Type 2 Newbie

[liliane]

Diagnosed February 2020. Management by diet recommended. Follow up November 2021 showed blood glucose higher but advised to continue with diet.
I am obviously not getting it right. I need advice about diet as i need lose a lot of weight which will help me exercise effectively.

 

[rebrascora]

Hi and welcome.

There are two approaches here on the forum which seem to be very effective.

One is to follow a very low CALORIE diet like the Newcastle or Fast 800 which is a short term (8-12weeks) 800 calorie a day diet often using meal replacement shakes to lose weight/fat particularly visceral fat in and around the liver and pancreas. This can help to push diabetes into remission provided that the weight loss is sufficient and sustained. If you are historically a Yo-Yo dieter this may just be a temporary fix once you return to normal food.

The other is a low CARBOHYDRATE way of eating. This is a long term strategy to manage your diabetes. It may result in your levels dropping back into the normal range and usually weight loss too but the idea is to change the way you eat to a sustainable menu for life, so that you are effectively managing your diabetes, even if it is in remission.

Understanding where the carbohydrate in your diet is coming from ie which foods are high carb and reducing or avoiding those foods is key to this approach and increasing the lower carb foods. What many of us find is that once you stop eating those carb heavy foods you stop craving them and that has been a real revelation for me as I have comfort eaten a lot of my life and having control over that is really quite empowering. I now eat more fat and veggies and about the same amount of protein as before. Fat has two benefits.... it stops you from feeling hungry and it doesn't spike your BG levels. In fact it is now believed by some quite high level doctors that the removal of natural fat from our diet (semi skimmed milk instead of whole milk) lean meat, low fat yoghurts etc may have contributed to the obesity epidemic we are now suffering because many of those low fat products are higher in carbs and more carbs without the fat cause BG fluctuations which make us more hungry. Carbs take less than 2 hours to break down and release their glucose for most people so 2 hours after eating them your BG levels will be dropping and you will feel hungry and want a top up.... hence we crave a biscuit mid morning and mid afternoon and snacking just becomes the norm. Once you cut back on the carbs and eat more fibre and fat you don't feel hungry and those cravings just seem to go. I often find that just 2 meals a day are enough and occasionally just one.

Anyway, that is my experience. Finding the route which works best for you and your body will be a case of trial and error. Most people here on the forum find a BG meter is an invaluable tool in helping them to understand how their body responds to the food that they eat and therefore make informed decisions about what to include and exclude from their diet. A basic meter is relatively inexpensive to self fund at about £15. The ongoing costs of providing consumables for it is where the money can tot up so using a meter which has relatively cheap test strips is a good idea. For that reason and the fact that they have both been found to be very reliable by members here, the Gluco Navii and the Spirit Healthcare Tee2 are well recommended with additional test strips being about £8 per pot of 50. If you decide to buy a meter, the kit comes with 10 test strips and 10 lancets. Whilst many of us reuse the lancets multiple times (they are supposed to be single use) the test strips cannot be reused, so ordering an additional 2 pots of test strips (at least) and perhaps a box of lancets would be recommended with your meter. Oh and don't forget to tick the box saying that you are diabetic when you order as that will remove the VAT from the price.

Any questions, just ask...

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Welcome to the forum @liliane

Glad you have joined us 🙂

We have lots of friendly folks here all muddling along trying to find their own optimum strategies and approaches to manage their individual diabetes. There’s no ‘one size fits all’ approach that works for everyone. Diabetes can be a fickle taskmaster (infuriatingly so at times) and different people respond very differently to the same sources of carbohydrate - so really it’s a question of working out what works for you 🙂

Many members find it can be really helpful to keep a brutally honest food diary for a week or two. Note down everything you eat and drink, along with a reasonable estimate of the total carbohydrate content in your meals and snacks (not just ‘of which sugars’) - it doesn’t have to be gram-perfect, the nearest 5-10g is fine. It might sound like a bit of a faff, and will involve weighing portions, squinting at the fine print on packaging, and possibly looking up things on the internet, but it will quickly give you a really good idea of which foods are the main sources of carbs in your menu. Once you can see which meals or snacks are your ‘big hitters’, and where carbs might be unexpectedly lurking, the process might also suggest some likely candidates for swaps, portion reductions, or using lower carb alternatives (eg celeriac or swede mash, or cauli ‘rice’).

Good luck, and keep asking questions 🙂

 

[Joda]

Hi Liliane, low carb doesn’t have to be long term. My husband was diagnosed, type 2, ten years ago and told levels too high for control by diet and given prescription for high dose metformin. He never took the drugs instead followed the Type 2 diabetes diet - Dr Calvin Ezrin. He did this for 12 weeks and reversed his diabetes. After 12 weeks you fold carbs back in slowly and then eat normally. DN couldn’t believe it and kept testing but diabetes stayed in remission for ten years. Just now resurfaced so he is back on the diet. Much better than ten years of drugs.

 

[Leadinglights]

Welcome to the forum @Joda. It sounds as if your husband was very fortunate to be able to relax the dietary regime but many people are not so lucky and have to maintain a watchful eye on their carbohydrate intake otherwise they end up back where they started or even worse.
Doctors are often too hasty to hand out the medication when some dietary changes are needed anyway but without any support people think that all they have to do is take the pills. There will however be people who will need medication to get good blood glucose management.

 

[Joda]

My apologies, I probably didn’t make myself clear. The point I was trying to make was that the Newcastle diet is not the only game in town. I wasn’t referring to low carb eating in a general way. Dr Ezrin’s type 2 diabetes diet (the Insulin Control diet) is an extreme low calorie but, unlike Newcastle, is also a very low carb diet. No more than 8g carb per meal max 30g per day. The endocrine system gets a complete rest and fat is stripped from the liver. Within a short space of time it returns the body to normal endocrine control. We found a similar diet being used in India with equally amazing results. Hubby’s daily blood glucose readings dropped from the teens to 5.5 in 3 days which why he didn’t take metformin. His HbA1c was taken again at 3 months and had dropped to from 57 to 38. That may not be as high as other people but the studies I have read have been carried out on a broad range of subjects with very positive results. Should be done under medical supervision. I agree though that different things work for different people.