Low Carb Diet

[danyparc]

I was diagnosed with diabetes last week. I had a finger prick test in hospital reading 16 mmol/l. I then had a fasting blood test giving 14 mmol/l. For the past 8 days I have followed a very low carb diet of around 100g of carbs per day, and virtually no sugars at all.

My BG is now 7-12, but I have found that even a slice of whole meal toast will make it jump by 3-4 points.

Will continued low carb diet bring my BG down to a target level of 4-6?

I'm eating loads of eggs 4 to 6 a day to fill the gaps left by the carbs. My cholesterol is a bit high too, and I'm wondering if I should focus on the BG or try to find a way of addressing the BG and the cholesterol at the same time.

Any comments or advice would be appreciated.


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[Daibell]

Hi. Are you testing 2 hours after a meal? I wouldn't worry too much about the cholesterol at present as high blood sugar should take priority. 6 eggs per day is a bit excessive? I would try a more balanced diet but still with low-carb. Have low-GI carbs and keep the portion sizes not too large. A future HBa1C test should show whether your diet is succeeding or whether some medication is needed. Aiming for 100gm/day should help reduce your blood sugar down to the target level, but sadly sometimes medication is needed as well as diet

 

[danyparc]

I'm testing before breakfast, before lunch, 1hr, 2hrs& 3 hrs after lunch. Before evening meal, and bedtime. My BG has gone up in the night for some reason.

My concern is that the dietary advice from the nurse was not for a low carb diet. Rather a low GI, low sugar diet. However my testing this week shows that any carbs cause a big spike that takes a long time to come down, even with exercise.


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[DaveNN]

I was diagnosed with diabetes last week. I had a finger prick test in hospital reading 16 mmol/l. I then had a fasting blood test giving 14 mmol/l. For the past 8 days I have followed a very low carb diet of around 100g of carbs per day, and virtually no sugars at all.

My BG is now 7-12, but I have found that even a slice of whole meal toast will make it jump by 3-4 points.

Will continued low carb diet bring my BG down to a target level of 4-6?

I'm eating loads of eggs 4 to 6 a day to fill the gaps left by the carbs. My cholesterol is a bit high too, and I'm wondering if I should focus on the BG or try to find a way of addressing the BG and the cholesterol at the same time.

Any comments or advice would be appreciated.


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Hi,
Do you mind me asking what ( if any) meds have you been prescribed?
How is your weight in comparison to body size?
I can see no reason why you cannot get your levels down to your target but the question is whether you can "stick" it?



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[viviennem]

Have a look at Viv's Modified Atkins Diet, which is a Sticky Thread in the Low Carb section of the forum. It gives you between 25g and 30g of carb daily, mostly from the veg, and you can eat as much as you like of the listed foods, except where quantities are actually given. You will never be hungry and you will feel fine and energetic.

Quite a number of people on here eat this way, with successful results. In my case I have lost 4 stone (been stuck now for a year 'cos of a bit extra carbohydrate :roll: ). When I'm strict my blood glucose is usually within the non-diabetic range; my blood pressure is fine, and my cholesterol/lipid profile is excellent.

If you would prefer to eat more carbs than this, use the diet as a basis, and add in more low-carb/low GI foods. As you add in more carbs, so you cut down on the fat a bit. I find I put weight on again at about 70g carb per day, and all my readings can creep up. On the other hand, some people can cope quite nicely on about 130g carb per day. Also speaking personally, my cholesterol/lipid profile is worse when I eat too many carbs, rather than when I eat fat. As long as it's good quality unprocessed fat, it's not quite as bad as has been suggested.

Humans don't really need to eat carbohydrate, as about 20% of the protein we eat is metabolised (slowly) into glucose - enough to run things. Also, when eating very low carb the body goes into ketosis, a perfectly natural state where the body uses fat for fuel instead of carbohydrate.

There are other ways of managing your blood glucose - for instance, some do it by portion control, with very small servings of carb foods. Have a read round - there are plenty of suggestions. I think, however, that many of us find that the diet recommended by some NHS professionals contains far too much carbohydrate to be successful in managing diabetes. If my system has a problem managing carbohydrate, I find the best thing to do is not to give it too much!

Hope this helps

Viv 8)

 

[Sid Bonkers]

I'm testing before breakfast, before lunch, 1hr, 2hrs& 3 hrs after lunch. Before evening meal, and bedtime. My BG has gone up in the night for some reason.

My concern is that the dietary advice from the nurse was not for a low carb diet. Rather a low GI, low sugar diet. However my testing this week shows that any carbs cause a big spike that takes a long time to come down, even with exercise

Hi danyparc and welcome to the forum, I would suggest that you are testing too much and in very real danger of becoming obsessed with it and the effects carbs have, just stick with your reduced carb diet and I am sure you will see your bg levels drop further, Rome wasnt built in a day and all that.

Stop the 1 and 3 hour tests and just concentrate on pre meal and 2 hours postprandial (after meal) the pre meal will give you a base line mark and the 2 hour point will show you that your levels are dropping back to your base line but not necessarily reaching it...........This is perfectly normal.

Dont compare yourself with others we are all different, just concentrate on eating a well balanced diet that includes enough vitamins, minerals and calories for healthy living.

By all means cut back on carbs to the bear minimum but IMHO there is absolutely no need to do this. Just carry on as you are but look for a more balanced diet, fewer eggs perhaps and more veg and look for low GI carbs where possible. Read as much as you can and you will start to learn little tricks like vinegar will help to reduce the effects of high GI carbs so adding vinegar to a few chips will lessen the effect they have on your bg levels, similarly eating low GI carbs with high GI carbs will lessen their overall glycemic index, fat with a meal will slow down digestion so again lessen the effects of carbs as they will be digested slower and enter the blood stream little by little, but dont over do the fat as it has 9 cals per gram so is very high in calories but it doesnt take a lot to slow down digestion.

You cant learn all this overnight but by reading as much as you can then slowly it will become second nature. Once again though dont get obsessed with carbs, treat them with respect and learn to live with them :thumbup:

 

[mo1905]

Good post Sid ;-)


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[danyparc]

Thanks for your comments. I was 113.8kg, 185cm tall. Now 111kg. No meds yet. BG this morning down to 8.2 on waking. Lowest so far. Steady reduction over the last week.


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[DaveNN]

Thanks for your comments. I was 113.8kg, 185cm tall. Now 111kg. No meds yet. BG this morning down to 8.2 on waking. Lowest so far. Steady reduction over the last week.


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This is good and may suggest that you could be in a position to control your DB without meds.
That said, I was given the choice of diet alone or with the support of metformin and I take it for its other benefits.
Sid makes a perfectly valid point and loads of us have tested ourselves senseless.
It's a natural thing to do, especially when first diagnosed - though can be hard on both the old fingers and pocket.
Your morning spikes may be caused by your liver dumping glucose into your system.... This is oh so very common!

You are amongst friends here and you will learn so much about your condition and how it can affect your life..if you let it.




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[Daibell]

Hi. Your nurse was right to recommend a low-GI and low sugar diet. But be aware that sugar is just another medium-GI carb, so all carbs need to be taken into account not just sugar so look at total carbs on packaging not just the sugar part.

 

[Paul_c]

I was diagnosed with diabetes last week. I had a finger prick test in hospital reading 16 mmol/l. I then had a fasting blood test giving 14 mmol/l. For the past 8 days I have followed a very low carb diet of around 100g of carbs per day, and virtually no sugars at all.

that's NOT a very low-carb diet... in fact, not even a low-carb diet at all.

Very low-carb is Dr. Bernstein style; 6g breakfast, 12g midday meal, 12g evening meal: total 30 grams per day

 

[DaveNN]

I was diagnosed with diabetes last week. I had a finger prick test in hospital reading 16 mmol/l. I then had a fasting blood test giving 14 mmol/l. For the past 8 days I have followed a very low carb diet of around 100g of carbs per day, and virtually no sugars at all.

that's NOT a very low-carb diet... in fact, not even a low-carb diet at all.

Very low-carb is Dr. Bernstein style; 6g breakfast, 12g midday meal, 12g evening meal: total 30 grams per day

That's nearly true..but 100g is a good start ( and is low, afterall its a matter of perspective) and not everyone can manage a very low or even zero carb diet.

I struggle on a sub 100g carbs diet but every little helps.




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[elaine77]

Yes that's true, everyone's different.... I haven't dramatically went low carb what I did was changed all of my carbs to better carbs (low GI) and have smaller portions and that works for me. I totally love carbs I couldn't live without them I don't think!


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[danyparc]

I'm hoping the reduction in carb intake, combined with some calorie control will bring my BG down gradually as my weight reduces. Down to 108kg from 113.8kg. Currently rarely seeing BG readings below 8.

I had a stinking cold on Sunday & Monday. Hardly ate a thing, appetite was completely gone. ZERO carbs for 2 days, and no further Immediate reduction in BG levels. So I think the strategy is weight loss and moderate carb consumption, very limited sugars.


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[FantomPoet]

Hi danyparc

I am currently low carbing at around 20g a day with the odd day up to 30g.
I kinda jumped into the low carb routine with both feet early on which was
not (looking back) such an advisable thing to do.

100g initially is a very good start along with calorie controls will most definitely
help you bring down your weight and BG. I would like to highlight that it is good to
initially take it easy as bringing BG down too fast can put you at risk of complications
in your eyes with retinopathy. A steady drop down will not put you at such risks and
probably is even more beneficial.

Great work on your weight loss so far though!

 

[viviennem]

I'm hoping the reduction in carb intake, combined with some calorie control will bring my BG down gradually as my weight reduces. Down to 108kg from 113.8kg. Currently rarely seeing BG readings below 8.

I had a stinking cold on Sunday & Monday. Hardly ate a thing, appetite was completely gone. ZERO carbs for 2 days, and no further Immediate reduction in BG levels. So I think the strategy is weight loss and moderate carb consumption, very limited sugars.


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Infections tend to raise blood glucose readings, and eating very little would only encourage your liver to dump glucose into your blood to keep you going, so don't worry about that episode too much. I don't even bother testing when I get a cold - I just concentrate on self-pity and being miserable :wink: :lol: .

Mmmm :think: - if I tested I could find even more to be miserable about! I have very few colds, so I have to make the most of them! :crazy:

Hope you're better now

Viv 8)

 

[Yorksman]

My BG is now 7-12, but I have found that even a slice of whole meal toast will make it jump by 3-4 points.

You are right to be choosing wholemeal, or better still wholegrain, but you are probably the victim here of misleading labelling. The real bread campaign website found that one supermarket loaf labelled wholemeal contained only 6% wholemeal flour so, in effect, it is a refined white loaf, see: A wholegrain of truth? Industrial loaf names, claims and contents, http://www.sustainweb.org/publications/?id=266

That site also has a real bread finder, just type in your postcode, http://www.sustainweb.org/realbread/

I tend to eat lots of rye bread types from a local artisan baker or bake my own using wholegrain flours. Two slices of a seeded rye bread toasted, one with a chopped boiled duck egg and the other with a smoked mackerel makes for a great breakfast and a welcome change from porridge.

If you find the right carbs in foods, which takes time and testing, and then stick to those, your BG levels will come down. Again it takes time. I started in the 9s, 10s and even 11s in December, now most of my pre meal readings are in the 5s and even some of the post meal readings are still in the 5s. Most are in the 6s and occasionally I am in the 7s. It's just a result of watching what I eat, together with weight loss and exercise, and checking all the time to see if a food is as good as I think it is. I still make howlers though. It's a long learning process.

 

[Yorksman]

People react differently to certain types of carbohydrate. This is most likely genetic and so testing, to see which ones work or do not work for you, is important.

As as illustrative example, take milk. The predominant sugar in milk is called lactose. It makes up 4% - 6% of cows milk. To digest lactose, the body produces an enzyme called lactase. All babies produce this in order that they can digest mother's milk but it is normal in humans that lactase production stops in the teens. Most of the world's population is lactose intolerant and drinking quantities of milk has a laxative effect. You see the same effect if you eat lots of sugar free sweets which use non digestible carbs. About 85% of people in Britain however have two copies of a gene which allows continued production of the lactase enzyme in adulthood. They can drink milk as adults. This gene, known as 13910 C/T is common in northern europe but much rarer in southern europe with some populations there having frequencies as low as 5%. Other populations such as the nomadic Bedouin tribesmen, who drank camel milk and the cattle rearing Tutsi tribe of sub saharan Africa also continue to produce the lactase enzyme in adulthood but different genes are involved, 13915 T/G or 14010 G/C or 13907 C/G for example. In other words, whilst most of the human population does not digest this carbohydrate, some populations do but for different genetic reasons.

Now, this is just one type of carbohydrate out of a large number. Genetic research is only just beginning to uncover the mystery of why one food affects one person but not another. The genetics behind lactose intolerance, as it used to be called, is only just emerging.

If anyone is wondering why cheese, which is made from milk, is largely carbohydrate free, the lactose is contained in the whey, traditionally fed to the pigs, whereas the actual cheese we eat is made from the curds. Some cheeses have cream added back into the curds though, so they will have carbs.

 

[Vern]

Hi there!

I too have noticed a huge spike if I consume any carbs like Bread, potato, sweet potato etc. I am keeping my BG under 7 by eating veggies, protein, fat and very limited Fruit. Please do not test so often? I find that doing pre meal and 2 hour postprandial is a great way of keeping check. Do not let this diagnosis define your life, rather define your eating pattern to accommodate what you are comfortable with. Metformin has great benefits and if necessary improves your quality of life. I chose to do Dietary change and have been very successful thus far however will not hesitate to take meds if I have to. It's by no means a defeat. Lastly, well done on your weight loss! In the course of this I have lost 17kgs and feel so much better. I am sure you are reaping the benefits already. Never skip a meal. This leads to a higher BG reading.

 

[Sketcher]

Hello Dany

Don't take the readings when you had a cold as indicating that low carbing didn't work: our BG levels go all over the place when we're fighting an infection.