Are you a T1 and low carbing did not work for you?

I'm with catapilar. What do you mean by "work"?
Low carbs may help reduce spikes but I lose too much weight (and don't have any to spare). So a low carb diet does not work for me. But that has nothing that do with being type 1.
What was the reason for the question?

works for me, I'm 30 years type 1 and low carb has meant more stable blood sugars and far less swings, I have mostlystraight lines on my cgm readings. It took a while to get my basal correct and involved a lot of testing of carb boluses and protein boluses but no complaints I'm better low carb. I try to stay below 30g a day

Morning, it works for me with a hugely noticeable effect.

I try and stay under 60g a day which I know for some would be really high but its a balancing act of being able to eat with a family, treat myself and have decent control.

I have very few carbs at breakfast (aiming for about 10g in mixed berries currently) similar at lunch (today is thrown off as I have tinned soup 24g) and very low tonight (home made goulash with cauliflower rice)

having had a good few weeks where my pancreas seems to be spluttering some insulin out I'm very happy with that

Hello
I've lowered my carb intake but don't class myself as following a low carb diet.
Quite frankly i'm fit as a butchers dog and understand the effect carbs have on me and my diabetes control.

I hope that doesn't sound high handed its just what i do now works for me.

Regards
Tony

As a T1 with still some exogenous insulin, I follow a low carb lifestyle. My levels typically remain in 4.0 - 7.0 mmol/l almost always, with more time in the 4's and 5's than 6-7. I don't worry too much about counting carbs, I just avoid all starchy veg (occasionally eat small amounts of carrots), sugar, fruit (execption is berries) bread etc... I get my carbs from the likes of cauliflower, broccoli, courgettes, onions, garlic, berries, nuts, seeds, cheese, salads, small amounts of natural yogurt. All my meals focus more on protein and fats (e.g. fish, eggs, beef, lamb, chicken, some bacon, butter, coco oil, olive oil) and then I add some of the above mentioned veg and usually avocados are almost always on my plate covered in olive oil and some good unrefined salt! Other things I may eat are dark chocolate, has be 90% +, anything else is too sweet. Best brand I found so far is Vivani (made in Germany), the 92% is great it has a very small amount of coconut blossom sugar. They also do a 99% which is also good, but definitely more for the hardcore dark choc eaters!

One thing I find very helpful with this way of eating is that I rarely get hungry and so it gives me a lot more flexibility in daily life, I can easily go 8 hours without eating and not feel ****! I am office worker and I haven't experienced the so called 3'o'clock slump in a very long time! Also, I don't tend to snack, apart from weekends if I am at home and then it is really just out of boredom/glutony

I did find that initially I was losing weight, but I upped the fat and protein and now my weight is very steady. I don't need to lose any weight, very happy with current weight. One downside in my personal experience is my cholesterol has increased a lot, into the danger/statin range according to conventional medical wisdom! This is probably linked to my genetics, high cholesterol is in my family. I am looking into this and have recently taken further blood tests to try get to the bottom of the cholesterol issue and see if it really is putting me at a higher risk of CVD. For now though, I am convinced controlling blood sugar is the most important factor in managing my health and so I won't be ditching the low carb approach just yet.

One final comment, I think you have to give the LC approach time, a few months is no good. Certainly this is my experience, in that it has taken me at least 2 years to get to a point where my thinking and how I look at carb rich foods has completely changed. I still love food, but I am definitely moving more towards the mindset of food for nutrition and fuel, not for comfort. I have read Phinney & Volek's book Art and Science of low carb, in the book I think it is Volek who said, you will reach a point when you look differently at the old foods (carb rich foods) you ate and it will just feel right not to eat them. I have definitely not got that quote 100% correct, but you get the point.

phdiabetic said:

I'm a type 1 who found no benefits and many disadvantages to a low carb diet. Currently I eat almost anything I want at any time, with just a couple of limitations (no more than 60g carbs at one time, no "guessing" - I must know exactly how many carbs I'm eating, no carbs if my blood sugar is too high). This diet works well for me - no significant blood sugar spikes at meal times (blood sugar usually remains 6's or below), I maintain a healthy weight and I am usually not hungry.

The reason that low carb didn't work for me is that the assumption that less mealtime insulin = more stable blood sugars simply wasn't true. The most variability in my blood sugars came from basal. I am in the honeymoon period and my basal needs are constantly changing, so I found that when I was too low it was almost always because of basal, and when I was too high it was either rebounding from a low, or not enough basal. The amount of food I ate seemed to make very little difference. I also felt hungry all the time (yes I ate lots of salad, nuts, etc but it didn't help much) to the point that I felt shaky, weak and sweaty, like I was having a hypo. While being unpleasant, it was also dangerous since it impaired my ability to recognise a real hypo.

So that's my personal experience, but my opinion on low carb (as stated in your post, <50g/day) for type 1's in general is that it is unnecessarily dangerous, as glucagon may work much slower, or not be effective at all. Even though I've never needed glucagon, I still wouldn't take the risk, and I think that all type 1's should make the ability to recover from hypos their top priority. As such, I would suggest that a moderately low carb diet (100g/day) is much safer for type 1's than a low carb or keto diet.

Click to expand...

I totally agree with your post, relating to myself personally, though as is commonly understandable everyone is different. I do the nuts, seeds etc as well as home-made baking, pastries (limited in high carb/or substitute ingredients), and don't now suffer the hunger pangs or unpleasant stuff that goes with starving yourself to try to keep BGs low. Exercise is the only thing I have to go easy on to avoid hypos.

cz_dave said:

T1s: I would be interested in your opinion on low-carbing. Especially when eating less than 50g of carbs per day.

Have you tried it? Did it work for you? If not, why?

Click to expand...

Hi cz_dave,
I started with a low carb diet about a 8months ago, by low carb I aim for no more than 70g but sometimes this goes up to 100g. I hadn't realised how great it worked for me until I let the carbs slide up and up to my pre low carb eating. My sugars are now much higher and it seems like they are stored for longer in my body, when I was low carbing my sugars were much more consistent and actually I enjoyed eating less pasta/bread etc. So I'm now back on the band wagon and hoping to see my sugars go back down. I hope things are going well with whatever you have decided to do.

It did work for me blood sugar-wise but I've increased my carbs for personal reasons and this is also working.

At my lowest carb (approx 50g per day), I was hitting HbA1c results of 5.3% but I was in hypo territory more often than I am now.

When I steadied the hypos a bit, I went to around 5.6%.

Then I increased my carbs because eating different meals to my partner was a time issue. HbA1c remained between 5.9 to 6% for a number of years.

Since, getting a Libre, I've increased my carbs further (now on about 120g per day) and my HbA1c has dropped back to 5.8% without any increase in hypos. The drop in HbA1c here will be down to the closer monitoring available with the Libre.

I've had type 1 for 24 years, diagnosed age 11, so my pancreas will make neglible insulin.

With an A1C of 5.3 you're gonna get low quite a bit. I'd ease off a bit if I were you. An A1C of 6 is better than probably 95% of Type 1's especially around here. When I get below 6 I get low almost every day at some point. That's a whole lotta Lifesavers! What's you insulin regimen consist of, MDI's like Lantus/Novorapid?

I am type 1 and believed that low carb would help because I would not be making errors of calculation when bolusing for meals but of course its not that simple. Dr Richard Bernstein makes the point that you need to factor in protein for example. Also PMT and stress (doing weights or emotional stress).
I recently tried to get my HBA1c down in order to get funding for my pump (was successful!) and the only way I could pull off a drop of 0.8 was to fast for 2-3 days at a time during which time I lowered my basal by about 10% and it was pretty steady.
I do low carb generally because I want to be leaner and insulin sensitive since I believe needing large amounts of insulin is unhealthy and drives metabolic disease. But I am a type 1 so have to put that risk against the risks of high blood sugars.