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New Type 2 - After Some Fruit Advice!!

S

Samoa_Joe

Newbie
Messages
2
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Hi everyone.

I have recently been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, and while my levels are pretty much on the borderline and everything else seems ok health wise, I am massively overweight (34 stone!) so obviously the first thing I am doing is shifting some weight. Has been a real wake up call - am lucky at the age of 38 to have never had any health issues and I want to try and get fit again and start being more active for my young son, playing sport, doing pro wrestling too (I am not the real Samoa Joe before anyone asks)

My diet previously was terrible, looking back. Daily chocolate bars, fats, processed food, not enough fresh vegetables and drinking beer on the regular.

I had great success the last time I dieted by cutting out alcohol and using juicing as part of my daily regime. At present I am having a banana for my breakfast along with a 3/4 litre juice made entirely from vegetables (carrot, kale, ginger, turmeric, cucumber, celery), a salad with cottage cheese for lunch, and then an evening meal of tuna or chicken with roasted vegetables, some black eye beans and rice. So far, so good. Am enjoying the diet...but I really want to add some more fruit.

If I was to make a juice with my preferred fruits added to it (green apples, kiwi, strawberries, raspberries, hell, any berries) or even switch to a smoothie of banana, skimmed milk, maybe some fat free yoghurt and the aforementioned fruits, would this have a massively detrimental effect on my sugar levels and health going forward? This way I could remove lunch out of the equation and have a smoothie in the morning and then a juice for lunch, and then my evening meal.

I have completely eliminated all sugar from my diet and am limiting carbohydrates to one portion per day, am eating at least 10 portions of fresh vegetables daily and maintaining under 2000 calories per day.
 
Hi @Samoa_Joe and welcome to the Forum. Um, adding more fruit is not a good idea at all, especially juicing them! Bananas are very high in carbs; berries are ok but not huge portions. You are at the start of learning what's ok to eat and what is not, so don't worry about a massive and swift change (it works for some, not others). You are doing great and learning about nutrition etc, but you could ditch the skimmed milk (whole milk is better than skim, double cream is even betterer! ) and fat-free yoghurt (full-fat is far better - fat-free yoghurts are loaded with sugar). Smoothies and juices are not recommended as the sugar hit is instant as opposed to whole fruit, although the juice you mentioned is ok in moderate quantities. @daisy1 will give you the 'welcome pack' and have a good browse through the Forum, especially the Low-Carb bits. I don't test but others will recommend that you do, so you can find out which foods spike you. It's a big learning curve but you've started well. Good luck!
 
If your are limiting cabs I would advise you to get a pocket carb counter. Collins do one & you con probably get one for a couple of quid on Amazon or similar website. It's invaluable for working out how many carbs your eating. If I remember correctly a banana is about 23 carbs. There is lots of dietary advice on the site including low carb/high fat. Rice -use basmati or brown rice if you can as it has a lower GI, but cauliflower rice is easy to make. Same with pasta, use wholewheat or make courgetti. Good luck with the diet, as I said you'll find lots of advice on here
 
Sue192 said:
Hi @Samoa_Joe and welcome to the Forum. Um, adding more fruit is not a good idea at all, especially juicing them! Bananas are very high in carbs; berries are ok but not huge portions. You are at the start of learning what's ok to eat and what is not, so don't worry about a massive and swift change (it works for some, not others). You are doing great and learning about nutrition etc, but you could ditch the skimmed milk (whole milk is better than skim, double cream is even betterer! ) and fat-free yoghurt (full-fat is far better - fat-free yoghurts are loaded with sugar). Smoothies and juices are not recommended as the sugar hit is instant as opposed to whole fruit, although the juice you mentioned is ok in moderate quantities. @daisy1 will give you the 'welcome pack' and have a good browse through the Forum, especially the Low-Carb bits. I don't test but others will recommend that you do, so you can find out which foods spike you. It's a big learning curve but you've started well. Good luck!
Click to expand...

Wow some eye opening stuff here. Had no idea that they would put sugar in fat free yoghurts for example.

Haven't had any fruit or smoothies whatsoever since I began dieting, only vegetable based.
 
chris lowe said:
If your are limiting cabs I would advise you to get a pocket carb counter. Collins do one & you con probably get one for a couple of quid on Amazon or similar website. It's invaluable for working out how many carbs your eating. If I remember correctly a banana is about 23 carbs. There is lots of dietary advice on the site including low carb/high fat. Rice -use basmati or brown rice if you can as it has a lower GI, but cauliflower rice is easy to make. Same with pasta, use wholewheat or make courgetti. Good luck with the diet, as I said you'll find lots of advice on here
Click to expand...

Wholemeal or white it makes no difference, they are still both carbs. Instead of looking at GI we should look at GI + GL.
 
Welcome to the forum, you are in the right place. If you can cut sugar and obvious carbs, i.e. bread, pasta, rice, beer and potatoes your bs levels should come down and the weight off. Substitute the occasional glass of red wine for beer, cauliflower rice for rice, courgetti for pasta, berries for bananas etc. Diet products all seem to reduce the fat but increase the sugar, so much worse for us. Good luck
 
I would say get yourself a meter and a supply of test strips then use them to test the effects juice, fruit, rice, beans etc have on your sugars. Avoiding foods that spike your sugars out of range will help both your diabetes and weight loss efforts.
Everyone is different in terms of what level of carbs their body can tolerate and also which foods will produce the greatest spikes
If you are in the uk, your gp will almost certainly not provide you with a meter or strips but the T2 meter (free from Spirit health care) or the codefree ( initially a small charge) are both cost effective and accurate
Other countries will have other options
 
Fruit is a difficult one, especially if you have a great deal of weight to lose. It is full of fructose (anything ending in --ose is sugar based.) Fructose is unlike other forms of sugar as it is sent straight to the liver for metabolising rather than the stomach as with other foods. In the liver it metabolises much the same as alcohol does, and both are well known causes of fatty liver. The last thing we need, as diabetics, is a fatty liver. Fruit is also very insulinogenic. Meaning it triggers a large amount of insulin release to deal with it. Too much circulating insulin is a cause of obesity, insulin resistance, and Type 2 diabetes.

This explains it far better than I can
https://www.dietdoctor.com/fructose-fatty-liver-sugar-toxin

another website
http://www.nofructose.com/food-ideas/fruit/

In addition to all this, juiced fruit (and cooked) is many times worse than raw.

It is far better not to have very much, and to restrict the fruits to strawberries or raspberries but in very small quantities, and eaten with cream or full fat yogurts. Avocados are also a good choice. The very worst ones are bananas, grapes and most tropical fruits.
 
@Samoa_Joe

Hello Joe and welcome to the Forum :) Here is the Basic Information we give to new members and I hope you will find it useful. Ask as many questions as you need to and someone will be able to help.


BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED DIABETICS

Diabetes is the general term to describe people who have blood that is sweeter than normal. A number of different types of diabetes exist.

A diagnosis of diabetes tends to be a big shock for most of us. It’s far from the end of the world though and on this forum you'll find well over 235,000 people who are demonstrating this.

On the forum we have found that with the number of new people being diagnosed with diabetes each day, sometimes the NHS is not being able to give all the advice it would perhaps like to deliver - particularly with regards to people with type 2 diabetes.

The role of carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are a factor in diabetes because they ultimately break down into sugar (glucose) within our blood. We then need enough insulin to either convert the blood sugar into energy for our body, or to store the blood sugar as body fat.

If the amount of carbohydrate we take in is more than our body’s own (or injected) insulin can cope with, then our blood sugar will rise.

The bad news

Research indicates that raised blood sugar levels over a period of years can lead to organ damage, commonly referred to as diabetic complications.

The good news

People on the forum here have shown that there is plenty of opportunity to keep blood sugar levels from going too high. It’s a daily task but it’s within our reach and it’s well worth the effort.

Controlling your carbs

The info below is primarily aimed at people with type 2 diabetes, however, it may also be of benefit for other types of diabetes as well.

There are two approaches to controlling your carbs:
  • Reduce your carbohydrate intake
  • Choose ‘better’ carbohydrates
Reduce your carbohydrates

A large number of people on this forum have chosen to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat as they have found this to be an effective way of improving (lowering) their blood sugar levels.

The carbohydrates which tend to have the most pronounced effect on blood sugar levels tend to be starchy carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and similar root vegetables, flour based products (pastry, cakes, biscuits, battered food etc) and certain fruits.

Choosing better carbohydrates

The low glycaemic index diet is often favoured by healthcare professionals but some people with diabetes find that low GI does not help their blood sugar enough and may wish to cut out these foods altogether.

Read more on carbohydrates and diabetes.

Over 145,000 people have taken part in the Low Carb Program - a 10 week structured education course that is helping people lose weight and reduce medication dependency by explaining the science behind carbs, insulin and GI.

Eating what works for you

Different people respond differently to different types of food. What works for one person may not work so well for another. The best way to see which foods are working for you is to test your blood sugar with a glucose meter.

To be able to see what effect a particular type of food or meal has on your blood sugar is to do a test before the meal and then test after the meal. A test 2 hours after the meal gives a good idea of how your body has reacted to the meal.

The blood sugar ranges recommended by NICE are as follows:

Blood glucose ranges for type 2 diabetes
  • Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 8.5 mmol/l
Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (adults)
  • Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 9 mmol/l
Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (children)
  • Before meals: 4 to 8 mmol/l
  • 2 hours after meals: under 10 mmol/l
However, those that are able to, may wish to keep blood sugar levels below the NICE after meal targets.

Access to blood glucose test strips

The NICE guidelines suggest that people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should be offered:
  • structured education to every person and/or their carer at and around the time of diagnosis, with annual reinforcement and review
  • self-monitoring of plasma glucose to a person newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only as an integral part of his or her self-management education

Therefore both structured education and self-monitoring of blood glucose should be offered to people with type 2 diabetes. Read more on getting access to blood glucose testing supplies.

You may also be interested to read questions to ask at a diabetic clinic.

Note: This post has been edited from Sue/Ken's post to include up to date information.
Take part in Diabetes.co.uk digital education programs and improve your understanding. Most of these are free.

  • Low Carb Program - it's made front-page news of the New Scientist and The Times. Developed with 20,000 people with type 2 diabetes; 96% of people who take part recommend it... find out why

  • Hypo Program - improve your understanding of hypos. There's a version for people with diabetes, parents/guardians of children with type 1, children with type 1 diabetes, teachers and HCPs.
 
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