LOW CARB SUCCESS STORIES

[vintageutopia]

Fantastic work!

 

[MosheBenYehuda]

Hi! I've lurked around this forum for a long time. I was diagnosed with prediabetes last year after 3 A1C test results of over 6.0. I was told to eat whole grains and low fat to prevent it progressing into diabetes. I am glad that I did some research and found this forum. At the time, I was ~280 lbs. I decided to to commit to try to lose some weight and try to prevent progression into diabetes by eating low carb. Over the last year, I have lost ~50 lbs and lowered my A1C to below 5.0!! I just wanted to post and say thank you all for posting your success stories! It really helped me!

You should be very proud of yourself
Well done:-D

 

[registerlady]

Jamrox how do you cook the carrot and courgette?

 

[Fussipuss]

Not a success story but I just want to say how inspired I am with all of your stories. I am going low carb from tomorrow and actually looking forward to it, doing my shopping list later.
I have been Type2 for about 10 years now and I am a bad diabetic with no control, or should I say I had no control until March this year when I was put on Byetta and then May this year started on Insulin. This is when I have realised I have to take this serious and get my head in gear.
Heres hoping that in a few weeks I will be posting a success story
Michelle x

 

[MosheBenYehuda]

Not a success story but I just want to say how inspired I am with all of your stories. I am going low carb from tomorrow and actually looking forward to it, doing my shopping list later.
I have been Type2 for about 10 years now and I am a bad diabetic with no control, or should I say I had no control until March this year when I was put on Byetta and then May this year started on Insulin. This is when I have realised I have to take this serious and get my head in gear.
Heres hoping that in a few weeks I will be posting a success story
Michelle x

Hey Michelle, welcome and well done for your first big step. Just steady and patient, and you'll see the results. Keep us updated, and check back, you'll always find something interesting, and supportive.
All the best,
Moshe

 

[Alzebra]

I completed a 5K Race for Life today (walking) which is a huge achievement for me! I think the 40lbs I've lost since I started LCHF three months ago made a massive difference. Thanks to everyone for their support and encouragement - I actually feel like I'm in control of my appetite instead of the other way round

 

[Fussipuss]

Day 2 of Low Carb and the results so far are really pleasing.
My fasting blood sugars have been about 13/14 and that is with 42 units of insulin on an evening before bed. After having blood sugars of around 6/7 yesterday I decided to be cautious and take my insulin down to the starting dose of 10 units, my blood sugar levels on waking this morning were 7.2.. Fantastic. I have just upped my insulin to 12 units tonight and will see what figures I get in the morning.
All this from reading your success stories.. Thanks Guys xx

 

[maitland2]

Reporting my results so far.Diagnosed July 2013 Type 2 Hb ac 11.2 weight 188lb Started low carb on the basis of advice on this site.Hbac the only control variable I can use as I am not allowed test strips has now July 2015 fallen to 5.1 and my weight to 165lb ( I am 6ft 2 inches tall) This seems to me to be a considerable success.My Hbac value is by some distance the lowest in the practice I am with. I hope this helps

 

[Indy51]

Fergus, the man who originally started this thread, recently spoke about low carb at a conference called "Lateral Health 2015". Well worth a viewing

 

[WeeFergus]

Thanks @Indy51 Worth watching and adds to my hope that NHS advice will be changing in the future.

 

[trinity0097]

Back from the diabetic nurse today, officially non diabetic although they will monitor every year still. All due to low carb, hba1c from 80 to 35 in 3 months, plus weight decrease and cholesterol improved.
She said that she had recently been on a course and they were starting to talk about reducing carbs to help diabetics - she obviously took it on board having seen my results - hope she starts to tell others to do Lchf now.

 

[Alzebra]

@trinity0097 Well done you! Fantastic results in only 3 months, you must be so happy!!

 

[trinity0097]

Actually 6 months, hba1c 3 months ago was lower (34), but the big change was in the first 3 months - am pleased and keep shouting at the telly today - do what I do and diabetes won't cost the nhs billions!

 

[Chook]

I think of myself as a work in progress.

I am T2, diagnosed about 8 years ago but realised that I had been having occasional hypos for about 4 years before diagnosis. I was diagnoed after I had come out of hospital after a cancer scare. I was visiting the nurse (who was also the dn) to have some stitches out and told her I was feeling rotten and told her my long list of allments all of which, as it turned out, were symptoms of diabetes. Luckily she, unlike the doctor I had just seen, put two and two together and did a bg test - the first monitor just read 'Hi', the second monitor she used showed 32.3! She wanted to get me admitted to hospital but I refused having just spent two weeks there so, bless her, she gave me her monitor (the one that read that high) and took to dropping by my house or ringing me two or three times a day until my readings were down to under 25. My initial HbA1C was 24.? I fairly rapidly moved on from the just metformin to increased doses of metformin and then sitagliptin was added in and then moved to all the tablets AND to injecting insulin. I was also given leaflets about low calorie diet - which, as I have been a life long yoyo dieter was a bit redundant. I could have written those leaflets. Even though I knew I needed to lose weight I just couldn't stick to a diet for more than a week or two because of the hunger. I know why now. I did eventually get my HbA1C down to 5.4 so after getting congratulations from everyone I though I'd cracked the whole diabetes thing. Wrong.

A couple of years later my blood pressure shot up - so I started taking a drug called Ramipril. Shortly after starting Ramipril I developed a cough which progressively got worse and worse and I thought I was going to die so I kind of thought 'if its going to be a short life it might as well be a happy one'. I got very depressed - with the coughing and my body was so stressed my hair fell out and I started having panic attacks. So, stupidly, I gave up injecting the fast acting insulin and just kept on with the metformin, sitagliptin and the Lantus (long acting insulin) and started eating anything and everything. Chocolate was my new best friend.

Moving on a year... my BP had gone up as had my weight, so the doctor doubled my dose of Ramipril and my cough got so bad that my employers and neighbours complained and my husband and I had to have separate bedrooms and I was SO tired all the time due to the coughing waking me up all the time. The doctor said it was 'silent reflux' and prescribed Gaviscon tablets which I was eating like Smarties. Then one day I was having a regular meds review with the pharmacist when she had to get me a glass of water as I was coughing so hard I nearly passed out and she said did I know that Ramipril can cause coughs in some people - so I went straight to the doctor who said it was rubbish but I insisted and he put me on another drug - and a week later the cough had stopped completely.

I still carried on eating everything - loads of carbs and... well, eveything. The new puppy ate my blood glucose monitor and I didn't know how to work the new one (or that was my excuse) so I just carried on eating. Then a couple of months ago when once again I was feeling completely and absolutely rubbish again I realised that I had exactly the same symptoms as when I had been initially diagnosed seven years ago. By this time I was at my all time highest weight and I had an attempt at the 5:2 intermittant fasting diet which I really got on with but because I had developed very bad psoriasis which I blamed on the intermittant fasting (!) I went back to eating everything on the hope the food would make me happy and that the psoriasis would go away - but it didn't. The diabetes symptoms came back in full force and I knew I had to find out what was going on with my bg. So I thought 'Come on you are 60, stop being a wimp, just DO it!' So I dd and even though I was taking 90 units of Lantus each day my fasting BG of 28.3 was a massive shock. So, back to injecting the fast acting insulin but it didn't really seem to reduce my bg by very much but it did stop it from going any higher.

I really, really did try cutting calories but it was awful and I thought I couldn't IF while I felt so rubbish - so one day in an effort to stave of feelings of starvation I was browsing the Fast Diet website, considering whether I felt capable of starting it again. I then found a mention about Dr Fung and his blog which I visited and read all his archived posts (took me nearly three shifts at work - good job it was a quiet week!) I decided then to move away from counting calories to low carbing. This was two months ago. Impressively, just with cutting out all refined carbs my fasting bg dropped to 17.1 overnight. I then experimented with a 24 hour fast, testing my bg every hour (although my chances of having a hypo were remote to say the least). And the first fast brought my early morning bg down to 8.4. I was impressed! I now low carb (with medium fat) every day and have two fasts in every 8 day period (I work 12 hour nights, 4 on / 4 off). One fast is 23.5 hours and the other is about 16-17 hours. I skip breakfast on non work days and I've managed to cut out one of my work meals completely. I no longer snack at all. I am constantly testing as I am still concerned about hypos (which I used to suffer a lot with when I had low readinigs on a low calorie diet) although I haven't had a bg reading at less than 4.4 yet.

In two months my fasting bg is down to the low 5s, I've lost a stone and a half and my horrible diabetes related symptoms have almost all disappeared (just the blurry eyesight left and thats getting better). Best of all I feel I am really doing something positive about my insulin reistance. I have slowly reduced the amount of insulin I injected and after a horrendous mistake of injecting 40 units of fast acting instead of 40 units of slow acting I reduced it down still further and last Thursday I decided to do without. I have been injection free ever since; I am still testing my bg seven times a day but *touch wood* it has remained under 6 at all checks with most of them being 4.9 to 5.5.

As I said at the top, I'm a work in progress but I have hope now whereas three months ago I could easily imagine doing something stupid as I felt so ill. Dr Fung I think probably saved my life.

 

[sanguine]

Well done @Chook , thanks for posting and keep going

 

[Curlytops]

I have had success last year following a low carb diet. The weight literally fell of following what was essentially an Atkins approach up eating. Unfortunately I had a bereavement in the family and my eating spiralled out if control and I am struggling to get back to a low carb diet. I've put all the weight back on too by the way!!! It seems that as soon as I eat carbs I start to crave them, any suggestions??

 

[trinity0097]

Quite simple, don't eat the carbs, go cold turkey, increase your fat so you don't feel hungry and see how you get on. You need a certain element of resolve, but I've found things like posting on the what have you eaten today thread helps, as then if you do have something bad it's written down for the world to see, so you don't want to do that so steer clear.

 

[KiittzzE]

Long time lurker, taking it all in, listening to all the wise people on here :0)

Finally after 10 yrs as a diagnosed type 2, over weight, a little delusional about the realities of this diagnosis I woke up and decided to tackle it head on.

Started VLCD diet, Cambridge because it appears to be the best of my limited options here in Australia. ( open to any other suggestions)

Started in April, 3 replacement meals plus a high protein, low carb meal each day with occasional eating out but sticking to low carb options.

Loss to date 11 kilo

First blood test results this week

Hb1c 6.7 down from 8.6

Cholesterol was also down significantly and liver all good

Happy with that!

Still have 10-15 kilo to lose, these results prove it will be worth continuing :0)

Thanks for all the inspiration !!

 

[Wraakian]

We have endless debates and arguments about what constitutes a healthy diet. It seems one man's carb is another man's poision.
One common concern, however, is that newly diagnosed visitors will get mixed messages from the conflicting opinions. I have therefore decided that it's time for a wee census. I know of many members who have gained control of their condition by adopting a low(er) carb diet, but then found no further use for the forum, taken their normal blood sugars and disappeared. I would like us to gather statements from diabetics who have found success by restricting their carbohydrate intake, by whatever amount.
So please let us know if you have succeeded in managing your diabetes by restricting your carbs.
If you can supply before and after figures for diet, blood sugar readings, HbA1c, weight, weight or lipids it will all help to build a picture of how real people are getting on.
Oh, and the arguments won't be tolerated here but can be continued elsewhere!

All the best,

fergus

Thanks for the thread, Fergus My readings were in double figures up until I cut down on the carbs and I was called into my GPs after the previous Hba1c blood test result. My blood sugar readings were up to 18.5 and I was desperate to sort myself out. After only 3 days on a low carb diet my readings were down between 4.1 and 6.4 so I am hugely grateful for the low carb info I got from his website. My weight before the diet was always around 11st 4lbs to 11st 7lbs and has now settled down at 10st 9lbs to 10st 10lbs. I have used the internet to order low carb cereal, flax seed and flax meal, chia seed and low carb livlife bread and mix these with meats, fish, egg and bacon, salads and green veggies, plain greek yoghurt, low carb non sugar jams and marmalade, etc; To date I have not missed the chips, root veg or other high carb foods but am going to bake my own cakes using flax meal instead of flour .... I would have used almond flour but an article I read said it wasn't healthy when cooked? Steak and salad at a restaurant tonight! I am interested in my next colesterol results due to my eating more fatty foods in case they have risen though so jury is out till then.

 

[PcjB]

Hi, been following this thread for a while. Diagnosed 12 weeks ago and my first ever post - self diagnosis followed by all the science on two separate trips to the DN. Anyway it hit home and I realised that the only person that can really do anything about it was me - so been enjoying the LCHF approach and shed almost two stone in 12 weeks whilst enjoying being a male diva in some of the restaurants I am fortunate enough to visit with work. Anyway still trying to convince the family that bacon & eggs or smoked salmon is okay, as is cream on occasion. They seem to focus on these points rather than my significant increase in veg intake and dropping from 42inch to 38inch waist with it! Oh forgot to mention swapped real ale for the occasional glass of red. Initial Hba1c (still getting used to the lingo) was 79 still waiting for the 3 month 'see what you can do' outcome but testing twice daily- ave 7.0 before breakfast and 5.9 before dinner

Paul