Why won't the NHS tell you the secret to treating diabetes?

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lucylocket61

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Type of diabetes
Type 2
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Seems to be going well. I fell off the wagon for a while, and veered towards a pretty bad mix of high-carb and high-fat. But that seems behind me. Don't get a heavy feeling of doom anymore, after eating a meal. But i've pretty much cut out all the junkier, pre-packaged vegan foods (No more vegan cheese, and only the occasional vegan burgers etc.). Went from having multiple weekly takeaways to one, in the last six weeks. Reduced salt from way over the recommended dose to about 1g (400g Sodium), and now have saturated fat at only a few grams a day.

Sleep quality is a lot better, though stress about certain things is keeping me awake more than i should be. Last remnants of arthritis-like symptoms is starting to clear (Freed up much of that going vegan, but a junk-food vegan diet kept some of it around). Still need to work on hydration, although with much lower salt I feel that's already improving.

Next stage is to start adding in more fruit and dialling back grains. At that point, will start ramping up exercise to a much greater level, and go all-out for weight-loss. Have gone back to incorporating some intermittent fasting. Not back to OMAD, but I pop a few 16-8's each week, and walk to force mini-hypo episodes.

All part of the fun :)
How old are you? What are you doing about your proteins?
 

Beating-My-Betes

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The significance of a reading depends on when it is taken. A reading before food, after food, what food was eaten, and how much time has elapsed since the meal.

When I say i can't afford to keep testing, I mean literally can't afford to throw money away on strips. There are too many confounding factors that determine how we respond to food, not just in terms of blood sugar.
I am not so concerned about short-term spiking. It's the long-term elevated BS that I am trying to avoid. And at this stage, I'm starting a meal too high, getting an exponential over-spike, which takes more than a couple of hours to return to normal. Not wasting hundreds on strips every month to tell me what i already know. I don't need a meter to measure that. I can feel it.

Basically you are making dietary decisions based on very little information, and with no meaningful testing to see it's effect.

My dietary decisions are based on the success of many others and on how I am feeling. If i eat a meal of potatoes, my meter would only tell me what a person with terrible insulin-resistence measures. I could choose to avoid potatoes or I could seek to improve my insulin-sensitivity so that it's not problem. And actually, a meal of potatoes is much easier to deal with than it was only six weeks ago.

I wish you the best.

Thanks. you too.
 

Beating-My-Betes

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So how on Earth are you going to assess what this program is achieving? No hb1ac before starting, few fbg , no after meal tests? Purely on weight?
Are you content getting readings consistently in the teens when you do test? it would terrify me.

I will keep monitoring my fbg, every so often. I'm not content with consistent readings in the teens, and already manage to get down from 18 to 9. But after a random fbg testing higher (could've been bad sleep or morning liver dumping), I ended up really defeated and fell off-plan.

Once I've lost a stack of weight, and get into a general run of better figures, I'll test more regularly.

I'm just putting one foot in front of the other, and trusting in the plan...for the moment.
 

lucylocket61

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6,435
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I'm 49. Apart from the amounts of protein generally found in plant-foods, i eat tofu, textured vegetable protein, beans and legumes.
If your diet, as you previously mentioned, is 80% carbs, how much protein are you having?
 

Beating-My-Betes

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If your diet, as you previously mentioned, is 80% carbs, how much protein are you having?

This is a day that I repeated (Not the OGTT) quite often. I no longer really eat like this (Much much lower sodium, and less saturated fat). I don't show b12 or VitD as I supplement for them. I also take a multivitamin, just in case. Should give an idea:

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lucylocket61

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6,435
Type of diabetes
Type 2
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Diet only
Kinda like how the NHS would recommend :)
And we all know how successful that is.

So the idea is that the more weight you lose, the less carbs will affect you? Only you are eating far more percentage of carbs than the NHS recommends, especially for type 2 diabetes.

Why are you eating 80% carbs? You mentioned 400-500g a day on another thread.
 
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Beating-My-Betes

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Think it's time I ducked out of here. This thread was never meant to be about me, so I'll be orff.

A while ago I thought about starting a blog here, but decided that nobody here would really be interested. but maybe there is some interest, in the end (Perhaps more than just the freakshow aspect).

Will try to collate the data I have from tracking, and think about setting it up.
 

lucylocket61

Expert
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6,435
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only

Beating-My-Betes

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And we all know how successful that is.

Do we? The recommendations for a low-fat diet seem to very rarely be followed by anyone except plant-based dieters, and even that isn't assured

So the idea is that the more weight you lose, the less carbs will affect you? Only you are eating far more percentage of carbs than the NHS recommends, especially for type 2 diabetes.

Lots of people have found success this way.

Why are you eating 80% carbs? You mentioned 400-500g a day on another thread.

That's putting the cart before the horse, somewhat. What I'm actually doing is pursuing a low-fat, moderate protein profile. This leaves the bulk of my energy requirements being made up by carbs.
 

Beating-My-Betes

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Not only is this meaningless, it includes a homemade ogtt.

Virtually no protein either.

Meaningless? How about the fact that i've been eating that way for the past 6 weeks and lost 3 kilos? I tried not to lose weight, by eating more calories than I would've had I intended to lose weight. by your reckoning (and probably most of the members here) that amount of carbs and rivers of insulin should not only have resulted in zero weight-loss, but actually have resulted i weight-gain.

And unless you have been secretly testing my nitrogen balance, how would you know whether 93 grams of protein was sufficient for my needs? As I am not an athlete, I should not have much use for anything over 0.8 grams of protein per kilo of lean mass, right? But i got quite a bit more than that number, so I'm not sure what you are talking about

Besides...here's a 9-year fruitarian (nothing but raw fruits and veggies, nuts and seeds), who averages between 50-60g of protein, per day. Is he the strongest in the world? Of course, not. but he doesn't seem to be having any strength issues:

 

lucylocket61

Expert
Messages
6,435
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
By weighing and measuring all my daily foods, and logging them. It's all in the pictures I posted.
I see total weight of foods containing protein, but not the amount of protein in those foods. Perhaps my phone is not seeing all the information.

Eg an egg weighs around 50g but has only 7g or so of protein? So my protein is not the same as the weight of the egg.
 

Beating-My-Betes

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Messages
653
I see total weight of foods containing protein, but not the amount of protein in those foods. Perhaps my phone is not seeing all the information.

Eg an egg weighs around 50g but has only 7g or so of protein? So my protein is not the same as the weight of the egg.

The tracking site i use has a large database of common foods that have been assessed and logged for their various macronutrient profiles. There is obviously going to be variance between examples, in the same as not every egg will have exactly the same macro amounts. But it is accurate enough, for tracking of trends.

As for the total weight of food, i just did a rough calculation and came up with 2.8 kilos.

By the way: Speaking to your earlier questioning of using a day with an OGTT. That test only accounts for 273 calories of the 2940 and only 69 carbs of the 569 carbs for the day. So it didn't really change the fact that that day, and many following it, hovered around the 3000 calorie mark with very high carb amounts.
 

lucylocket61

Expert
Messages
6,435
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
The tracking site i use has a large database of common foods that have been assessed and logged for their various macronutrient profiles. There is obviously going to be variance between examples, in the same as not every egg will have exactly the same macro amounts. But it is accurate enough, for tracking of trends.

As for the total weight of food, i just did a rough calculation and came up with 2.8 kilos.

By the way: Speaking to your earlier questioning of using a day with an OGTT. That test only accounts for 273 calories of the 2940 and only 69 carbs of the 569 carbs for the day. So it didn't really change the fact that that day, and many following it, hovered around the 3000 calorie mark with very high carb amounts.
I don't dispute that you are having a lot of carbs. However, without the blood sugar tracking, the effect on your blood sugar levels is not quantifiable.

When is your next Hba1c? How much weight do you have/want to lose (if any)?
 
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