Diabetes diet question

Based on the type of diabetic you are please choose one of the following


  • Total voters
    84

donnellysdogs

Master
Messages
13,233
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
Dislikes
People that can't listen to other people's opinions.
People that can't say sorry.
I dont actively portion control but I'm a size 10 for Nigh on 40 years. I eat all normal foods. I still have yum yums, chips and chineses and icecreams and crsisps n cakes... But, all of these are once in a while, other than that its normal small meals when hungry,,
Not glutunous amounts of everything eveeyday


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Thommothebear

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,186
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
The reason for longer living is the medical treatments which are available. This says nothing about the quality of life though.

Portion control is only part of the answer, obviously if you are going to scoff 3500 cals a day you are making a problem for yourself longterm (moreso if most of those carbs are highly processed) but I see no reason to starve yourself if your weight is OK and your diabetes is well controlled and not dependant on drugs.

Better to just be more sensible about what you eat as a lifestyle, and not look at it as a short term diet. For me that means low carb which i not only find to be highly sustainable but considerably more enjoyable than what I was eating when I followed the so called healthy low fat high carb diet. Been doing this for over a year now and I love it.


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donnellysdogs

Master
Messages
13,233
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
Dislikes
People that can't listen to other people's opinions.
People that can't say sorry.
I also love liw carb food. My moderation is about 80-100 max carbs a day. Sometimes more, sometimes far less, but I also have a very physical job. If I didnt I would moderately amend my food


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ann34+

Well-Known Member
Messages
393
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
I am a little surprised that more people haven't voted as yet. I wonder if most people assume that , given recent developments - the favourable
vote at the DUK conference and the results of Southport GP's research - that the option of reducing carbs in conrolling diabetes is no longer an issue?
I think there is some way to go before this is included in official guidelines This is the the logical place to begin looking for information , as there is a wealth of experience on here. I don't think anyone could consider it as definititive in any way but it could be interesting.
Negative answers are of course, as important as positives in case anyone was i any doubt!.Its just an opportunity for people to give their opinions.
Please consider voting if you have any views on the issue..

Hi, i am Type one and have only visited this site in the last few weeks, and have not voted because low carb is not really defined. I imagine it is lower than my diet - 150 carbs or so.
In the uk when i was diagnosed type one i was was taught carb exchange system. You just matched 10 grams carbs to a given amount of insulin, which you had had worked out, roughly, knowing that at some times of the day this insulin amount would vary. You never had sugar etc, and only had small amounts of carbs (called CHO then) any one time, so you had at least 3 small snacks, like an apple or an orange, so your carbs through the day went 30-10-30-10-30-10 plus about 30 left to add as other snacks or onto main meals. Not long before i had been diagnosed, Dr Lawrence's red and black (10 CHO was one 'black' ) line diet - about 15 'blacks' - 150 CHO - recommended - had been used (and still was in the USA for some years), it having been adapted to the new CHO exchange system i was taught. I factored in Lawrence's diet - which is explained on the web - when working out insulin needs. Years later, when i increased carbs, or tried the then recommended 'you can eat a bit of sugar/cake etc as long as you fit in with your carbs numbers' ideas,(which were tempting as i have a sweet tooth) things were more difficult to control.
 

peacetrain

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,405
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
The say that the mills of god grind slowly(Longfellow) but they are like a flash of light compared to your nurse!
If your meds start to overtreat your D, Call her and tell her to "extract the digit" and alter your meds!
I don't have the confidence to push for it yet. November 2013 HBA1c was 115; February it was 52. The nurse was really very pleased with my progress but wanted to review meds after next HBA1c in May. I know I've done well so far but I wonder how much that is down to the 3 x 500g metformin I take daily. My average morning reading is 5 and average of all readings 5.6. At what point do I know the metformin is overtreating? Thanks
 

Mazzer

Well-Known Member
Messages
282
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Hi Xyzzy, I have only had one HBA1c test, that was on diagnosis which was 64 in February this year, I am due another one in May. I new I was diabetic before I got the results of my HBA1c and started following the low carb diet since January this year. I am 5'1 and was slightly overweight at 9st 12lbs. I have lost a stone in weight and my bg has dropped to an avererage between 5.9 and 6.2 with one spike of 10.5 as I am still experimenting. I am on my third week of taking 2 x 500mg of Metformin. The low carb diet is a definate yes from me. Thanks.
 

Spiker

Well-Known Member
Messages
4,685
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
For me (T1, 20 years) it's "Yes, but..."

1) It significantly lowered your hBA1c Yes, extremely rapidly.
2) It helped you lose weight. Yes, though I expect that would be true for non-diabetics too?
3) It minimise
s or has reduced the medication you need to take. N/A
4) It reduced the amount of insulin you use. Yes, but that's kind of inevitable isn't it?
5) It significantly reduced the frequency of hypos. Not sure. It probably made them worse during the adoption phase. After that, generally, probably yes, fewer hypos.
6) It has controlled or even reversed diabetic complications you were suffering. I'm not sure anyone can claim to know if a complication has been controlled by any one factor, can they? I have had complications reverse (neuropathy) soon after diagnosis but I'm not sure since then.

The "but" is that I find it very hard to maintain these diets even though the effect on my HBa1c is dramatic. And my HBa1c has been steadily deteriorating every year. I have asked for help from my clinic on this but no real result. I asked for hypnotherapy, low dose naltrexone, other drugs I'd researched. They were not interested really and of course when you you make the low carb argument they look at you kindly, but as if you are from outer space. I got offered pump therapy instead so I'm embracing that and hope it works. However clinically pumps aren't shown to improve HBa1c significantly, just quality of life. I'll take improved quality of life, but I would also like some support with adherence to a diet that dramatically reduces my HBa1c.

One of the drugs [pramlintide] advised for overcoming carb cravings, is approved by NICE, but they wouldn't give it to me because it's only approved for T2! What a load of ****!

Oh well, rant over! :)
 

Omar101

Well-Known Member
Messages
133
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Dislikes
Ignorance, laziness.
For me (T1, 20 years) it's "Yes, but..."

1) It significantly lowered your hBA1c Yes, extremely rapidly.
2) It helped you lose weight. Yes, though I expect that would be true for non-diabetics too?
3) It minimise
s or has reduced the medication you need to take. N/A
4) It reduced the amount of insulin you use. Yes, but that's kind of inevitable isn't it?
5) It significantly reduced the frequency of hypos. Not sure. It probably made them worse during the adoption phase. After that, generally, probably yes, fewer hypos.
6) It has controlled or even reversed diabetic complications you were suffering. I'm not sure anyone can claim to know if a complication has been controlled by any one factor, can they? I have had complications reverse (neuropathy) soon after diagnosis but I'm not sure since then.

The "but" is that I find it very hard to maintain these diets even though the effect on my HBa1c is dramatic. And my HBa1c has been steadily deteriorating every year. I have asked for help from my clinic on this but no real result. I asked for hypnotherapy, low dose naltrexone, other drugs I'd researched. They were not interested really and of course when you you make the low carb argument they look at you kindly, but as if you are from outer space. I got offered pump therapy instead so I'm embracing that and hope it works. However clinically pumps aren't shown to improve HBa1c significantly, just quality of life. I'll take improved quality of life, but I would also like some support with adherence to a diet that dramatically reduces my HBa1c.

One of the drugs [pramlintide] advised for overcoming carb cravings, is approved by NICE, but they wouldn't give it to me because it's only approved for T2! What a load of ****!

Oh well, rant over! :)

I'm currently eating just over 200g of carbs a day(since early February) and though I haven't had my Hba1c tested since December when I was low carbing, my fasting levels are the same usually 4-5 and my post meals are probably higher though I haven't thoroughly tested them they are still usually lower than most others. I believe my Hba1c is still in the high 5's or very low 6's. I've managed to keep my levels stable by using a fasting approach to how I eat carbs where I only eat them at breakfast and dinner and this limits spikes and keeps my average levels lower than if I ate them throughout the day.(the original idea was to eat carbs in only one sitting or within a 6 hour window but it was too much for one or two close meals!)

I made a little post with some veeeeeeery rough theoretical arithmetic just to convey the premise, if you're interested.
For anyone who cares to know and would like to critique:

I've kind of been playing around with numbers and average blood sugars in the past few days, since I have a bodybuilding lifestyle and I've maintained my lowish carb diet to mainly lose weight (I've cut to about 9% bodyfat). I'm planning on bulking up and adding mass very soon and as most people know to lift heavy and add mass effectively one should consume a higher amount of carbs.

I'm planning on consuming st least 200-250g of carbs a day, now to mitigate the spike that these carbs will cause; whether they are fairly slow releasing or not(I haven't personally experimented with the difference in bs spikes of eating 30g vs eating 100g of the exact same carb in a sitting.) I want to try implementing an "intermittent fasting" type of approach or at least play around with it.

Basically this entails eating all my carbs for the day either in one meal or within a 4(maybe 6) hour window and eat protein and fat only meals for the rest of the day as normal. What I hope this does is give me one spike and then flat bs levels during the entirety of the day. As opposed to having 3 or more carb filled meals resulting in multiple spikes and insulin shots during the day.

From a *very* rough mathematical standpoint where a bs spike is up to 14mmol/dL either from a less than desirable carb source or from the sheer volume of carbohydrate and average fasting bs are within 4-6 (so say an average of 5). And an average bs spike lasts about 2 hours. A 24 hour day of bs levels gives the averages:

1 carb meal with 2hr spike:
((2x14)+(22x5))/24 = 5.75mmol/dL average blood sugar; which gives an a1c of 5.3%(http://professional.diabetes.org/GlucoseCalculator.aspx)

versus

3 carb meals with 2hr spikes:
((6x14)+(18x5))/24 = 7.25mmol/dL average blood sugar; which gives an a1c of 6.2%

and best case scenario keeping spikes below 9mmol/dl (very doubtful):

1 carb meal with 2hr spike:
((2x9)+(22x5))/24 = 5.33mmol/dL average blood sugar; which gives an a1c of 5.0%

worst case scenarios:

1 carb meal with 4hr spike:
((4x14)+(22x5))/24 = 6.9mmol/dL average blood sugar; which gives an a1c of 5.9%

3 carb meals with 4hr spikes:
((12x14)+(24x5))/24 = 9.5mmol/dL average blood sugar; which gives an a1c of 7.6%

Of course this bit of arithmetic is all very rough and doesn't account for differences between individuals, accidental over/underdosages of insulin and any other kind of mishaps and unforeseeable events which do often occur with bs management. I'd like if someone could give a critique of this or some of their own experiences with this kind of thing.
 
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Spiker

Well-Known Member
Messages
4,685
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
@Omar101, interesting thoughts about intermittent fasting. Thanks. I'm keen to try that out too.
 

Unbeliever

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,551
Thanks to new participants in the poll. B ut a few quick points if I may, Low carb is not defined because many of us believe that any significnt reduction in starchy carb intake can be beneficial to any diabetic and obviously the starting point will be different in every case as will tthe amount necessary to make a difference.
Secondly, I am sure that if Spiker would find help on here if the lowcarb approach has helpedand he wishes to persevere with it. Help ansd suppport from fellow diabetics could be more effective than any drug.

Its always best to introduce changes very gradually - most would agree I'm sure- and not think of it as a diet to be adhered tobut a change in lifestyle.

Its never a quick fix but takes some time to fit into your own lifestyle. Carb cravings eventually disappear if you continue to reduce them-another reason to persevere .

Omar's post demonstrates, I think , how everyone needs to fnd their own way to fit in with their own lifestyle . It can be done =- lots of success stories on this forum,
 
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Reactions: 3 people

appleannie

Member
Messages
10
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
modern music
Dieting helped me a lot. I lost 15kilos and my hba1c went from 9.4 to 5.2 I have retinopathy and it has helped this as well I have also reduced my medication