Visit to Dietitian Yesterday

[Donald]

Visited the dietitian yesterday no surprises more Fruit & veg more exercise. The Usual Stuff and a booklet Healthy living with Diabetes, it seems more of the same Don't get me wrong she was a lovely woman it just feels more like standard advice.

 

[Monica]

Sorry your appointment didn't go as well as you hoped.

 

[Caroline]

I think that is probably the best we can expect, standard advice. Hubby has osteoarthritis and whenever he sees anyone it is an information sheet with information you can get from anywhere.

 

[Steff]

Donald sorry to hear it didnt really go to well, sounds much like the same treatment i got, in and out within 5 minutes, i get more info from here lol x

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Donald

How's this for some non-standard thoughts...

The one that raises my eyebrows there is 'More fruit'.

Not sure if you are on Meds or D&E, but the sugar in most fruits (and only your body will tell you which ones) will most likely push your BG levels up quickly.

Bananas, apples, pears, oranges will all have maybe 15-25g of carbohydrate in them. Plums perhaps 5-10g each. Grapes are like little sachets of sugar. Many type 1 diabetics use orange juice as a hypo treatment because it pushes their blood sugars up so quickly.

I'm not sure if you have a BG meter, but if you are really interested in how your diet affects your blood glucose levels every time you eat it would be worth considering getting one (either through your GP or biting the bullet and buying one). Of course SMBG (self monitoring of blood glucose) is no use unless you use the information you receive effectively. Jennifer's Advice offers one framework of testing. Fairly intensive, but very effective. Once you know which foods your system can cope with and which cause you problems you can slack off and hardly need test other than to keep an eye on things.

 

[Donald]

Donald

How's this for some non-standard thoughts...

The one that raises my eyebrows there is 'More fruit'.

Not sure if you are on Meds or D&E, but the sugar in most fruits (and only your body will tell you which ones) will most likely push your BG levels up quickly.

Bananas, apples, pears, oranges will all have maybe 15-25g of carbohydrate in them. Plums perhaps 5-10g each. Grapes are like little sachets of sugar. Many type 1 diabetics use orange juice as a hypo treatment because it pushes their blood sugars up so quickly.

I'm not sure if you have a BG meter, but if you are really interested in how your diet affects your blood glucose levels every time you eat it would be worth considering getting one (either through your GP or biting the bullet and buying one). Of course SMBG (self monitoring of blood glucose) is no use unless you use the information you receive effectively. Jennifer's Advice offers one framework of testing. Fairly intensive, but very effective. Once you know which foods your system can cope with and which cause you problems you can slack off and hardly need test other than to keep an eye on things.

speaking of grapes she told me to have some and bananas and I thought they could effect BG she said no I do have a meter which I got free from the company but have to buy the strips and I'm on meds metaformin 2x 500 a day

 

[Donald]

Donald sorry to hear it didn't really go to well, sounds much like the same treatment i got, in and out within 5 minutes, i get more info from here lol x

Hi Steffie It didn't go to badly it was the information it seemed to generalised and what I have come across on here which I have found good and other leaflets.Other Leaflets can somtimes have conflicting info you know what mean one saying one thing and another saying the opposite. Donald

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

speaking of grapes she told me to have some and bananas and I thought they could effect BG she said no

*Sigh* I think she might need to go back to Dietician school on that one. Though not a dietician school that just trots out the same-old same-old based on the questionable conclusions from flawed research...

I understand that it's unfortunate for professionals that not everyone reacts exactly the same to every foodstuff, but really!

It may be that you have an amazing tolerance for the sugars and starches in fruit. Some people do. But some people don't! Bananas (supposedly low GI) have a significant and almost instant reaction to my BG.

Unfortunately the only thing you can do is 'eat to your meter'. Test before a meal. Eat something. Test again after an hour and two hours to see what effect it had. Note what the rise was. Repeat. Test. Repeat. Review. Adjust. Test. Test. Test...

It's a pain but with metabolism being the complex beast it is all we can do is just keep testing, experimenting and testing again. You can aim for moderate amounts of carby foods that you *think* will probably be fairly safe (stoneground bread or brown Basmati rice for example) but the only way to tell what and how much your system can cope with is to test it.

Good luck!
M

 

[Steff]

Its so weird i can have grapes and be totally fine i have them in a fruit salad frequently, i know many on here have bother, guess its just diffirent people diffirent things make us spike

 

[imtrying]

maybe more to the point, the dietician should know that advising that to a diabetic, she should also be aware that diabetics will all react differently to fruits and she should have offered a bit of advice about testing if that's what she wanted to achieve....rather than just a blanket statement of 'eat more fruit'. that's what a general dietician would say, not a diabetic dietician. really, people advising things that are plainly wrong, should be complained about. you could have gone away and done what she said and then they'd have wondered why your BS were so high after. what a joke.

 

[Donald]

It may be that you have an amazing tolerance for the sugars and starches in fruit. Some people do. But some people don't! Bananas (supposedly low GI) have a significant and almost instant reaction to my BG.

@everydayupsanddowns When she told me to eat Bananas I look surprised and I said that I though that bananas had higher sugar then most fruit and the more ripe they are the higher they are she said no thats a myth so don't Know what to believe never mind tomorrow is another day.

Thanks all for the replies you have given me food for thought. Will be looking into it further.

 

[Steff]

It may be that you have an amazing tolerance for the sugars and starches in fruit. Some people do. But some people don't! Bananas (supposedly low GI) have a significant and almost instant reaction to my BG.

If that was aimed at me i think amazing tolerance is abit strong, i was'nt boasting or anything you know Donald,im fine with grapes but im not good with bananas no more so ignore them!

If it was not aimed at me then accept my apologies for butting in

 

[Donald]

If that was aimed at me i think amazing tolerance is abit strong, i was'nt boasting or anything you know Donald,im fine with grapes but im not good with bananas no more so ignore them!

If it was not aimed at me then accept my apologies for butting in

Steffie that line at the top is a quote from everydayupsanddowns post I tried to quote it but it did not work It certainly was not aimed at you. It was in relation to what was everydayupsanddowns said about bananas and what the dietitian said so it is ok steffie no probs I should have made it clearer sorry about that my bad.

 

[Steff]

Steffie that line at the top is a quote from everydayupsanddowns post I tried to quote it but it did not work It certainly was not aimed at you. It was in relation to what was everydayupsanddowns said about bananas and what the dietitian said so it is ok steffie no probs I should have made it clearer sorry about that my bad.

So sorry Donald my fault i should read replies clearer, sorry for any misunderstandings.

 

[Barb]

Five a day

The obsession with "are you on your five a day" clearly doesn't apply to diabetics on relatively low CHO diets - perhaps I should become a fruitarian (not sure of spelling!) because that's practically all I could have if I followed this advice to the letter!

Visited the dietitian yesterday no surprises more Fruit & veg more exercise. The Usual Stuff and a booklet Healthy living with Diabetes, it seems more of the same Don't get me wrong she was a lovely woman it just feels more like standard advice.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

When she told me to eat Bananas I look surprised and I said that I though that bananas had higher sugar then most fruit and the more ripe they are the higher they are she said no thats a myth so don't Know what to believe never mind tomorrow is another day.

Well I'm sorry to say that I don't think she's got that quite right. I have no reason to doubt Dr Google on this one:

1 medium banana (7 inches to 7? inches long): 24 grams effective (net) carbohydrate plus 3 grams fiber and 105 calories.

Glycemic Index for Bananas
The glycemic index (GI) of bananas varies depending upon how ripe the bananas are. This is because a lot of the carbohydrate in green bananas is in the form of a kind of resistant starch which we lack the enzyme to digest. As the fruit ripens, the starch is converted into readily available sugars.

One study of "under-ripe" bananas came up with a glycemic index of 30. One of "slightly under-ripe bananas" that were "yellow with green sections" produced a GI of 42, while another of "over-ripe" bananas was 52. However, most studies of bananas haven't specified the ripeness, and have come up with GIs ranging from 46 (low) to 70 (high). An average of 52 (medium) is usually assigned to bananas.

As Steffie points out, different people find different fruits cause their BGs to rise. I'm completely fine with berries (strawberries/raspberries/blueberries etc), I think it's because the fructose in them isn't metabolised in the same was as other sugars - but have come across others for whom these are a complete no-go. Steffie's fine with grapes, I need to be more careful with them to avoid a BG spike. Bev posted a link to a post by a Mum of three(!) T1 boys in the States who was calculating insulin doses. One of whom found Pasta had only a slight impact on their BGs, the others for whom it needed to be carb-counted very carefully.

Given the strange advice your Dietician has been giving you about fruit, dare I ask whether she has advised you to to eat a diet "based on lots of starchy carbohydrates at every meal"?

If so you might want to look at that advice in the light of her peculiar comments about fruit. I'm not particularly a low-carb advocate (unless it works for the individual), but I think advice given to many T2s to eat *lots* of carbs is very odd indeed. I would suggest that carbs are an important part of the diet, but since T2s have a metabolic disorder which means they have difficulty processing any carbohydrate (so-called 'starchy' or otherwise) the amount that a T2 can eat at any particular time of day will vary a great deal. I would say it makes more sense to use your BG meter as your guide to how much carbohydrate (and what sort) you can eat at any given meal. If your meter shows you shooting into the teens every day after porridge for breakfast, you might try bacon and eggs instead.

We've got so used to being bombarded with fat=evil carbs=good advice that it's harder to spot that a diet high in carbs will, for many T2s, lead to high BGs, high HbA1cs, high cholesterol, high triglicerides and all their associated problems.

Moderation, it seems once again, is the key.

 

[Donald]

I could not agree more she was happy with my bg control but need to lose more weight. She did ask about what I eat and did speak about starchy carbohydrates like potatoes and asked if I eat a lot of pasta and rice which I don't anyway thanks for the info in your post it clarified s few things.I'm just going ahead with a mixture of what she said and what I have learned on here and elsewhere and what my meter reading is and adjust from there. I'm aware that no two people are the same and food effect people differently
Thanks
Donald

 

[MeanMom]

My understanding of the 'five a day' thingy is that in adults it should be more veg in the five a day and children more fruit. This is for 'normal' 🙄 people, of course. So perhaps an adult 3 or 4 veg and 1 or 2 fruit. Its really the colour mix that's important because different colours means different vitamins etc
My poor Dad was told to eat more berries and tomatoes, and gave his dietitian a bit of a fright when he said 'What, with THESE teeth?' and took them out to show her (its the seeds you know😛)

 

[Donald]

My understanding of the 'five a day' thingy is that in adults it should be more veg in the five a day and children more fruit. This is for 'normal' 🙄 people, of course. So perhaps an adult 3 or 4 veg and 1 or 2 fruit. Its really the colour mix that's important because different colours means different vitamins etc
My poor Dad was told to eat more berries and tomatoes, and gave his dietitian a bit of a fright when he said 'What, with THESE teeth?' and took them out to show her (its the seeds you know😛)

Hi The way it seems to be said is half the plate veg less then a quarter for meat (chicken fish beef) the rest potato's. Choose plenty starchy carbohydrates like boiled new potatoes as they often say. yes the seeds get everywhere if you have false teeth. It is difficult to try and balance food without it getting boring with the same meals all the time know what mean.