@Ribbet. It’s good to get your encouragement (and recipe - got to love hot cross buns!). I’m hoping that my body will adapt and seeing the diabetes diagnosis as no bad thing in that the way to deal with it is to eat healthy and know that you now have no choice but to do the stuff you swore you would!
There is a link with hyperparathyroidism and insulin insensitivity; and some evidence that this can reverse after surgery, so a possibility that diabetes could just ‘go away’ - but I think it’s a faint hope.
I hope that my tastes will adjust like you say. At the moment I really dislike using sweeteners, but I may have to get over that. My first attempt at baking with them tasted like sawdust. I’ll try your recipe though, and things like apple crumble. Have tried chia pudding with Ribena light which was ok.
Yes I completely empathise with you there - I think when all of us are diagnosed it’s bit of a shock so we’re looking for improvements as quickly as possible, hence your mentioning the hyperthyroidism and insulin sensitivity and hope that the diabetes might go away. But you have completely hit the nail in the head with your comments regarding making healthier food choices. When we are first diagnosed, it’s essentially our bodies literally shouting at us ‘Hold Up - I can’t cope with this any more!’ - our dietary intake that is. So we have a choice to either listen to it and improve, or ignore it and suffer. You have made the right choice and rest assured the improvements will come. So well done! Keep it up!!
The focus on losing weight and dietary change is really the most important things at the moment. The reason being that it’s not just diet that impacts our health markers, it’s also the amount of weight we carry. Both contribute to our bodies struggling with Type 2. For me, I noticed that as the weight fell away over time, I saw a direct impact in how my hba1c was improving as a result - and I realised it wasn’t just diet alone, but a diet that perpetuated sustainable weight loss that was really making the difference. The more weight I lost, the more improved my hba1c became. It takes time, just be patient, you will get there
In terms of food choices, try to make choices that are low in carbs. The reason being that when we reduce our carbs, our bodies have a natural disposition to start pulling the fat from our bodies and using it as a source of energy, burning it off - and that’s what perpetuates the weight loss. It amazes me how that happens - but it does! So try to get in a habit of looking at the labels on food packs and choosing the ones with lowest possible carbs. The general rule is around 10g or less per 100g - However, it’s also determined by serving sizes. For example if a product has 25g carbs per 100g, but you know you will only have say a 5g teaspoon of it, well that serving is only 2.5g carbs, so all good. And likewise, if you know you will have 150g of something that has 10g carbs per 100g, well that is a15g carb serving. I’d be looking sideways at that and thinking about making some other choices!
Same for whole food, count the carbs. Diet Doctor has some quite useful visual resources for a quick look here:
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/foods
And it’s the same principal, serving size determines the total carbs eaten.
For me personally, I aim to stay around the 50g or less mark per day for total carbs, but for you, when you’re ready to move onto the next phase, I rekon a keto diet mixed with some intermittent fasting is what’s really going to help you keep losing the weight quite quickly but more sustainable over the longer term because I’m guessing the diet you’re on at present will likely have the keytones up to some degree already, so a natural move.
Here’s a good overview on it…
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/keto
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