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Another Newbie

F

fitzpat

Newbie
Messages
2
Location
Southampton
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Hello Everyone, I was diagnosed with type 2 in Feb put on metformin 500mg twice a day and one 20mg simvastatin.I was told to eat a balanced diet whatever that is.Basically i'm eating more fruit and veg and have cut out a lot of fatty stuff.I bought a bg meter, accu-check compact to test my blood/sugar levels and have found that they are quite high around 12mmol.I managed to get it down to 6.8mmol once but still fluctuates quite badly.any ideas?

Regards
Ian
 
A "healthy balanced diet" is actually quite an individual thing. For most diabetics, the presence of carbohydrate puts their blood glucose up( non diabetic is about 3.6 -6.2 ) So you see yours is far too high.
One way round this is to cut the carbohydrates down in your eating. Get rid of sugars ( natural and added) and cut back hard on the starches. If you're not really sure of what a carbohydrate is, look on my carbohydrate 101&102 post.
Get yourself a reference book. The Collins little gem Calorie guide is inexpensive and will give information on most common everyday foods.
Learn to use GI tables, these will show you which foods will affect your blood glucose quickly and which slowly. there's loads of info about this on-line
The Atkins diet book is a useful resource too.
 
Hana is right, unfortunately a "Healthy Balanced Diet" is anything but, and is an order of magnitude worse for a diabetic. Be wary of those fruits, berries are usually doable but things like grapes are basically bags of sugar water. Veggies are mostly good except for roots which are starchy

http://www.diabetes-support.org.uk/joomla/free-veggies

Trans fats are seriously bad, but Omega 3s (fish) and monounsaturated fats are generally good. There's increasing evidence that once you are no longer eating toxic levels of carbs then saturated fats are also good, probably better than the Omega 6s they tell you to eat more of. If you eat too many carbs then your body will turn them into far more saturated fat than if you'd eaten the fat in the first place . . .
 
Thanks for the info Guys,i will cut down on the starchy stuff and see what readings i will get over a week
 
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