Am I eating too much?

Hi there

From what you’ve posted it doesn’t look like an excessive quantity of food, so my guess would be it’s the carbs causing the spike.

I agree with @Goonergal that I think it is too many carbs. Are you a diabetic? If so are you on any mediation to lower your blood sugars?

I am a type 2 and eat less than 20 grams of carbs a day- often less than 10 grams. What I find is that the more carbs I eat the more hungry I get. It can be a bit tricky over the holiday period and also if you have to eat out but when preparing your own food I would suggest trying very low carb for a couple of days- don't worry about how much food you are eating just the amount of carbs and see what happens to your levels.

I find it easier to stick to food that is very low carb- so bacon and eggs, fish- I like smoked salmon with cream cheese and also crispy skin salmon, meat- most meat has no or very low carbs but be careful of prepared meals, Cheese.

You can have bacon and eggs for breakfast or omelette- just be careful what you add- if you want veggies- I have cauliflower mash (with cheese and maybe a little spring onion)

Good luck but if you are on any mediation you will need to be careful to lower your carbs more gradually- so if you are mediation let us know and people here can give other suggestions.

Leeg10 said:

Hi,

I am 3 months in to trying to change my eating habits now and maybe I should know better by now but still just can’t seem to get it right unless I keep my carbs under 20g for the day.

I spoke to the dietician who recommended that I move away from Keto and focus more on balanced low carb eating going for around 50g carbs per meal.

I skipped breakfast so was pretty hungry and for lunch I had a bagel with with 1 thin slice of ham, 2 strawberries, Ringos crisps, and 1/2 tin of no sugar tomato soup for 48g carbs.

My BG before eating was 6.9 and 2 hours later was 10.8.

Are my portions too big or am I just eating too many carbs.

Thanks for your help,

Lee

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So it was going ok on keto and now you’re eating more carbs and it’s going wrong. What does that tell you?

Why does the dietician say to add so many more carbs? How could that be classed as too much food? Easily for a type 2 too many carbs though and those numbers and the rise would not be unexpected for many of us after that food.

my diabetes would be uncontrolled on 150g of carb a day. I regularly eat much more than you list in a meal. Often less too. Appetite is not consistent naturally I find.

Leeg10 said:

Yeh true, I know my numbers were better while on keto. I just can’t live my life on Keto. Interesting to read that others wouldn’t eat that many carbs in a day then. I would wonder if I had picked the dietician up wrong, but she’s written it down. Thanks for your response, I’m just sick of it all. X

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Try just reducing your carbs and spacing them out. See what happens if you have a max of 20g carbs in a meal, and space each meal out over the day.

There are many people on here successfully lowering their blood sugar levels without ultra low carbing.

PS. 50g of carbs in one meal is a crazy suggestion from the dietician. Shows how little they know about how carbs and blood sugar levels work.

Leeg10 said:

I will go to 20g per meal from tomorrow and see how that goes. Thank you

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Do you like veg, eggs, chicken, cheese?

You are getting the extra, and rather excessive carbs from high carb foods with little nutritional value, just a load of starch in a highly concentrated form.
I have noted that skipping breakfast is not good, as my levels go on rising until I do eat - so 12 hour intervals seem to be the best option.

Leeg10 said:

Hi,

I am 3 months in to trying to change my eating habits now and maybe I should know better by now but still just can’t seem to get it right unless I keep my carbs under 20g for the day.

I spoke to the dietician who recommended that I move away from Keto and focus more on balanced low carb eating going for around 50g carbs per meal.

I skipped breakfast so was pretty hungry and for lunch I had a bagel with with 1 thin slice of ham, 2 strawberries, Ringos crisps, and 1/2 tin of no sugar tomato soup for 48g carbs.

My BG before eating was 6.9 and 2 hours later was 10.8.

Are my portions too big or am I just eating too many carbs.

Thanks for your help,

Lee

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Hi, what does your exercise routine look like? Under 50g of carbs is reasonable if your active, otherwise lower might give you better results

I must admit I'm not the biggest fan of meat either. I do like pork crackling though.

I quite like chicken so that helps.

My suggestion is to try to go really low carb for a few days and then your levels will be lower and you can experiment with slightly higher.

Good luck.

@Leeg10 if you don’t enjoy meat and fish it’s unlikely you’ll stick to a plan that includes a lot of them over the long-term. It’s not so easy to be very low carb on a vegetarian diet, but it is possible. As a carnivore I’m not best placed to advise, but this is a reputable website with plenty of ideas:
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/keto/vegetarian
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/keto/vegetarian

https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/recipes/vegetarian

NB there are paid memberships on dietdoctor.com, but you can get the information you need as a non-paying browser. Have a good look around.

Also tagging @Chook and @zauberflote for some ideas.

I'm a veggie so I think I would struggle to go really low carb but I do aim for a maximum of 100g of carbs a day and that is manageable at the moment and blood sugars are within normal range.

You can get bagel thins which have less carbs in but also can get low carb bread ( I get the Livlife seeded bread, really tasty) and low carb wraps (carbzone, taste just like normal ones) for 4g of carbs.

Maybe next time try different combinations and see what works for you. Perhaps have just the bagel with more ham and maybe some cheese and salad ? Might be more filling so don't need the soup and crisps.

I do think the advice of 50g of carbs per meal is a lot and a lot of type 2s will struggle with that. My evening meal probably is around 50g but I try to be really active in the day. My breakfast and lunch are usually a lot lower.

Leeg10 said:

Hi,

I am 3 months in to trying to change my eating habits now and maybe I should know better by now but still just can’t seem to get it right unless I keep my carbs under 20g for the day.

I spoke to the dietician who recommended that I move away from Keto and focus more on balanced low carb eating going for around 50g carbs per meal.

I skipped breakfast so was pretty hungry and for lunch I had a bagel with with 1 thin slice of ham, 2 strawberries, Ringos crisps, and 1/2 tin of no sugar tomato soup for 48g carbs.

My BG before eating was 6.9 and 2 hours later was 10.8.

Are my portions too big or am I just eating too many carbs.

Thanks for your help,

Lee

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Hi @Leeg10 ,

You've gotten quite a few reactions already, but just another one chiming in who doesn't agree with your dietician. I saw two, and if I'd followed their advice, I'd either be dead or on insulin right now, four years on. It's a sobering realisation. Sometimes the pro's just aren't right. And I know it's weird to follow advice from complete strangers on the internet. So who do you trust? Your meter. It'll tell you exactly what is working for you, and what isn't, with no agenda, dogma or bias. Just be your own guinea pig. Test before a meal and 2 hours after. If you go up more than 2.0 mmol/l, then the meal was carbier than you could handle. Yeah, carbs. not the meal size, but the amount of carbohydrates in there. I can eat a pound of no carb food and my blood sugars won't budge. Couple of tiny little praline's however.... So it's not the quantity of the grub. The last time I had buns with cheese, the day after diagnosis, I was making a curve, testing every hour, on the hour. I thought I had a healthy lunch, and I hit a 22 point something-or-other. Those were my last buns.

If you don't like meat or fish, it does make it a little more complicated, but not impossible. Lots of leafy greens, olives, avocado, eggs, cheese, above ground vegetables (pulses are tricky, test and see whether you can tolerate them), full fat greek yoghurt, berries, extra dark chocolate and what have you... Some vegan meat replacements are quite do-able, you'll have to check the packaging for their carb content. The links you were given are excellent, just keep in mind that on a mostly vegetarian diet your b12 vitamins might drop, and if you're on metformin, your uptake of B12 will drop as it is, so you might need supplements. If you start feeling tingling sensations in hands and feet for instance, that'd be a signal that you're running low.

Good luck! (It does get better from here on in!)
Jo

Hi. The dietician advice to have 50gm carbs with each meal is ignorant but typical of many dieticians. If you are happy with 20gm then stick with it. Your BS numbers currently are pretty good so don't worry.