Type 2 Newbie

[Suzyq10]

Hi everyone, I have recently been diagnosed with type 2 Diabetes and as you can imagine it was a bit of a shock. I found out the day before I went on holiday, all-inclusive, so it was a bit tough choosing the correct food. I stuck to salads and fish and avoided the desert trolley, had dried apricots, prunes and natural yoghurt instead which I did actually enjoy. I did have alcohol in the evenings, but only a couple (well spanish measures). I only gained 1lb, so impressed with myself.

I would be grateful of any tips especially when it comes to bread, margarines and cheese.

 

[Drummer]

Dried fruits are high in sugar so probably best avoided usually a full fat yoghurt and berries makes a low carb choice.
Meat, fish sea foods, eggs and cheese are all staples of the low carb way of eating, along with salad stuff and stirfry veges, low carb ones.
I avoided bread at first, until I couold try some low carb ones and check they are OK with my meter.

 

[SueEK]

Oh dear Suzy, bad enough being given the diagnosis of T2 but the day before an all inclusive holiday aargh. I don’t suppose you had a lot of information on food choices so you did really well but as Drummer says dried fruit is not great. So many fruits have high natural sugars in them that some are best avoided or had only very occasionally. Have a good look through the posts and come back to us with any questions at all, we are here to help and support each other.
If you know and are happy to share perhaps you could tell us what your HbA1c level was and if you have been given any medication so we can help you further. X

 

[rebrascora]

Hi Suzy and welcome from me too.
Hope you enjoyed you holiday. It must have been very tempting being all inclusive and whilst your food choices were not perfect, you did as well as anyone could hope to at such short notice with limited info.
Knowing your HbA1c gives us an idea where on the diabetic scale you are and therefore how much dietary change may be needed. Do you have a Blood Glucose Meter? If not, you might consider self funding one (worth asking if your GP practice can supply one first but unless your HbA1c is extremely high or you have been prescribed medication like Gliclazide or Insulin, they do not provide them for Type 2 diabetics. They are relatively cheap to buy at approx. £15 but the on going cost of buying test strips is where you rack up the expense, so buying a brand which has the cheapest test strips makes sense. The SD CodeFree is considered the most cost effective in this respect as the strips are £8 for a pot of 50 as oppose to as much as £20 for some other makes. Testing enables you to figure out which foods you can get away with and which cause your blood glucose to soar. Some diabetics can get away with eating a slice of two or wholemeal bread or pasta whilst others cannot. Some can manage to eat a small portion of porridge for breakfast and others would not dare. Berries like rasps, blackberries and strawberries are generally the safest fruits but some people find they spike with them but can manage an apple. Dried fruits are sugar bombs and I actually use dried prunes or apricots as a hypo treatment for when my BG drops too low (due to insulin) to bring me back up and it is the only time I eat them but you are right, they are lovely with yoghurt and nuts.
Anyway, I have rambled on quite enough. I hope you enjoy and benefit from being a member of the forum as much as I have and hope that you soon see your BG readings coming down.

 

[rebrascora]

Oh and as regards the foods you specifically mentioned, many of us have reverted to butter rather than margarines and good quality cheeses rather than processed and personally, I no longer eat bread because my body will not tolerate it but as I mentioned above, you might get away with the odd slice of wholemeal or perhaps a low carb protein bread like LivLife or Burgen

 

[CathyB]

Hi and welcome, the others have said it all really, only thing I will repeat is that testing and keeping a food diary is the best way to work out how your body reacts to foods, although we all have the carb issues in common we are all different, for example many can tolerate a few raspberries but I can’t, however I can tolerate two small apples a day if I spread out the time, others can’t eat them at all.