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Carb flu - how to get past it?

What you have is what is akin to cold turkey. This is the worst part of going low carb and lasts for only 2 weeks or so. Get through it and you will feel incredible, have less of an appetite and won't have the cravings. Going to bed when the snacks come out or the cravings start is a good idea until the induction phase has ended and you no longer have them.
As I said before, sugar is as addictive, if not more so, than heroin and you are going through withdrawal. It will pass.

Yes, 5 stone in a year is impressive, I hope I will get the same result. However, you still have a long way to go, and now need to fix those sugar levels before you are dead before you're 30. Its that serious and you need to stop making excuses.

I'm bowing out too, I'm a teacher and I hear too many excuses during my day. I do not need to hear them from a grown adult too.
 
I'm done with the excuses now as I had the shock of my life when this morning I found out that one of my closet friends died from diabetic complications after ten years living with type 1 and I do not want to end up like him.

My blood sugars this morning are still but coming down slowly with 19.1 before breakfast and 20.9 2 hours after having half an onion, 2 tomatoes and some antipasti peppers fried in butter. My headache is still going strong, but its worth it.

I will also be doing some food shopping at my local Aldi with my mum, getting in some low carb foods
 
I'm sorry to hear about your friend, but if his death has an impact on your health then at least something good came out of your loss. Remember what happened to him every time you look at something bad or have a craving. Go easy on onions and tomatoes, they have sugar in them, in fact Dr Bernstein says not to eat them at all.
Good luck with the new you, it will not be easy and you should not expect it to be. You will feel ****** for up to 2 weeks but you'll notice a difference in yourself very quickly. I'm losing weight and getting more BGs in the good numbers, I sleep better and am waking naturally before my alarm, and this is all in 2 weeks of starting LCHF. I still have work to do to get my morning number down but I can see progress. You can do it too!
 
purplepenguin said:
I'm sorry to hear about your friend, but if his death has an impact on your health then at least something good came out of your loss. Remember what happened to him every time you look at something bad or have a craving. Go easy on onions and tomatoes, they have sugar in them, in fact Dr Bernstein says not to eat them at all.
Good luck with the new you, it will not be easy and you should not expect it to be. You will feel ****** for up to 2 weeks but you'll notice a difference in yourself very quickly. I'm losing weight and getting more BGs in the good numbers, I sleep better and am waking naturally before my alarm, and this is all in 2 weeks of starting LCHF. I still have work to do to get my morning number down but I can see progress. You can do it too!
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My trip to Aldi has pushed up my sugar levels to 24.5 and I've just had a slice of Gouda cheese with mayonnaise wrapped in ham. I know that onions and tomatoes have some sugars in them, but i thought that they wold be ok to have for breakfast.

I may have to quit having anything for breakfast to get my blood sugar under control and just have lunch and dinner.
 
Do not under any circumstances miss out breakfast. If you want to miss a meal, miss one of the others. I find that if I have a high reading in the morning, it goes higher and higher if I don't eat. If I eat, it drops significantly.
 
akindrat18 said:
My trip to Aldi has pushed up my sugar levels to 24.5 and I've just had a slice of Gouda cheese with mayonnaise wrapped in ham. I know that onions and tomatoes have some sugars in them, but i thought that they wold be ok to have for breakfast.

I may have to quit having anything for breakfast to get my blood sugar under control and just have lunch and dinner.
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I wouldn't try to run before you can walk, it depends on how low carb you want to go, or can manage.
Breakfast is the important meal to me as well, but not everyone agrees.

If you can't manage a drastic change, and cut out everything, which can be difficult with others around, try to at least switch to healthier foods for you personally.

Again, loads of difference in opinions.
Some would say cheese, olives, drumsticks with the skin on, as a snack instead of the chocolate, crisps, etc.
Some would say you need to cut the calories as well as the carbs, if you need to lose weight, and maybe carrot sticks, cucumber, classic low calorie low carb foods would be better.
Either way, it'll keep your fingers busy.
 
For breakfast I have scrambled eggs with cream, mushrooms and bacon or high meat content sausages. Or full fat natural greek yoghurt with berries. There is heaps of info in the low carb diet subforum and in the thread "what have you eaten today".

Are you on medication? That may help, depending on what it is. Are you seeing your doctor on Wednesday did you say? If you are able to get some more test strips, that might be a good idea.
 
CatLadyNZ said:
For breakfast I have scrambled eggs with cream, mushrooms and bacon or high meat content sausages. Or full fat natural greek yoghurt with berries. There is heaps of info in the low carb diet subforum and in the thread "what have you eaten today".

Are you on medication? That may help, depending on what it is. Are you seeing your doctor on Wednesday did you say? If you are able to get some more test strips, that might be a good idea.
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My blood sugars this morning are 18.9 after having a roast beef dinner with lots of leafy veg, a few roast potatoes, 2 yorkshire puds, and gravy. My parents then had a chocolate gateau for afters and later chocolate bars. I couldn't go out of the room as we were all watching a film together.

I did have some breakfast this morning, which was a low fat strawberry flavoured Greek yogurt. I am on sr-metformin 2 x 500mg twice daily, gliclazide 2 x 80mg twice daily, invokana 1 x 300mg daily. I do have testing strips and able to get more. yesterday my mum suggested to me that I should stop testing for a week as knowing what my blood sugar levels are is making me feel angry and frustrated.
 
akindrat18 said:
My blood sugars this morning are 18.9 after having a roast beef dinner with lots of leafy veg, a few roast potatoes, 2 yorkshire puds, and gravy. My parents then had a chocolate gateau for afters and later chocolate bars. I couldn't go out of the room as we were all watching a film together.

I did have some breakfast this morning, which was a low fat strawberry flavoured Greek yogurt. I am on sr-metformin 2 x 500mg twice daily, gliclazide 2 x 80mg twice daily, invokana 1 x 300mg daily. I do have testing strips and able to get more. yesterday my mum suggested to me that I should stop testing for a week as knowing what my blood sugar levels are is making me feel angry and frustrated.
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You might want to ask your doctor about going on insulin, since you seem unwilling to stop eating high carb foods like potatoes, yorkshire puddings, and gravy.

Your mum's ignorance about diabetes could see you end up in hospital with ketoacidosis because if you are not testing you won't notice your blood sugar going dangerously high. On that note you might also want to ask your doctor for a way to test for ketones.
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes-complications/diabetic-ketoacidosis.html

Has your mum ever gone to the doctor with you, as it sounds like she could do with some info about the dangers of high blood glucose.
 
I'm sticking to eating under 100 grams of carbs per day and yesterday I had 78 grams. My mum is not ignorant about diabetes and she has been with me to the DESMOND course a year ago. I am not that keen on going on insulin as I do not want to gain back the weight that I've lost. I also have a ketone testing kit and every test for ketones has turned up with no ketones.
 
So what we all said to you over the past week just has not gone in has it? You can no longer eat potatoes. They are the absolute no no food, and the sooner you realise this the sooner you will get better, Same goes for anything made with flour and milk (yorkshire puds) they are foods that you absolutely must not eat. 70% chocolate is preferable to these,
You say you have read everything on low carb etc so why are you eating a low fat yoghurt? It's full of sugar.
I give up. You can take a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.
 
purplepenguin said:
.............You say you have read everything on low carb etc so why are you eating a low fat yoghurt? It's full of sugar........
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Not all of them.
I get some here that are low everything, just made from normal milk by the look of them, and not much else added.
You may be right, you may be wrong, but you could ask the op to look at the packaging first.
 
I think what we are seeing with akindrat is the other side of the coin of a well worn argument at this forum. I often read that we are wrong to push LCHF and that the meter is all important and that we shouldn't be telling people what diet to follow, it's their choice. Well, yes it is, but this approach also brings complications, more choice, which some can cope with and others can't.

Akindrat, I think this is make or break time for you. You need to stop messing around with "this didn't spike me too much" and "I only had 2 small potatoes" etc and simply cut out all carbs except leafy green veg. You are on drugs already and you aren't doing as well as before you were on them. Gliclazide works by stimulating the pancreas to produce more insulin. By having the carbs you are wearing out your pancreas before its time.

Your target should be to reduce your BGs to less than 7.8 at all times. Then you can experiment with adding back a few things with the help of your meter. I feel you may have been misled by those on this forum who are 'less diabetic than you' and can handle more carbs than you. These are the lucky ones; you and I don't fall into that category. The stark choice for you and I is that's it's carbs or our health.

The title of your thread is "carb flu - how to get past it?" That's easy, simply don't have any carbs.
 
While I don't agree entirely, this thread is in the low carb forum, it's titled carb flu-how to get past it.
No one would argue to push carbs on the op, and no one has.

The op has made up his mind what he needs to do.
He's not doing it though.

I also think HF would help here, in fact anything, high fat, low fat, water, celery, anything to keep him busy when the rest of the family are enjoying their treats.

So I don't think it's a 'carb' arguement, get that blood sugar down, get those carbs worry about 'diet' later.
 
akindrat18 said:
I'm sticking to eating under 100 grams of carbs per day and yesterday I had 78 grams.
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No you didn't

Roast spuds, Yorkshire puddings and gravy do not add up to 78g especially when you include everything else you eat. A low fat strawberry Greek yoghurt will contain a huge amount of Carb.

You need to face reality.
 
I would suggest tracking your food intake using MyFitnessPal. It's a free app/website. You need to be completely honest with it though. Portion sizes will have a dramatic effect on your Blood Sugars when you record the foods you're eating. Track your intake for the next week and see what you're eating on a daily basis. Your figures will be a lot higher than 100g of carbs.
I can give you a meal plan of what I have eaten over the past few weeks that equates to 55g per day including treats if that helps.
You also need to talk to your family about the 'treats'. They should be willing to help you.
 
akindrat18 said:
I'm sticking to eating under 100 grams of carbs per day and yesterday I had 78 grams. My mum is not ignorant about diabetes and she has been with me to the DESMOND course a year ago. I am not that keen on going on insulin as I do not want to gain back the weight that I've lost. I also have a ketone testing kit and every test for ketones has turned up with no ketones.
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It would be highly unusual (or impossible for most) to be in ketosis when eating 78-100 grams of carbs. Most individuals need to eat below 50 grams and some as low as 20 grams per day.


Perhaps, it would be helpful to ask yourself what your goal is...lose weight, reach ketosis, kick meds to the curb? Then, adjust your diet to meet your goal(s). If you want to eat potatoes and pudding, then maybe insulin *is* the choice for you. Either way, you can't continue to have such high blood sugars without risk of complications. If you want to only dip your toe in the water or ride the Diabetes fence, then Diabetes will give you moderate to high blood sugars and fatigue, joint pain, and brain fogginess. If you jump in to managing your Diabetes with both feet, you will be rewarded with better BS readings, improved (well, everything!) and increased energy.

As my friend says "Pick your hard". Hard now or hard later?
 
After reading through the whole thread, I must say there are so many kind, considerate and knowledgeable people here giving fantastic advise and tips to you akindrat81. I feel extraordinarily frustrated just as many others, and truly wonder if you are in the right mindset for any of the eating plans on here. Low carb is only one of the options, and at the moment I feel you are combining principles from many of the others as well.

You will struggle to get results here with this fantastic and for many, very successful way of life unless you can be brutally honest about what you eat. If your diet includes potatoes in any amount really, and pastry/batter or traditionally thickened sauces, your carb count is too high as well as representing a wrong state of mind for success. Are you really serious with the low carb lifestyle? There is no space for excuses or buts and ifs. There really isn't. I went down the road of convincing myself it was OK to add a bit of potatoes or bread in. It'll be fine, I thought. Well, here I am and it's not fine. It's one heck of a slippery road and you really don't want to see what is at the end!

If you feel awkward with the whole situation with the folks, you have to find a way to deal with it. Reading back you have had the same issues all the way through your time with the joyous diabetes, and now you have to realise that they will not change. Not now, next week or next year. So how can you get over that? Easier said than done, definitely. But first you have to accept it, and deal with the disappointment it brings. The folks won't change, you can't force them. So who can you change? Only yourself... so now finally it is time to dig deep and go on that journey of self discovery because soon it will be too late and the regrets are so no worth it. You are way too young to lose your battle with this condition but the only way you will win is to accept the situation and find a way out and deal. And with all the support you have here, it is time to stop feeling sorry for yourself and fight! Stop the broken record and write a new one that will show you and your amazing weightloss as a start for a healthy new life... and if you need the insulin to help you stabilise initially, go for it. You should only gain weight if you allow it and what is a bit of extra weight if the meds keep you alive and allow you to get where you want to be... you will win and achieve your goals if you clean the slate altogether and start a fresh!
 
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