.

As I said there are a few other low carb breads, but their availability seems to be varied. I happen to like this particular bread so I don't bother looking out for others any more. I also find this sourdough bread digests fairly slowly, so the release of glucose into my blood stream is somewhat delayed and that should be a significant help to yourself as a T2 - giving your body some extra time to manage that incoming rising BG.

Fast releasing carbs can create a greater "spike" and since T2 is usually because of an increased natural insulin resistance, your body is likely to find a "spike" a bigger hurdle to deal with. We are each of us different and this becomes very evident in our metabolic behaviour. But in principle it is best to have reduced glycaemic variability - ie reduced BG spikes or troughs!

The good news is that there are breads that have reduced carb content and thus your "normal" foods can still be possible, without totally changing everything you eat. Good lower carb choices and reduced portion sizes can become an acceptable, enjoyable and sustainable future lifestyle.
 
I was told to have about 130 carbs a day by this site and to tell the truth it's not to bad reaching it, gone over a few days for sure but the weight has stated to go down but find the not snacking hardest, I was one for the biscuit barrel with a cuppa, has to stop. My HbA1c was only 52 as a starting point
 
I was told to have about 130 carbs a day by this site and to tell the truth it's not to bad reaching it, gone over a few days for sure but the weight has stated to go down but find the not snacking hardest, I was one for the biscuit barrel with a cuppa, has to stop. My HbA1c was only 52 as a starting point
I think that the wording is usually that under 130 gm of carbs a day is considered low carb - but it is advisable to check your own response to various foods, particularly the higher carb ones. With a HbA1c of 52 you are not far into the diabetes range so by pinpointing and adjusting your particularly 'uplifting' foods you could find that a couple of biscuits is doable particularly if you were to have an alternative to something else which was in your diet pre-diagnosis.
I use swede instead of potato, but rather than mashed swede I make bubble and squeak , mixing in eggs, frying it in the pan that cooked the bacon or when all the bacon has been eaten, adding grated cheese and baking it in the oven. You might like cauliflower cheese - cook the cauliflower until almost done, pile it into a dish warmed in the oven, add cream cheese, then any herp or spice you like and grated hard cheese, crumble a little blue cheese on top if you like then put in the oven until the cheese is just very lightly tanned and melting. A lot of people seem to like this dish.
Although I need to keep to rather low numbers my steak and strawberries version of low carb does seem to attract some envy - particularly when I am off in the camper van and cooking breakfast - I could open a restaurant on most sites.
 
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I had a HbA1C of 89 when diagnosed in July 2024 . By October I got it down to 30. I did this by losing weight, focusing on shifting 15 kg ASAP and reducing carbs. The Carbs and Cals book was my main source of reference, I didn’t have a max number of carbs in mind just kept it as low as I could.
 
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