How long before I notice a difference?

[Steve Fitz]

To save anyone ploughing through the following lengthy explaination - How long before I notice a real difference in my BG readings. I test before breakfast every day and they are hovering around 11.5.

Hi. I'll class myself as a newbie as I have been in denial for the last year. A long story, involving a cancer scare and an operation. I stopped the medication (Metformin) and then found it difficult to get back on.

Anyway. Following a highly motivational chat with a friend I decided that it was time to do something. I was always a bit dubious, as when I was being tested, I didn't know (or understand) what the results meant when the doctor did them every quarter. (although I did lose five stone)

To cut to today. I decided, whether it was against advice or regardless of cost I was going to monitor myself - I felt if I was going to do the job, I wanted to do it properly and I react well to being set a target.

So. I'm back on the calorie counting which worked for me 18 months ago, regularly weighing myself and testing my BG. - as an aside I lost the five stone in a year and in the year I haven't been doing anything I have only put on eight pounds, which I have subsequently lost again in the last two weeks.

Now, I'm doing things properly. Doing a little more exercise and being careful (REALLY careful) about what I eat - I hope. I do lead a busy, quite tiirng , stressful life and worse, I am no great cook. So I have found something that I hope will work. I have 50g shredded wheat with 150ml semi skimmed milk for breafast. Two wraps with a thin slice of ham and salad in each for lunch. (i need finger food - I don't get the chance - or have the patience to sit and negotiate a salad) and for dinner 100g of chicken with 150 g each of broccoli, spinach and cabbage and 60g of peas.

Every day - yes - everyday. I'm confused about all the low carb stuff and don't have the skills or talent beyond heating a bit of chicken and steaming some veg.

And I don't mind. I already feel a little better (healthier) the diet maybe boring but it will work, won't it?

And that's where the despondency has set in. I assume it takes a while to get the BG reading down, The Diabetic Nurse has given me two months to sort it before I get put on some awful tablets that may affect my car insurance and lead to potential hypos. I want to avoid this at all costs, but my BG don't seem to be falling much. I've been at 12.5, as high as 13.8 and as low as 10.2 - but it averages out at 11.5 - which is what today's reading was at. Although at the weekend, in two consecutive readings on two different fingers I got a 13.5 and an 11.8.

I am determined to do something about this all - but have lost my way a bit. I guess I need a bit of encouragement - it IS a boring diet - but if it works, great - but if it isn't I'm not sure what to do next.

Back to the original question. Am I being too hasty. How long doest it take to start seeing a difference in the BG readings. I've got two months before "D" day

If you've got this far - thank you.

 

[Lexa_x]

I started the low carb high fat diet and the results were instantly noticable. Went from around 14 to about 7 on average. Unfortunately I do have to cook.. which is something I never did before and I hate doing it but the benefits massively out weigh this.

Ive discovered im very intolerant of carbs.. im hoping this will improve slightly..

 

[Ruth B]

Welcome to the forum, hopefully there will be plenty of people to give advise, though you might find that opinions vary.

Reading your post I get the impression that you only test first thing in the morning, that I believe is the last reading to react to a lower carb diet. Testing before and 2 hours after food seems to be the best option as that is what tells us whether the food we are eating is putting our BS levels up. If you can't test at work to check your lunch, then do so at the weekend after having the same food. For myself, my before evening meal reading was the first to show the difference but occurred with in a day or so, I suffered a few false hypos as my body adjusted to the lower carb intake. However I did tend to snack a lot before I started here, so I just kept piling on the carbs during the day and never gave my body a chance to bring the BS levels down from one meal to the next. It took a couple of months for my fasting reading to come down, but as my reading were lower during the day, it did show through on the HBA1C.

A couple of things stand out for me in what you eat. Firstly the shredded wheat, I am not sure just how much carbs is in 50g of shredded wheat, but many cereals are out of bounds for many of us, semi skimmed milk also contains more carbs than full fat, so unless you prefer the taste you might want to think of changing. You say you have two wraps for lunch, if these are large wraps, (I know Asda sell 2 different sizes) that might be too many carbs again. If you make them yourself, a single wrap, piled with ham, chicken, cheese etc, a good spread of full fat Mayo and filled to bursting with salad might be better.

As for cooking skills, it will come with practice and as you get more confident you will probably get more adventurous. If you buy pre-packaged food read the labels carefully, you want to be looking at total carbs, not sugar content, almost all carbs turn to sugar inside us.

When you test before and after a meal you want to try and keep the 2 hour reading below a 2 point rise.

You should be able to make enough of a difference in the two months so that even if you are not as low as the doctor wants it should be low enough for them to see you are making an effort, in which case stick to your guns and tell them you don't want any more meds yet. If the doctor doesn't explain the results to you, and if you don't mind putting the figures up here there are plenty here that can give you an idea of what they mean and roughly where they should be. We aren't doctors, but many of us have been in similar situations.

 

[))Denise((]

@Steve Fitz there are no diabetes tablets that you need to inform your car insurance or the DVLA. It is only insulin.

@Ruth B has given you some good advice. If you follow it, unless your pancreas is completely shot then you should get results from going low carb.

 

[catinahat]

Hello Steve welcome
I agree with Ruth B, use your meter to find which food's are giving you the high readings and reduce their portions or cut them out. We are all different so you have to find what works for you, the 2 wraps you had probably contained more carb than I would have all day. I will tag @daisy1 for you, she will give you some useful information

 

[daisy1]

@Steve Fitz

Hello Steve and welcome to the forum

As you will have seen from the above replies, it is carbs you need to reduce and count and not calories. It is carbs which will increase your BG levels and make you put on weight. You can safely increase the fat you eat to compensate for the reduction in carbs. Lots of good advice from members there.

Here is the information we give to new members and I hope you will find it useful. It contains a lot of information about carbs. Carry on asking questions and someone will be able to help.



BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED DIABETICS

Diabetes is the general term to describe people who have blood that is sweeter than normal. A number of different types of diabetes exist.

A diagnosis of diabetes tends to be a big shock for most of us. It’s far from the end of the world though and on this forum you’ll find over 140,000 people who are demonstrating this.

On the forum we have found that with the number of new people being diagnosed with diabetes each day, sometimes the NHS is not being able to give all the advice it would perhaps like to deliver - particularly with regards to people with type 2 diabetes.

The role of carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are a factor in diabetes because they ultimately break down into sugar (glucose) within our blood. We then need enough insulin to either convert the blood sugar into energy for our body, or to store the blood sugar as body fat.

If the amount of carbohydrate we take in is more than our body’s own (or injected) insulin can cope with, then our blood sugar will rise.

The bad news

Research indicates that raised blood sugar levels over a period of years can lead to organ damage, commonly referred to as diabetic complications.

The good news

People on the forum here have shown that there is plenty of opportunity to keep blood sugar levels from going too high. It’s a daily task but it’s within our reach and it’s well worth the effort.

Controlling your carbs

The info below is primarily aimed at people with type 2 diabetes, however, it may also be of benefit for other types of diabetes as well.
There are two approaches to controlling your carbs:

• Reduce your carbohydrate intake
• Choose ‘better’ carbohydrates

Reduce your carbohydrates

A large number of people on this forum have chosen to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat as they have found this to be an effective way of improving (lowering) their blood sugar levels.

The carbohydrates which tend to have the most pronounced effect on blood sugar levels tend to be starchy carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and similar root vegetables, flour based products (pastry, cakes, biscuits, battered food etc) and certain fruits.

Choosing better carbohydrates

Another option is to replace ‘white carbohydrates’ (such as white bread, white rice, white flour etc) with whole grain varieties. The idea behind having whole grain varieties is that the carbohydrates get broken down slower than the white varieties –and these are said to have a lower glycaemic index.
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/food/diabetes-and-whole-grains.html

The low glycaemic index diet is often favoured by healthcare professionals but some people with diabetes find that low GI does not help their blood sugar enough and may wish to cut out these foods altogether.

Read more on carbohydrates and diabetes

Eating what works for you

Different people respond differently to different types of food. What works for one person may not work so well for another. The best way to see which foods are working for you is to test your blood sugar with a glucose meter.

To be able to see what effect a particular type of food or meal has on your blood sugar is to do a test before the meal and then test after the meal. A test 2 hours after the meal gives a good idea of how your body has reacted to the meal.

The blood sugar ranges recommended by NICE are as follows:

Blood glucose ranges for type 2 diabetes

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 8.5 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (adults)

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 9 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (children)

• Before meals: 4 to 8 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 10 mmol/l

However, those that are able to, may wish to keep blood sugar levels below the NICE after meal targets.

Access to blood glucose test strips

The NICE guidelines suggest that people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should be offered:

• structured education to every person and/or their carer at and around the time of diagnosis, with annual reinforcement and review
• self-monitoring of plasma glucose to a person newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only as an integral part of his or her self-management education

Therefore both structured education and self-monitoring of blood glucose should be offered to people with type 2 diabetes. Read more on getting access to bloodglucose testing supplies.

You may also be interested to read questions to ask at a diabetic clinic

Note: This post has been edited from Sue/Ken's post to include up to date information.

 

[Daibell]

Hi and welcome. You mention calories in your post. Try to think carbs not calories as the former is the most relevant to us. Many find going low-carb starts showing results within a week or two but obviously it depends on how low the carbs go. If the DN does offer tablets be aware that Metformin is very safe but if it should give you bowel problems, do ask for the Slow Release (SR) version. This drug will not cause hypos. The drug that can cause hypos is Gliclazide if the dose is too high but I doubt the DN would offer that to start with.

 

[Steve Fitz]

Thank you all for your advice so far. It is all somewhat confusing, but with your help I'm sure I'll get there.

I was prescribed - and am now back on 4 metformin a day. As I said in my original post I had a "year off" and, while didn't go silly (the low weight increase attests to that) I obviously was doing something not quite right. That said, with the operation and the scare it did put me in a black place of - diabetes is the last of the things I need to worry about.

Still - on the right track now. I suppose I've had years of indoctrination that fat is bad. So the concept of eating a high fat diet seems weird.

It is disturbing that I eat more carbs at lunch than Catinahat eats all day. Wow - that really is me going off the rails.

Ruth B has given me even more food for thought (34.2g carbs in 50g shredded wheat) - though the diabetic nurse told me to change to that rather than the Special K I was eating - though reading about it, Special K has a lower GI than shredded wheat.

It was the BG reducing tablet that the nurse wanted to put me on, though this was when she thought that I was having such a high reading WITH medication. That changed when I told her that , at the time of the blood test, I wasn't on any so I was given the 2 month reprieve.

Unfortunately she is new to the practice, and to be honest I don't get on with her. She is a bit of a drama queen and says things to frighten you into doing things rather than give solid facts - which coming from a scientific background I prefer. For example the first thing she said was that, given my reading they were considering sending me straight to hospital!

Of course they weren't - if they seriously thought that they would have called me in as soon as they had the blood test results in mid December rather than wait for the new nurse to start, hand over from the old one (it was the end of February before I could make an appointment) and now I've got another two months.

Although, now sadly, I thought I was doing the right things - I was certainly losing weight - but it turns out I'm not. That is disappointing

 

[Bluetit1802]

To save anyone ploughing through the following lengthy explaination - How long before I notice a real difference in my BG readings. I test before breakfast every day and they are hovering around 11.5.

Hi. I'll class myself as a newbie as I have been in denial for the last year. A long story, involving a cancer scare and an operation. I stopped the medication (Metformin) and then found it difficult to get back on.

Anyway. Following a highly motivational chat with a friend I decided that it was time to do something. I was always a bit dubious, as when I was being tested, I didn't know (or understand) what the results meant when the doctor did them every quarter. (although I did lose five stone)

To cut to today. I decided, whether it was against advice or regardless of cost I was going to monitor myself - I felt if I was going to do the job, I wanted to do it properly and I react well to being set a target.

So. I'm back on the calorie counting which worked for me 18 months ago, regularly weighing myself and testing my BG. - as an aside I lost the five stone in a year and in the year I haven't been doing anything I have only put on eight pounds, which I have subsequently lost again in the last two weeks.

Now, I'm doing things properly. Doing a little more exercise and being careful (REALLY careful) about what I eat - I hope. I do lead a busy, quite tiirng , stressful life and worse, I am no great cook. So I have found something that I hope will work. I have 50g shredded wheat with 150ml semi skimmed milk for breafast. Two wraps with a thin slice of ham and salad in each for lunch. (i need finger food - I don't get the chance - or have the patience to sit and negotiate a salad) and for dinner 100g of chicken with 150 g each of broccoli, spinach and cabbage and 60g of peas.

Every day - yes - everyday. I'm confused about all the low carb stuff and don't have the skills or talent beyond heating a bit of chicken and steaming some veg.

And I don't mind. I already feel a little better (healthier) the diet maybe boring but it will work, won't it?

And that's where the despondency has set in. I assume it takes a while to get the BG reading down, The Diabetic Nurse has given me two months to sort it before I get put on some awful tablets that may affect my car insurance and lead to potential hypos. I want to avoid this at all costs, but my BG don't seem to be falling much. I've been at 12.5, as high as 13.8 and as low as 10.2 - but it averages out at 11.5 - which is what today's reading was at. Although at the weekend, in two consecutive readings on two different fingers I got a 13.5 and an 11.8.

I am determined to do something about this all - but have lost my way a bit. I guess I need a bit of encouragement - it IS a boring diet - but if it works, great - but if it isn't I'm not sure what to do next.

Back to the original question. Am I being too hasty. How long doest it take to start seeing a difference in the BG readings. I've got two months before "D" day

If you've got this far - thank you.

Hi Steve and welcome,

You have received some excellent advice above, and may be working out for yourself that carbs are the enemy, especially cereals, bread, potato, rice and anything made with flour. We also need to be careful with fruit and milk. Continue counting calories if that helps you (I always do) but it is more essential to count your carbs. From a blood glucose point of view you can eat as much fat as you like, and providing you cut your carbs the full fat versions of all foods will not add weight. There is a good book that helps with knowing which foods contain carbs and how many. It is called Carbs & Cals, available on Amazon. I use it constantly.

You may also find this thread useful http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/a-new-low-carb-guide-for-beginners.68695/

Good luck, and ask as many questions as you like.

 

[plonkish_]

Wow you lost 5 stone, that's amazing!

Don't be disappointed with yourself. You obviously did something right to lose weight. But, now you've been given advice from the lovely people on this forum, just try it and don't look back.

 

[Katiesgran]

You have done so well to lose weight and now trying to take control of bg. I spent years in denial about my diabetes until I got a kick up the backside from my chiropodist in January. Decided to take back control of my weight and bgs so joined Slimming world and have lost weight and bgs down from above 12 to an average of 6.After having a few hypos my go has reduced my gliclazide from 4 a day to 1 and I hope to get off them altogether. I have found the slimming world program works really well for me and they have some great recipes and menus that are easy to follow. I would recommend that you have a look at the website. Good luck to you

 

[Mamamoose]

Hi Steve - I don't feel I can add to all the excellent advice you've had above as I'm very new to all this too, but I just wanted to say that, if you want to keep eating a cereal for breakfast (as I do, even though I'm reduced carbing - its easy, quick, doesn't need cooking etc.) then you might like to try using almond milk instead of semi skimmed milk. It has a quarter of the calories, is almost totally free of carbs, and tastes just like semi skimmed milk on cereal, maybe slightly more creamy. Not saying you should keep eating cereal - just giving an option if you choose to.