Weekend takeaway?

[Pritch-s1]

does Anyone here have a Chinese or any other takeaway once a week as a treat, and does it affect their sugars

 

[Dave_Z1a]

Yes often! And no, in fact results are better than my normal day to day foods! It does depend on what you select of course and in my case definitely no rice, pancakes, nan bread, sweet bbq items, spring rolls, half dozen prawn crackers max, noodles, (watch cornflour in chicken and sweetcorn soup), chapattis although happy to have a maximum of two popadoms. Stir fried beansprouts instead of rice and in the case of Indian cauliflower rice or my 5gram carb wraps. Sometimes if eating out will take my cauliflower rice with me and ask them to zap it in microwave for me!
Start by having say an egg fu young, ( prawn or meat) and a basic chop suey maybe if having Chinese?

 

[rebrascora]

Once in a blue moon I will have a takeaway shared with my partner. If I have Chinese, he usually gets chicken, duck or char sui with ginger and spring onion and a side order of stir fried veg for me and I have a bit of his main dish and one or two dessert spoons of his rice just to soak up the juice. If we have Indian takeaway, I have cabbage or cauliflower bhaji which is not like an onion bhaji ie crispy and deep fried, but basically soft cooked mildly curried vegetables (it it delicious) and I will have a spoon or two of his main course meat dish (usually Malayan Chicken because he doesn't eat spiky food and again maybe a dessert spoon or two of his rice. If we have fish and chips, then we get a single portion between us and I have half the fish and about 8-10 chips. These are rare treats not a weekly event.

I have recently been experimenting with cooking vegetable bhaji at home and I have made quite credible cabbage bhaji for myself, so now I don't need the takeaway. I also cook curries at home and I have a particular favourite which is cauliflower, halloumi and butternut squash and I throw in a tin of chick peas as well and either just eat it like a stew with a spoon or I have it on a bed of cooked shredded cabbage or very occasionally I will have it with a packet of Konjac rice, which is high in fibre and pretty well carb free. Sometimes I have a bit of a challenge with myself to see how many different types of veg I can get into one meal.

 

[Deb_l]

Rice is my nemesis and absolutely spirals my BG levels so once a week would be out of the question for me. Possibly once in a blue moon

Nothing wrong with a treat as long as it doesn’t become a daily habit (I speak from experience)

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

does Anyone here have a Chinese or any other takeaway once a week as a treat, and does it affect their sugars

I’ve been playing this game for a while now, and for me it comes down to a question of risk and reward. And also of keeping an eye on the bigger picture.

I’ve ended up with a sort of ‘never say never’ approach, which I think is sustainable and workable for me. I try to balance the likelihood of Blood Glucose chaos that will follow a particular meal/treat with exactly how enjoyable it actually is in the moment. And often I realise that things become less enjoyable with increased frequency. Plus there’s nothing worse than a massive BG spike after a dry and disappointing cake. If I’m gonna have cake - I want it to be a good one. I’d rather have fresh crispy fish and chips on a bench overlooking the holiday fishing harbour, than a stodgy soggy chippy tea on a wet Wednesday.

My long-term aim is to avoid diabetes nasties for as long as possible and I believe that good glucose management will help with that, but also I want to enjoy life, and have a varied and interesting diet. I fear that if I just tried to eat like a monk (in order to aim for a ‘better’ HbA1c) I would quickly fall off the wagon. Plus there are no guarantees in this game, and it is possible that two different people with identical HbA1cs would have one developing eye or kidney problems while the other didn’t.

So yes, I still eat out at restaurants, and have takeaways - but more likely to be once every month or two than weekly. Plus I have the benefit of insulin to help balance these things out. I think I would make quite different takeaway menu choices without that.

Have you considered the possibility of getting a home glucose meter, so that you can check immediately before, and 2 hours after the first bite of meals to see what impact it has on your levels. Ideally you’d mostly want to see a rise of 2-3mmol/L. And then a special treat meal could perhaps have a bit more license (because on average things would be more in range). That might help you adjust your takeaway selection to better suit your metabolism?

 

[trophywench]

Years ago now, I used to mentally weigh up the value to me personally of eating this, that or indeed, the other, almost like you would when buying almost anything with actual money. Eg - is a piece of Black Forest gateau for my dessert worth it to me? (because of the blood glucose chaos after eating it that has just mentioned) or would I be better off, settling for just one scoop of unadorned vanilla ice cream instead? or is there something else even more sensible (blood glucose- wise) that I equally enjoy, that I could have instead?

I recently had to choose a meal for a pre- Xmas meal we're having on 12th December and one choice was Lemon Torte. Now - some places have them that aren't remotely oversweet so last year I chose to have that very thing from the same place. Mega sweet and can't say I liked it at all. So this year I chose the only one that automatically came with a scoop of vanilla ice cream even though it's a chocolate brownie underneath the ice cream - I can eat the ice cream and will taste the brownie because if its too sweet, I'm 100% sure the non diabetic man I'm married to, with me, can soon polish it off without causing any difficulty or embarrassment since we know everyone we'll be with.

 

[JJay]

Yes, but certainly not every week! For us a takeaway is something we have every now and then when our son & daughter-in-law come over for the evening and we graze from a set meal for 3, not 4, but the "treat" is their company and not having to cook! For high carb stuff I follow the mantra of Prue Leith, slightly adapted - and ask myself "is it worth the carbs?"

"Treats" don't have to be carby, they don't have to be food - but, if they are, balance the carbs with activity. We visit Whitby about every 2 years and of course we indulge in fish & chips at The Magpie. But we follow up with a walk up and down the 199 steps to the Abbey and back to the car park (investigating the jewellers on the way so I can add to my jet collection!) Now that's a treat!

 

[Inka]

does Anyone here have a Chinese or any other takeaway once a week as a treat, and does it affect their sugars

I do have takeaways but much less frequently than that. Not because of the diabetes, but for general health reasons. Most takeaways are high in fat and salt.

My weekly treats are things like a glass of wine, time to read a good book, watching a film on Amazon Prime, or indulging in a DVD boxset. Nicer, cheaper and better for your health!

 

[harbottle]

We'd stopped eating takeaways long before I was diagnosed with T2D. Expense and poor quality was the main reason.

We very, very occasionally have a Chinese - doesn't cause me much of an issue with blood sugar if I stay away from the rice and stick to meat and veg with an egg fu yung.

 

[nonethewiser]

One time we did get Chinese takeaway every Saturday, or most Saturdays, now it's rare treat mainly due to cost more than anything else.

 

[debinfrance]

I tend to do a chinese fakeaway, similarly with Indian, - didn’t love the last takeaway we had ( years ago) so learnt to make a few dishes, much better quality and easier to control ingredients.