Beginner puzzling over carb content

[Hareph]

I've looked through Michael Mosely's blood sugar diet book, as advised by the diabetes nurse. I've started logging on a website, the screendump is from there. What I've started eating is mushroom or cheese omelette, broccoli celery tomato soup and occasional ham or chicken bits. And 500ml 1% milk in a lot of coffee.

The resulting carb intake of 80g/day seems unacceptably high but I could be wrong. I'd hate to try to get it near 20g, I've no idea what I'd need to do to get that low.

Does what I'm doing qualify as a low-carb diet or not?

 

[Robbity]

AFAIK the Moseley blood sugar diet is not the same as our Low Carb High(er) Fat diet, so if you are using the book, just follow his guidelines.

However, LCHF can be considered to be anything under 120/130g carbs a day - although many of us have chosen to eat (sometimes much) less - so 80g carbs a day is not unreasonable. 20g carbs a day is actually a strict ketogenic diet, and could be considered an "extreme" version of low carbing, and is not absolutely essential - though going down to this figure can be helpful to get you into fat burning mode.

Think about what you're aiming for, and do some homework on the diferent types of diets, so you don't get yourself confused. If you haven't already got a glucose meter, get yourself one, and use that as a guide to how your body responds to different quantities of carbs - there's no particular virtue in going extremely low carb if you don't actually need to, but you do need to be able to both stick to your diet - probably long terrn, and control your glucose levels.

Robbity

 

[CherryAA]

80g is lowish carbs, 20g is "ketogenic" ie at 20 g your body has no option but to start to run on ketones and begin the process of fat adaption. On 80g it possible to get ketones but unlikely depending on the extent of your physical activities and amount of proteins eaten. A good reason to attempt to get into ketosis is that with it comes a freedom from hunger. Currently 500ml of 1% low fat milk is providing 25g of carbs all on its own. Tomato soup, unless home made can easily be 30-60g more. Neither of them are all that good for you .
Take a look at this graphic - if you base your meals round the pictures using real food you recognise its really not hard to get below 30g carbs in a day. I eat as below and I drink coffee with double cream instead of skimmed milk. I do drink a couple of cups of tea with skimmed milk per day as my special treat because I really do prefer the taste of skimmed milk in tea.

Eating low carb does require a rethink, but the end result is lovely, My dinner tonight ? ribeye steak with a cream and butter sauce onions, mushrooms and kale - splendid about 1000 calories, 20g carbs

You will soon find out what works for you ! good luck

 

[Hareph]

Thank you Robbity, there's a lot of useful information there.

I'd assumed 'Low Carb Diet Forum' was a generic area.

I'll look up ketogenic and educate myself.

I've several aims, the first being to bring my HbA1c=76 measure back down to below 50 for my next checkup in 3 months - it hadn't been over 50 before this one. Getting below my Overweight category is secondary but desirable.

I don't have a glucose meter, I've been widdling on test strips which have now stopped reacting for glucose this week - I'll look up what a glucose meter is. I was hoping my bathroom scales would give me feedback but yours sounds more specific.

I know sod all about diabetes, that's why I registered. I'm pleased to have a reply.

 

[Alison Campbell]

The urine strips don't show levels below 10 I think so you have already started improving things. Let us know if you need any help getting a meter. Be warned that the cost of strips can be any where between £7-£25 for 50 if you are in the UK

 

[Rachox]

If you get a blood glucose meter I wouldn't necessarily obtain a free one as the ongoing expense of the test strips is actually more important. I got the SD Code Free starter pack from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Codefree-G...F8&qid=1500495764&sr=8-3&keywords=sd+codefree

I get supplies of strips and lancets direct from Home Health using the following discount codes:

5 packs 264086

10 packs 975833

https://homehealth-uk.com/my-account/

Don't forget to check the box stating you have diabetes and the VAT is deducted

 

[Hareph]

You will soon find out what works for you ! good luck

Thank you CherryAA, I've several adjustments to make and I could easily go to black coffee for a while. There might even be a chance to kill my lifelong caffeine dependency. And fish, I bought fish. One mackerel and one white one though I've no idea what that started life as. I'll buy come curry powder too. Experimenting with food was not what I had in mind for my retirement but needs must when the Devil drives.

 

[Hareph]

And thank you Alison and Rachox. This mention of lancets is disquieting, I am not keen on punctures but the suggestion and links are what I need. I'll look for an online manual.

 

[Alison Campbell]

Lots of good info on the main site about testing such as here

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/blood-gl...?utm_source=top&utm_medium=dd&utm_campaign=dd

 

[Hareph]

This thread helped me focus on what I didn't know, so thank you all for joining in.

Before I posted I'd been puzzling what ingredients to eat. There's lots of recipes and calorie counters on the web but finding a full list of foods with a breakdown of contents took a while.

I found this a couple of days ago. It's a spreadsheet.

Source:USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp

It lists, for a given weight of each ingredient, the calories and then the grams of fat, of carbohydrates and of protein in the sample.

In my copy I've now added some columns.

Calories per gram lets me sort the entries from low values - like white fish and lettuce - to high values like peanuts and lard. If I want more weight on my plate I need to choose fewer calories per gram.

The weight ratios between carbohydrate and fat, and of carbohydrate and protein, help me find low carbohydrate ingredients and know whether I'm ending up with high fat or high protein instead. I think that gives me more knowledge to pick what to eat for a given meal. My next step will be to note the before and after Blood Glucose for each meal when a testing kit arrives and I nerve myself for all the finger-sticking.

With my BMI of 29 I reckon bringing that below 25, at the same time as reducing my HbA1c of 76, is needed.

I've been surprised by the spreadsheet. This thread highlighted milk in coffee as a calorie obstacle so that's now gone. Subsoil vegetables, even onions, raise a meal's carbohydrate proportion. My first few tries at reducing carbohydrate swapped it more for protein than fats. I'll persevere until I have a pattern that works for me. Maybe licking double cream might end up part of it.

The other thing I've done is googled cold diabetic feet. From the day I reduced calories my feet have turned icy by bedtime regardless of buying emergency tog-rated socks. I can't remember having cold feet before. This forum has many threads about the phenomenon. The unexpected consensus is damaged nerve endings are starting to self-repair, if I've understood correctly.

 

[Resurgam]

I am a bit confused about what you are aiming for - low calorie just makes me feel really ill.
I have used low carb foods and a meter to get control of my blood glucose, and I have lost weight - I put on weight very easily if I eat carbs, but now that I have been diagnosed diabetic I plan to ignore all instructions to eat densely carb foods.
To control my blood glucose I tested before and after eating, found that all the foods which make me gain weight are exactly the same ones which put up my blood glucose, and so have gone from there - good numbers for my glucose and seeing my weight drop.

 

[Hareph]

If I find that degree of useful information from measuring blood glucose I'll happily drop the low calorie aspect. I'd not realized it was an option, I just want to climb back from becoming obese. There seems to be a general public assumption that calories in less work performed becomes higher BMI.

 

[CherryAA]

if you want to start to understand the nutrients in foods, maybe download
https://cronometer.com

apart from telling you how many carbs etc everything has and allowing you to create recipes, it also has a search function where for example it will tell you the top100 foods for vitamin K etc. As you read around the subject of nutrition you will find yourself thinking , am I deficient in X? This is a great way to find out . The basic version is free.

 

[Mark_1]

A TEE meter is free and comes with everything you need to get started so no risk in ordering one. 100 extra strips are less than £8 which are some of the cheapest around.

 

[Hareph]

Thank you both. The cronometer website is just what I need, and I've ordered the TEE2 with accessories.

I've never seen any supplements for potassium but having entered a week's worth of meals I seem to be averaging a mere 50%. A quick google hasn't told me a lot. It it relevant?

 

[chri5]

Thank you both. The cronometer website is just what I need, and I've ordered the TEE2 with accessories.

I've never seen any supplements for potassium but having entered a week's worth of meals I seem to be averaging a mere 50%. A quick google hasn't told me a lot. It it relevant?

Hi, I think the recommended potassium intake is about 4500mg per day. If you are low you can always find the supplements in any health food shops and I have even found them in pound shops! Make sure that you actually need any supplements before taking them though, if they are water soluble you will just produce expensive pee but overdosing on some (like potassium) can actually be dangerous. Chris.

 

[Hareph]

Thank you Chris, what I've found is "Lo-salt" which is a salt substitute with 60% of the sodium replaced by potassium and costs little more than table salt. I'm happy with that approach.

 

[ringi]

Source:USDA Nutrient Database for Standard Reference www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp

Now you may not like this, but they don’t measure carbs the same in the USA! In the UK it will say for example 30g of carb and 10g of fibre, in the USA it will say 40g of carb, of which 10g are fibre.

 

[Hareph]

Since the Internet arrived I've become used to converting between US and UK measures. We don't use the same gallon or pint, the UK cup size is noticeably bigger too. So long as I've had breakfast and a coffee I can cope.

 

[Hareph]

The "International Tables of Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load Values: 2008" at http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/31/12/2281 carries a Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load "of over 2,480 individual food items" but the table is a PDF so it can't be manipulated. All I've done is shifted it to a spreadsheet (.csv format) and added a column for "Net carbohydrates(g) / GL(g)" to sort by the efficiency of the GL.

It's permanently available at https://pastebin.com/N4YLxJpE