Can I ask???

[Poppy]

Hi all,

Just getting into the idea of the low carb diet and finding this forum all very interesting. Until now my dietician has always recommended plenty of carbos but always thought this was a bit extreme, especially as I badly need to lose weight. Attend Slimming World so already have a reasonably low carbohydrate diet.

So what I wondered was, could you tell me how many carbs you all try to keep to in a day and what an ideal day's diet would be for you? Especially with regards to the fruit and veggies.

Poppy

 

[Mandarin]

I have in the last couple of day started a lower carb diet - I still have a lot to learn but have found that my readings are a little better than they were. Its still early days yet so I guess time will tell.

For breakfast I have a hot oat cereal 36 carbs
I used to have sandwich crisps and cereal bar for lunch which was usually aroud 85-100 carbs but have just started having oat cakes 4 carbs each, a bag of apple chips , around 12 carbs and a fruit bar again around 12 and have reduced lunch to 55 carbs
For tea I have been trying the recepies on the Dibetes UK website and so far they have been really nice, Tonight we are having spaghetti with bacon tomato and chilli which has 41 carb per serving.

hope this helps
Jaki

 

[fergusc]

Hi Poppy,
Glad you're having a go at the low-carb diet. It will definitely help with the weight loss and blood sugar control. I've been eating this way for 7 years, lost 4 stone, and never been better.
Today's menu:
Breakfast - 2 scrambled eggs, 2 slices of bacon, coffee with cream (0 carbs)
Lunch - roast chicken breast, mayonnaise, pesto sauce, 3 sticks of celery and 100g humous (10g carbs total)
Dinner - lamb, aubergine & mushroom casserole (10g carbs total)

I try to stay below 20g of carbohydrates per day, and it works for me.
All the best,

Fergus

 

[fergusc]

Oops, forgot about the fruit and veg question.
I haven't eaten fruit for years - too much sugar. I do like my veggies though - all of the vitamins and stuff without the sugars.
All the best,
Fergus

 

[steveng]

Intrestingly,

I have just had my first appointment with a dietician after being diagnosed. She did not tell me to "carb count" but to make sure i have starchy carbs with each meal ie, low gi carbs to try an even out the blood sugar during the day so it does not spike so much.

She was more intrested in balanced meals and the size of the portions.

Am i missing a trick here or is low-carbs a better option ?.


Steve

 

[fergusc]

Well, Sarah, I completely disagree!
What is the logic behind 'starchy carbs at every meal'? Do they offer valuable nutrition? No. Are they particularly satiating? No. Do they reduce insulin requirements? No. Do they enable normal, stable, relaible blood sugar levels? No. They do none of these things and that isn't why they have been promoted.
They are promoted because of an irrational fear of dietary fat, that it is somehow causative of weight gain and coronary heart disease. Neither of these thing is true.
In fact, starchy carbs create an unnaturally high demand for insulin, which promotes weight gain and abnormal blood sugar levels.
I think it's vitally important to minimise the need for insulin through dietary control. Only then can normal blood sugar levels and normal body weight be maintained. Only a low carbohydrate diet can reliably achieve this.
Now I guess I've ruffled a few feathers!

All the best,

Fergusc

 

[Poppy]

Well Fergus, you have certainly not ruffled my feathers. Although that does seem like quite a low amount of carbs a day. Having said that, Mandarin's amount of carbs seems very high for me. Fergus your ideal breakfast seems like an ideal lunch to me, I have a hard time with wanting any breakfast at all, and something cooked doesn't appeal. Having said that, I know now, because of the number of tests I am doing each day, that weetabix etc are no good for me and push my sugars up quite high but after a light lunch with few carbs they come back down again. So I am becoming "very" convinced that this is the way to go.

Cream with your coffee, yes I am still having trouble getting my head around the fact that "fat" isn't fattening

Thanks for your replies folks

Poppy

 

[Dennis]

Poppy,

Unfortunately your dietician has no option but to follow the official government guidelines, which state low fat and high carbohydrate, regardless of what he/she may personally believe.

My own personal experience is that low carb works for me (as a Type 2) and high carb doesn't. I did try to follow the Bernstein diet for a while but found the food preparation doesn't really fit in with a working day. But I have still managed to reduce my carb intake to around 15-25g for breakfast, 30g for lunch and 25g for evening meal. This is around half of what I used to eat and has considerably reduced my BG levels. If I get the munchies between meals then I generally have a handful of nuts, which is almost zero carbs.

I don't know how Sarah manages that level of carb alongside a low insulin intake because surely the higher the carb intake then the higher the amount of insulin needed to metabolise it?

But keep reading and keep experimenting Poppy. As Sarah says, we can share our personal experiences and preferences with you, but we can't tell you what is going to be right for you. You need to find that out for yourself, but when you have done that, you will have gained the understasnding that you need to control your diabetes.

 

[Mandarin]

During this last week I have reduced my carb intake from roughly 240 per day to between 80 and 120, which is quite an achievement for me as I was eating a lot of bread, potatoes and Pasta on the advice of my dietician.

I have spent the last 7 years struggling with unpredictable sugar levels - anywhere between 1.8 and 24. This week they have been between 3.1 and 12.4 which has made quite a difference to me.
I feel less sluggish physically and I seem to be a little more alert.
I have also cut the amount of tea (with milk) per day from 8 to 2 cups, so that probably helps as well.

I would just like to say that in the week that I have been registered with this site I have found a lot of very useful information. I have been reading this forum for about a month now and that is what made me start thinking about reducing my carbs.

Thank you
I have got more sense from listening to you guys than from any of the "specialists" I have seen.

 

[fergusc]

I'm glad you're enjoying some success with the freaky eating, Mandarin. I used to eat a lot of carbs and reduced them slowly over the years. The fewer I ate, the better my numbers and the better my health.
Sarah, I'm intrigued by your eperience. How much insulin do you use on a daily basis to cover 250g carbohydrate? I have no beta cell function and use 12 units of humalog per day to cover my meals (2, 3 and 7). How does this compare with your diet?
Incidentally, fat requires negligable insulin. Unless the fatty foods you refer to also contain carbohydrate, there is absolutely no need for extra insulin to cover them.

All the best,

Fergusc

 

[fergusc]

I'm surprised you need so little insulin if you're eating 250g of carbohydrates per day. It sounds as if you might still have some beta cell function left? There is no way in the world I could eat that quantity of carbs without industrial quantities of insulin.
I doubt whether it's the fat in the sausages that demands extra insulin though. Good old British bangers are notoriously high in cereals which I'd think are far more likely to be the cause. Would you need extra insulin to cover a tablespoon of butter, for example?
I doubt it, in which case it's not the fat in the sausages that's the cause.
What sort of carbohydrate are you eating that requires so little insulin? We want to know!
As for the exercise, I run and cycle too. I find that bacon and eggs, for example, allows me a stable blood sugar before and after exercise. When I ate more carbohydrates, I used to have to work very hard to cope with the blood sugar fluctuations.

Very interesting though.

All the best,

Fergusc

 

[Poppy]

Well, this is fascinating. Glad that you are finding that cutting the carbs is helping Mandarin.

I have been having weetabix or oatibix for brekkie (sends sugars up from low 5s to well over 10) and then the remainder of my carbs have been in evening meal gravy and fruit (not much) and veg, which I have been eating abundantly. Where would be the best place to go to see carb counts of such food are listed?

Poppy

 

[sugarless sue]

Hi Poppy,there are about 7 links to carbs in the 'general links for diabetes' in the diabetes discussion part of the forum.Hope these help.

Knowledge is the key to control

 

[Poppy]

Thanks Sue. You can tell I don't know my way around yet. An awful lot to take in. Off to have a gander now

Poppy