I'm off to a good start

[CL_in_NZ]

I was diagnosed type 2 about 2 months ago with an hba1c of 54, I am not on any medication yet. I am in New Zealand and there is not much here in terms of official support/advice.

So I have done a lot of research and totally understand the carb situation. For the first two weeks I cut back on carbs, and then I REALLY cut back on carbs over the last 6 weeks, I am probably averaging less than 30g a day now. I am not really that overweight though have lost about 10 kilos over the past 4 months and will probably lose a couple more kgs which will put me at a BMI of 21 (I am 22 now), I could go lower though I will see how I feel. I'm lucky and losing weight has been fairly easy for me, my body seems to like low carbs and I fine on this diet but it is expensive!

Because the medical stuff in NZ seems so low key (follow the plate system and we will give you drugs no worries) I am taking a more proactive approach. I have been using a freestyle libre for a bit over a week now and have found it to be invaluable.

My main issues seems to be from waking up, intense exercise and stress/lack of sleep. Food gives me little bumps that go away in an hour or two. I used to run more intensively and found my BG spikes up to around 15 when I do, when I keep my HR mostly under 140 (as opposed to mostly over 140) I can make it more of a bump to 8 or 9 or even lower. Overnight according to my libre my BG is around 4-6. it goes up as morning approaches and I wake up in the 6's and it keeps rising to the 7s just by being awake and it will go higher with morning exercise. Most of the day I am 7s sometimes a bit higher and sometimes a bit lower it is always higher in the mornings though. I rarely see 5s when awake but have seen it once or twice late in the day.

I am working on the sleep and stress but the diagnosis has been a big one for me in terms of causing the lack of sleep and stress but I am getting better there and a work thing will settle down in a couple weeks so that should help but I can see the impact it has with the libre and stress is never going to go away all together so I need to watch that. I have cut back the intensity of my exercise but I exercise daily and tend to walk after meals. Diet is as under control as it can get.

So, right now my libre says my 7 day average is a 7.3 which is about an hba1c of 44. That is OK I guess but I want to get it lower.

So, after all that info, my main question is if I keep up what I am doing are my BG levels likely to continue to drop over time or do you get most of the gains early on? My main thing seems to be just a highish average BG level and that needs to drop. I'm trying to figure out if I should start taking metformin or give my body more time to adjust to the changes?

 

[Resurgam]

I saw continuing reductions in BG levels at the same stage as yourself, and at 6 months I was shocked to have a Hba1c of 41 down by 50 points.
Metformin doesen''t lower BG, it is supposed to be beneficial but I felt utterly wretched when I tried taking it.
Having lowered my BG to normal I can now eat more carbs if I want to - but that increases my weight, also just like normal, so I stay low carb and trust that a non medicated body is going to sort itself out far more easily than one being regulated by outside influences.

 

[Jaylee]

Hi @CL_in_NZ ,

Welcome to the forum.. I'll tag in @Bluetit1802

I noticed yer a guy? So I'll tag in some diet controlled menfolk too. @bulkbiker @AM1874 @Squire Fulwood (from memory.)

 

[bulkbiker]

Keep going. I started out higher than you and now am usually in the low 5's. I tend to eat very low carb between 10 and 20g per day. I also fast by avoiding breakfast each day and mainly having lunch and dinner (or sometimes just dinner). My BMI is still 29 however it was 42.7 when diagnosed! Still have a few more pounds that I want to loose.

 

[CL_in_NZ]

Thanks for the input! I was just out for a walk (went a bit too hard up the hills though as it turns out I hit 10 on my libre) and realised while I thought I was doing well in August because of diet the overly intense and increased exercise and mega stress/lack of sleep would have hurt big time. I just have to be patient and give it time I guess and trust in the changes I have made. I feel so much better now with reasonable results on my meter I just need to get it to good

One of the hardest things about this is I feel very alone. My wife is the only person I talk to about it and she is a bit over me going on about it and I don't blame her. I'm still struggling with social aspects where food or beer is involved that I decline and invariably when I say no thanks I get the but you are so skinny comments. I can see how it is easy to get isolated as it is just easier to avoid things sometimes. I'm still not sure how I am going to manage this but that is also on my to figure out list.

Thanks

 

[bulkbiker]

Thanks for the input! I was just out for a walk (went a bit too hard up the hills though as it turns out I hit 10 on my libre) and realised while I thought I was doing well in August because of diet the overly intense and increased exercise and mega stress/lack of sleep would have hurt big time. I just have to be patient and give it time I guess and trust in the changes I have made. I feel so much better now with reasonable results on my meter I just need to get it to good

One of the hardest things about this is I feel very alone. My wife is the only person I talk to about it and she is a bit over me going on about it and I don't blame her. I'm still struggling with social aspects where food or beer is involved that I decline and invariably when I say no thanks I get the but you are so skinny comments. I can see how it is easy to get isolated as it is just easier to avoid things sometimes. I'm still not sure how I am going to manage this but that is also on my to figure out list.

Thanks

In the end if you want to socialise you just have to find something that you can tell people.. Because I was very fat and people can now see I am less so then they tend to ask what I have done. In explaining I then say what I do and don't eat these days which then lets them know (that I'll be a difficult ****** to cook for!) what I eat.
You can always come here and moan, ask, or celebrate.. especially the last one.. we all love a good success story which I reckon it sounds like yours will be. You're making a great start to better health just keep it up.. it really does get easier over time.

 

[CL_in_NZ]

In the end if you want to socialise you just have to find something that you can tell people.. Because I was very fat and people can now see I am less so then they tend to ask what I have done. In explaining I then say what I do and don't eat these days which then lets them know (that I'll be a difficult ****** to cook for!) what I eat.
You can always come here and moan, ask, or celebrate.. especially the last one.. we all love a good success story which I reckon it sounds like yours will be. You're making a great start to better health just keep it up.. it really does get easier over time.

I think the diet/exercise is going to be sustainable for me the diet is getting easier not harder and exercise is easy. I just need to get the BG where I want it and I am off to a good start so far. I will happily post on any successes I have here as I know they have helped me. Starting off low carb was hard and I had a pretty black August between the diet changes and coming to grips with the diagnosis. I'm doing better and hope that will continue but it is still up and down.

The social bit is what I am struggling with now. I have been telling people I am doing low carb/paleo (thank god for it being so well know!) and that will work at work but friends is going to be harder particularly now that I look quite thin. A group of us used to catch up weekly at the pub and I'm not so keen on that now and have been making excuses. It is harder as my wife is friends with a bunch of their partners so we tend to see each other as couples regularly. She thinks I should just tell them but I don't want to and it is going to be difficult if I stop turning up they only see her.

 

[Guzzler]

I'm struggling to understand why you wouldn't tell your freinds about the diabetes. True freinds would support you and those that do not are not worth your freindship.
Recalling what is was like deciding to tell freinds that I was going tee total (this was a personal choice and was not due to any health reasons at the time) was far, far harder than telling them I am now T2. I find most of them want to understand and are interested in learning more. Being pro active in reaching and maintaining better health needn't mean becoming isolated at all, get out there and enjoy yourself with your wife and your circle of freinds. Do not allow diabetes to become all consuming.

 

[Freema]

By the way when being type 2 a glass or two of red Wine isnt that bad. Can even help lowering blood glucose a bit ; if you do want to Lie you could say that you Think you are a bit allergic to beer and Then prefer Wine or like whisky on the rocks and so on maybe with some peanut with

 

[AM1874]

Hi @CL_in_NZ .. and welcome
Your story sounds remarkably like mine. I was diagnosed in early Feb and followed a similar path to yourself .. including the daft advice that I did not need to test because I was only T2 and the garbage from my practice dietitian about the Eatwell Plate. I had already learned from this forum, though, how ridiculous all of that was. So, I developed a simple little mantra to apply whenever I have to deal with nonsense from HCPs ..
# Listen
# Nod
# Smile and say thankyou
# Ignore

You seem to be totally on top of your management and control in terms of diet, exercise and testing and The ony advice that I can offer is that you need to give it a bit more time for your body to fully adjust to your new lifestyle and for your BG levels to become lower and consistent .. I'm sure that they will.

For interest, you might like to have a look at the numbers in my sig block below.

Hope this helps

 

[Squire Fulwood]

So, after all that info, my main question is if I keep up what I am doing are my BG levels likely to continue to drop over time or do you get most of the gains early on? My main thing seems to be just a highish average BG level and that needs to drop. I'm trying to figure out if I should start taking metformin or give my body more time to adjust to the changes?

What I found was that an average BG seems to be associated with a given lifestyle. Obviously major changes happen when you initially make the lifestyle changes you have already made but after that it might rely on you and your Libre tweaking things to find more improvements. One thing you are already on to is exercise. I found that just walking gave good results although I am loathe to stop anyone from their own favourite exercise regime if it keeps them fit.

When and what you eat is important but I see you already appreciate much of that. Some people have tried intermittent fasting with fair rates of success. One person took it to extremes and had whole one week periods of not eating. He ended up with an Hba1c of 23 but I do not recommend that anyone repeats that.

Other intermittent fasters refer to themselves as 8/16 for example which means confining meals to 8 hours of the day and nothing for 16 hours. I tried that one and it does keep the average down. Others have tried 5/2, fasting two days of the week. I have not tried that one. It seems that your Libre has work to do.

My personal opinion of Metformin is that you can take it if it makes you feel better since it does not seem to achieve much in my case. It just made food taste funny so I am not a fan.

 

[CL_in_NZ]

Thanks for all of the input! I'm really glad to hear from others. I'm going try and switch my mornings around and eat early. Seems like my liver goes nuts dumping glucose when I haven't eaten. It is not food that is getting me it is my liver. I ate about 8g of carbs for lunch today, BG was 7 before I ate and a couple hours after I ate then after about 3 hours it is up to 8 and just sitting there having not eaten a thing.

I'm struggling to understand why you wouldn't tell your freinds about the diabetes. True freinds would support you and those that do not are not worth your freindship.
Recalling what is was like deciding to tell freinds that I was going tee total (this was a personal choice and was not due to any health reasons at the time) was far, far harder than telling them I am now T2. I find most of them want to understand and are interested in learning more. Being pro active in reaching and maintaining better health needn't mean becoming isolated at all, get out there and enjoy yourself with your wife and your circle of freinds. Do not allow diabetes to become all consuming.

I think it being all consuming is my problem aside from work it is literally almost the only thing I think about. While I know I shouldn't blame myself I do. I don't want my friends to see me as some sort of victim or failure too. I know they wouldn't say that openly but I wonder what they are thinking. Maybe I should just tell them and that way if it gets awkward at least it will be clear why that is.

 

[Squire Fulwood]

Maybe I should just tell them and that way if it gets awkward at least it will be clear why that is.

I would vote for that approach. In fact it's what I do all the time then I don't have to explain why I can't accept the biscuit (go on, one won't hurt you) or the bar of chocolate on offer on the counter of the local shop (I'm sorry, I'm diabetic) and they shut up. The KFC gave up while trying to include a bottle of fizz for free (I can't accept since I am diabetic). "It's OK sir we have that diet stuff over there". Then he took money off the meal.

I was invited to a party 300 miles away and I didn't fancy it. "Are you sure you want an old person who is fussy about what he eats and wants the toilet all the time?" Never heard any more.

And all the "would you like to's" and "can you just's" also seem to go away since I am now tainted with diabetes and secretly I am enjoying it.

 

[CL_in_NZ]

And all the "would you like to's" and "can you just's" also seem to go away since I am now tainted with diabetes and secretly I am enjoying it.

And this just depresses the hell out of me as this is where I am headed: people will see me as tainted. My old life is gone and I miss it. I still have young kids though and really don't want to screw them up with me being sick.

 

[Squire Fulwood]

There is definitely a denial phase where we all wish that things were otherwise ..........but they are not. I agree it's depressing but it is a fact. Lifestyle change means what it says on the tin unfortunately although I can sit here and say that you will come to accept it, that's not an easy thing to believe.

I remember that I started to accept it when I got involved in controlling my sugar levels. It can be very interesting and there are dozens of video'd lectures on the Internet by eminent professors. There is a great deal to learn if you take an interest. There are more than a few who now see their diabetes as a blessing since they look at civilians and feel sorry for them in their ignorance.

You won't believe anything I say right now but you will one day.

 

[pavlosn]

Hallo @CL_in_NZ

Welcome to our forum

It sounds to me like you are struggling a bit with the psychological aspects of coming to terms with your diagnosis. You are definetely not the first or last to find it tough. It can be a rollercoaster at first but it does get easier with time.

Coming to this forum was definetely a good move as there are a lot of people here with experience of what your going through willing to lend an understanding ear and offer advice.

My own two cents worth of advice is to continue taking the diabetes seriously and make effort to gain glycemic control but don't allow it take over your life. Don't cut yourself off from your friends particularly as this will have a knock on effect on your wife.

There is no shame in having a medical condition like T2, despite the negative media publicity it often attracts. As you know from your own case not all diabetics are overweight and conversely not all overweight people are diabetics. It is just as much an unlucky roll of the genetic dice as it is linked to diet and weight (though these are certainly factors).

It is up to you if and when you want to "come clean" to your friends. If you are not ready to do so you can always give some alternative story for your food/lifestyle choices. At the end of the day, they are really your choices to make and you do not really owe anybody any justification for them.

 

[Resurgam]

Oh please tell people that you are diabetic - it is always assumed that it is something which people give themselves by eating all the wrong things and getting fat, and which is cured by losing weight.
I tell perfect strangers that I need to adjust my diet to stay healthy, and that the things on offer just don't cut it for me.
You are not sick or tainted - you just can't eat the modern diet and you need to cut out all the unnaturally sweet and starchy foods the supermarkets sell and then you are likely to be perfectly healthy. Eating low carb should not be expensive - particularly if you have a garden or can get a spot where you could grow your own veges - swap some of your intense exercise for an hour in the garden each day and it should prove de-stressing.
It will be the end of winter for you, so you could make a start right now - I planted courgettes and tomato plants and have fruit trees and bushes from years ago which produce each year and can be prepared and frozen for all year round use. I don't plant green beans as there are people with allotments who give away theirs every year when they just can't cope with the amount.

 

[CL_in_NZ]

I'm a mess psychologically I know and this plays into my BG and it probably my single worst cause of high BG right now. I had really good BG on Saturday and then not so good yesterday which I attribute to exercising a bit too hard, going to a social event I didn't want to go and me feeling very alone and a failure. I'm going to tell my friends. I am messaging them which is lame but easier then trying to find the 'right' time. Either way it should be good to get it off my chest. If they don't care (which I am sure will be the case great) if not I don't need them anyways. I need to get back to thinking about other things and find something to look forward too other then lowering BG.

 

[CL_in_NZ]

I told them. They responded awesomely I feel better and I need to relax more. Thanks.

 

[pavlosn]

So glad you did this. Now you can get on with things without the additional pressure of having to figure what to do with your friends