Very confused T2 Newbie

[KARNAK]

Hello @Granny72 how are you today? I shall not add anything else other than welcome to our lovely community, take care we are here for you.xx

 

[Granny72]

Ouch - yes - all high carb choices - An added disadvantage is that the insulin reduces your blood glucose down to levels where you are feeling hungry again very soon after eating.
Do you have a protein source you could add to a big salad perhaps? In this hot weather my first meal is a bag of salad, coleslaw, radishes cucumber celery tomato (I just go through the fridge and tip things in) cress needs to be snipped off, walnuts, sweet pepper, oil and vinegar dressing, a sprinkle of various herbs, I just select one at random for variety - then I would add boiled eggs and cheese, or meat or fish.
Once I have eaten that I am not hungry until evening, though I often have coffee with cream - but coconut oil is also an option as a sort of 'keto energy drink'.

So if this is your first meal and then you are not hungry till the evening, when do you have this meal? I will have a salad at lunchtime but woud need a breakfast first thing which is normally an omelette.
I was told you had to have 3 meals a day and I know I couldn't last right till the evening with just a salad.

 

[Granny72]

Hi and welcome from me too.

The omelette is a great choice for breakfast and probably buch better than shredded wheat or Weetabix. Try adding cheese to it with your veg as that is more filling and instead of the Ryvita, try having a plate of mixed salad leaves with a couple of cherry tomatoes, cucumber and avocado is also great for adding healthy fat and fibre. The salad takes some chewing and eating which helps you to feel like you have had a substantial meal without the need for carbs.... many people are quite insulin resistant in the morning so it makes sense to avoid carbs at that time of day.
Make sure to take the Metformin with a substantial meal (like your omelette) and I find that eating most of the meal and then taking the tablet and then finishing the meal helps prevent the upset stomach side effects or at least reduces them. They usually subside after a few weeks but I will still get an "explosive" day every once in a while when I "splatter the porcelain" 😳There is sometimes a beneficial side effect to the Metformin in that it can act as an appetite suppressant.
When I have my big plate of omelette and salad for breakfast, I usually manage on a few nuts/olives and a chunk of cheese for lunch and then have a proper dinner in the evening with meat or fish and lots of leafy veg and 2-3 pieces of potato or a small portion of wholemeal pasta and that is my main portion of carbs for the day. Creamy Greek yoghurt with berries like raspberries makes a nice dessert. Lidl do the lowest carb yoghurt I have found at 3.2g/100g and it comes in a 1kg bucket. Big 200g bags of unsalted nuts at Lidl are also very reasonable. I like the brazils which again are the lowest carbs of the nut varieties I have seen but they also do a 200g bag of mixed nuts if you prefer variety.

Many of us have had that horrible teary feeling of being overwhelmed every now and again, so it is perfectly normal to suffer that following your diagnosis even without all the other ailments you have to deal with. When you are feeling like that, come on here and have a good rant or ask for support.... that is what we are here for... to support each other through the difficult times and rejoice in each other's successes! It is a bit of a roller coaster ride in the beginning, but it does get easier as you figure out what to buy in your weekly shop and how to cook to cater for your new dietary needs. And be prepared to experiment with new foods.... it is an excellent opportunity to expand your palette to find new favourite foods..... for instance, I just discovered that I like blue cheese having hated it for the first 55 years of my life!

Good luck with figuring it out. I could happily eat 4 slices of wholemeal bread and butter with a whole tin of baked beans for lunch and a box of Cadbury's cream eggs without pausing for breath prior to diagnosis. Now I don't eat beans or bread and very occasionally a tiny square of dark chocolate and I really don't miss all those carbs.... and I was only struck with the D label in February, so it has been quite a radical transformation and I feel so much better for it. Most of us are happy with our new diet once we get our head around it but these first few months are difficult. We are here to support you through it. Sending hugs to you!

I don't think I would last if I just had salad with my brekkie omelette. How do you stay full without some sort of bread/Ryvita/potato etc?
I would normally have the weetabix at tea time (5pm ish). Omelette for brekkie, salad at lunchtime, cereals at tea/dinner time.

 

[Ralph-YK]

I have swapped rice krispies and cornflakes (which I used to think were the plainest) for Bitesize Shredded wheat and Weetabix,
but looking in the book they are still looking high in carbs to me! Just how many carbs per meal is a good number?

I don't know a number. This is where my usual advice, to self test, comes in. It would show you what affect any of your meals have on your BG, as well as any changes you make. Keep a food diary, along with a record of your levels. After a couple of weeks you should be able to start seeing a pattern.

A cooked breakfast (eggs, bacon, been, etc, even a piece of toast & hash brown) raises my BG less than mini shredded wheat. Though then you might have to start considering caleries and & extra fat intake.

You could try boiled eggs and a pitta bread. (Still some carbs; not as much of a rise as with ceriel though.)

 

[rebrascora]

I don't think I would last if I just had salad with my brekkie omelette. How do you stay full without some sort of bread/Ryvita/potato etc?
I would normally have the weetabix at tea time (5pm ish). Omelette for brekkie, salad at lunchtime, cereals at tea/dinner time.

The thing is that you don't know unless you try. Having cheese in the omelette and avocado with the salad, which both provide fats, help to make it more filling and provide slow release energy. I was as addicted to carbs, and bread in particular, as anyone, but once you get used to not eating them you realise you don't need them. They are certainly not necessary to feel full. I find that once you cut the carbs out, your body stops craving them. I feel it is incredibly liberating to be free of those cravings.
Keeping busy so that you don't think about wanting to eat, certainly helps. Housework and gardening are great ways of occupying yourself and getting gentle exercise, both of which help to bring BG levels down and keep you from snacking, but if you do still feel hungry, eat a few nuts.
It is probably better to eat the Weetabix at tea time than in the morning when people tend to be more insulin resistant and I understand that being vegetarian makes things a little more difficult for you so I can see how having cereal on a night simplifies things, but if you can cut the Ryvita on a morning it might make a significant difference to your BG levels.

 

[Ralph-YK]

and I understand that being vegetarian makes things a little more difficult

Missed that. Sorry.

 

[Eddy Edson]

Have you got a reference you can point me to please.

It's an Atkins-type hypothesis which has been fairly solidly refuted. See eg Kevin D. Hall, lead obesity researcher at for the US NIH: https://undark.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/02/HallEJCN2017-1.pdf

The carbohydrate–insulin model of obesity theorizes that diets high in carbohydrate are particularly fattening due to their propensity to elevate insulin secretion. Insulin directs the partitioning of energy toward storage as fat in adipose tissue and away from oxidation by metabolically active tissues and purportedly results in a perceived state of cellular internal starvation. In response, hunger and appetite increases and metabolism is suppressed, thereby promoting the positive energy balance associated with the development of obesity. Several logical consequences of this carbohydrate–insulin model of obesity were recently investigated in a pair of carefully controlled inpatient feeding studies whose results failed to support key model predictions. Therefore, important aspects of carbohydrate–insulin model have been experimentally falsified suggesting that the model is too simplistic. This review describes the current state of the carbohydrate–insulin model and the implications of its recent experimental tests.

 

[Drummer]

So if this is your first meal and then you are not hungry till the evening, when do you have this meal? I will have a salad at lunchtime but woud need a breakfast first thing which is normally an omelette.
I was told you had to have 3 meals a day and I know I couldn't last right till the evening with just a salad.

Yes - that is my first meal when I get up. It is a large salad - today with a couple of eggs and mozzarella cheese.
I have never been told that I need to eat a set number of times a day, so I just went with how I felt - I was very ill taking Metformin and Atorvastatin, and used to go out in the morning without eating anything - get my errands done and then come home and eat, take the tablets and could not do anything much for the rest of the day.
Once I gave up on the tablets I was testing my blood glucose and found that not eating in the morning was elevating my levels, so I moved my first meal of the day earlier - but as I found that I was not hungry at lunch time I simply did not eat.

 

[Ralph-YK]

Once I gave up on the tablets I was testing my blood glucose and found that not eating in the morning was elevating my levels,

I've heard it said that our bodys think we need some glucose in our blood in the morning to help us start doing things; so it dumps a load into our blood stream. And that if we eat something, our body thinks it can stop.

 

[Granny72]

Thanks everyone. Yesterday was a bad day and I crashed out. Couldn't cope. Couldn't remember anything I had been told.
Just a complete brain shut down.
I see everyone has put all their dates and meds and readings at the bottom of their posts. I must go and find out how to do that and maybe then
folk can advise me better.
I cannot concentrate for very long as I also have Parkinsons, along with ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia, Osteoarthritis, and have had 3 small strokes.
Exercise is almost out. I do stroll with my little dog with my wheelie, for 10 minute bursts, stop, then go again, usually around 15/20 mins twice a day.
All I know is that when I eat, I then fall asleep. For a long time they thought I may have diabetes, but the tests always came back negative.
This is now 1am, and I have not gone off to sleep yet, even though I can hardly keep my eyes open. Don't get too many of these, tend more to go to sleep around 10pm and wake around 4 or 5am.
I think if I ever got to Type 1 and had to inject etc, then that would finish me off and I just couldn't cope with that and would just give up totally.
In my 70's. On my own. Family deserted me when I became ill with Parkinson's. Said THEY couldn't cope with it and really I think they didn't believe
I had anything wrong.
Anyway. Enough moaning, I have it, I have added it to all my other things, and will just have to get on with it.
Sorry for venting but now I have said it maybe I can try again to get some sleep.
Thanks again everyone x

 

[Nomad722]

Welcome to the forum Granny72.

 

[Ralph-YK]

I think if I ever got to Type 1 and had to inject etc,

Just to say, T2 doesn't become T1. And needing to inject insulin doesn't make you T1 (even though T1s need to inject insulin).

Yesterday was a bad day and I crashed out. Couldn't cope. Couldn't remember anything I had been told.
Just a complete brain shut down.

It happens to plenty of us.

All I know is that when I eat, I then fall asleep.

Could be several things or a combination. If you get your BG down that certainly may help.