Type 2 Help needed for deciding on eating plan

[victronnix]

Hi everyone. I am so pleased to be here and you have already given me so much help since diabetes type 2 diagnosis back in August, just through searching the posts and reading the brilliant tips and advice.

I was diagnosed in August with type two after having an Hb1ac of 140 ( nobody was more shocked than me!!!!)

Since then I have been doing really well. I am in 10mg empagliflozin and 10ml abasaglar insulin.
I didn’t get on with metformin.
My blood sugar skin prick tests were over 20 at the beginning, now I am down to 6-7 average although the last few weeks this has crept up to 7-9

I have been following keto, but have been away on holiday and there were a couple of things I wanted to have, a gluten free buttered piece of cod (didn’t have chips) in Whitby and a Yorkshire pudding wrap in York (no potato) which put me up to the 9’s.

I feel like I am going really well but I am concerned about the high fat diet. I had my gall bladder out a few years ago and can’t tolerate a lot of fat.

My diabetic nurse says I should have a small amount of carbs for energy, but I find carbs do spike my blood sugar which I obviously want
to avoid. Although I would like to add healthy beans and pulses to diet I can’t do that with keto. So I am a bit lost.

Is there such a thing as a low carb lower fat diet?! I was referred to the digital weight loss service but none of the diets were suitable for me due to the diabetes. I can tolerate fat, but keto needs you to eat a lot of fat and that gives me problems.

If anyone can give me any help on this I would be SO grateful. As at the moment I don’t know what direction to go in at all.

Thank you in advance

 

[Lobsang Tsultim]

I’m not sure why you’re having problems with fat. I had my gall bladder removed four or five years ago and eating dietary fat doesn’t cause me any problems. Admittedly, I don’t add a lot of extra fat to my food (apart from proper mayo, nyom) so no silly Keto bomb coffees etc. i Just eat foods that are naturally fatty, use full-fat milk etc.

Low carb and low fat sounds like a recipe for a starvation diet and subsequent bingeing. Perhaps you could try a low fat higher carb vegetarian diet: doesn’t work for me (that was my diet for 30 years which led to my diabetes) but some people seem to have success with it.

 

[HSSS]

I’m another one without a gallbladder and have no issues with fats. We still make bile it’s just a constant drip feed rather than shots. All that means is increase it slowly and evenly across the day til you adapt.

As far as alternatives just cutting fats and carbs means hunger unless you increase the last macro - protein. There’s growing interest in high protein diets. Ted Niamey has his PE regime you might want to look at. Diet doctor also has free information about it. Kidneys do fine so long as they start out healthy. If you have issues already check with your dr.

 

[victronnix]

I was told when I had my gallbladder out not to eat too much fat, that I should follow a low fat diet.

 

[HSSS]

I was told when I had my gallbladder out not to eat too much fat, that I should follow a low fat diet.

Poor illogical advice, though shockingly common. Everything gets the low fat advice at every opportunity regardless of relevance from some drs.

when you have a diseased gallbladder eating fat will often cause pain. It contracts to eject the bile and if stones are there they get squeezed and move and cause pain. So yes at that point in time avoiding fat avoids pain. However. The reason you have stones can often be because you ate too little fat and didn’t keep the bile moving through the gallbladder. So instead it turned to sludge and then stones.

And again after surgery we still make bile. It’s just not as concentrated and it doesn’t get deliver in shots in response to eating fats. So initially if we eat the same as we did before we get problems, most commonly in the form of diarrhoea. The solution is to initially eat less fat to match supply. A few weeks. Then gradually increase the fats evenly through the day. This allows your body to increase the bile production from the liver to match demand. The only issue then might possibly be if you suddenly eat lots less than usual you might notice in the bathroom. Not happened to me even when I ate nothing or next to nothing for a week with covid/throat complications.

In fact as bile is involved in lots of nutrient absorption doing what you can to increase its flow (by eating good naturally occurring fats) rather than limit it might be considered a good idea.

 

[victronnix]

That’s really helpful thank you.