• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Advice and guidance

J

Jaro

Newbie
Messages
2
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Hi just joined, ok details I’m male 69 and I was diagnosed with type two diabetes about 19 -20 years ago –it came out of the blue, massive thirst, falling asleep at the wheel. I was around 18.5 stone (120 kilos) and also suffered from sleep apnoea. Highest blood sugar reading, around that time, I can remember was about 27.

Asked my Doctor about diet and he said there is disagreement about what’s best so do your own research, which I tried and came to no conclusion. I was prescribed metaformin. But then over the next 18 months my weight dropped away losing about 4.5 stone (29 kilo) with no change whatsoever to my probably unhealthy diet. (I’m actually quite cynical about diets in general and mainly believe that if you enjoy some foods enough then they are good for you – which I accept is mainly the placebo effect)

After about 12 years I stopped taking any medication for anything, stopped checking my blood sugar carried on with my normal diet chips, bread, most meats fried, lots of milk lots of sugar in my tea, and a bar of chocolate a day, felt largely OK. I did, for a few months, go vegetarian with low’ish fats and reduced sugar but felt bloody awful.

The moment I was back with the high sugar/fatty foods I was fine again. In fact I always keep bars of chocolate around for when I feel a bit wobbly.

Just last week I had a blood test and have been called back to my excellent French doctor because my bloods levels were high at about 13 –and I checked again today and its 15.2 (admittedly with some well out of date strips).


I smoke and very occasional drink, I have slightly lower than average blood pressure and I’m now single and live in the south of France


So is there some sense to this or have I just been lucky - I’m guessing that my doctor will get me to change my diet which I’m sort of dreading or prescribe those metaformin pills again with all the resultant headaches.
 
Hi, when you checked bg today and had the 15.2 was that before food? If not, what had you eaten? Obviously the strips being out of date will have made it less accurate but the doc's test of 13 won't have been wrong.

The 'wobbly' feeling you get will be a false hypo as your bg is likely to be high quite often so as it comes into more normal range you will feel like this

As the above post says, you will be better with a low carb diet or 'way of eating' if you don't like the word diet :) but testing bg will be your key as different foods affect different people, what could cause a spike to someone's bg might not to you, it will be trial & error. I'll tag @daisy1 who can provide you with more info, ask as many questions as you need to after having a read


Sent from my iPhone using DCUK Forum mobile app
 
Diet is not a four letter word and it's not a dirty word. It is simply the noun that describes the list of food that YOU eat. WQe all have diets - baby diets, swimmers diets, weight lifters diets, ballerina diets (mainly fags!!), old people diets, G&T diets etc etc etc. Eat what works for you. I got diagnosed at the same age as you. Weight was in the same region. I am careful about what I eat. I don't smoke and it's hard to tell whether or not I drink - I only do it in October and I stopped out of shock when I got diagnosed last October. I think I'm ready. (Why only in October - because I'm that good at it!!!)

I just wanted to say hello and to tell you not to get hung up on the word 'diet'
 
LittleG said:
I imagine a LCHF diet would be a shift but a pleasant one. No carbs so all the bread, chips, rice and pasta are out as well as the cakes ...
Click to expand...
The LC in LCHF means LOW carbs not NO carbs - which is quite a different kettle of fish, so please avoid offering incorrect information. LCHF includes eating above ground vegetables, salads (as you rightly suggest), berries, nuts, seeds, and dairy - all of which definitely contain some carbs. NO carbs would imply at best eating only protein and fats, so there's actually a very big difference.

Robbity
(in pedantic mode... :D)
 
Well thanks for all your replies, Ok first diet -firstly I actually don't eat that much maybe 1 meal a day plus either a bread roll with lots of butter, and sometimes a very chocolatey musi. Main meal is either chicken or fish (with pasta or rice) occasionally egg and chips 4/5 big cups of tea and large glass of milk every night. Don't eat much steak or salad prefer duck. I've got loose teeth so softer foods are more normal. The 15.2 was during a cup of tea with four lumps of sugar but apart from a chocolate croissant, that's all I'd eaten that day I don't do any exercise, had to contain walking the dog recently because of arthritis in my knees neck and recently shoulders for which I have to take various inflammatory pills and muscle relaxants plus 3000 mg paracetamol every day. (I'm not entirely convinced that this "arthritis" isn't something to do with my high sugar diet?)
The wobbly/breathless feeling I seem to had since I was a child it's just now that it seems so urgent when it comes on (infrequently and mainly late afternoon. And when I look at the diets suggested, like no bread, pasta, potatoes etc I can't seem to imagine what I would replace these staples with - surely not a lifetime of salads. I guess my questions are about if the diets recommended for these problem are proven to be a broadly effective response or are there other diets which work for some people. For example eating more frequently but smaller portions, Like in my case I never eat breakfast and it's mostly tea and fags until maybe a bowl of musi middle of the afternoon than a main meal 9/10 at night. My day starts around 9 to 11am and 2.30/3.00 when I go to bed (which has been since last November with a very necessary sleeping pill). My weight last tested about two weeks ago was 90 kilos (14.2 stone), Oh and the last thing is that I'm a lousy cook. and again thanks for you assistance.
 
You need to reduce all your sugary and starchy foods (bread, chips and potatoes in general, pasta, rice, sugar lumps), and keep up with the fats and protein and plenty low carb vegetables. Chocolate will be good for you in moderation, but eat the dark high percentage cocoa (75%+) variety not milk choccie bars!
A combination of high carbs and high fat is not a good idea for either weight or good glucose levels. Get rid of the high carb foods and eat fatty/oily food instead for energy.

You don't have to eat steaks - but think about minced steak instead for wobbly/missing teeth, and duck is just fine! Look at the Low Carb section of the forum for information, and the low carb recipes and "What have you eaten today?" threads for ideas. And you can eat to suit yourself, some people choose eat several smaller meals instead of fewer larger ones. But higher fat meals should keep you satisfied for longer.

If you go onto a LCHF regime, you will feel bad for a short while you're ridding your body of its carbohydrate "addiction". Google for Atkins, low carb, or keto flu, and make sure you drink plenty of fluids - broth or stock cubes are a good idea - you'll need to keep up your salt/potassium and possibly magnesium levels as you'll be losing more of these as your kidneys will be flushing them out.

Robbity
 
Back
Top