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Carb counting ?!?!

WildFreeSpirit

Newbie
Messages
2
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
I was diagnosed with type 1.5 about 6 months ago . My a1c was 9.5 but has dropped to 6.1 within 6 months . I try to eat as healthy as I can but feel like it’s hard to try and gain my weight back . I was scared to eat any carbs or sugars in the beginning but I’m realizing that’s not the right way to go about this . Does everyone with type 1 really have to carb count all there meals!!? I feel so naive. 29 years old and feel like this is such a chore ... ugh frustrating and emotional roller coaster... I’ve also been extremely tired the past few weeks .. I’m wondering if it’s thyroid issues. I hear a lot of ppl with type 1 also have thyroid issues? Is this true
 
Morning,

T2 myself so I cannot comment on T1 behaviour/affects but I count my carbs. I agree its a pain and tedious and my wife has passed a few commetns along the lines of "will you have to do this forever" but I look at it as one option. The other option is just to ignore it which would make my condition worse. The option I choose was to own it and therefore own and control the condition. Its MY condition and I CONTROL it (yes sometimes i have to shout those words in my head just so I listen to myself).
 
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I carb count all my meals. Not to restrict my carb in take but to know how much insulin to take.
However, this is not a huge undertaking. I do not weigh everything I eat - mostly the counting is a guestimate on sight based on experience.
Most people eat the same (or similar) food for breakfast so you just have to weigh that once and you will know for all future mornings.
Then focus on the high carb hitters like bread, potatoes, pasta and rice. You probably have a similar portion size of one of these with a meal. Calculate the carbs in that portion and it will be pretty close to the number of carbs overall.
The other thing I have done to help is involve my partner and get him to guestimate carbs too.
Some people use apps like Carbs and Cals which show you plates containing the food making it easier to calculate carbs.
(Personally, I got hungry navigating through the app and gave up but I know many people love it.)
Unfortunately, you may make mistakes. Don't beat yourself up if your BG gets too high or too low - correct and move on.

Diabetes is a pest but as @ixi1429 suggests, don't let it control your life: you can be in control.
It just takes time to come to terms with your diagnosis and learn all you need to .... and there is a lot to learn.
 
Hi, Brilliant on the A1c drop. I'm type 1 and was diagnosed 6 moths ago with A1c quoted in various figures as 5.5% or 37 or 114 not sure what's what. I've also got a lazy thyroid which I've had for a long time. When I was first labelled as diabetic, I just didn't believe it... don't now if the truth be known. I just thought managing the disease was to stop eating sweet stuff, I didn't realise that sweet stuff was part of the world of simple and complex carbs. I had to rethink food and at first it was a gigantic pain in the posterior. It isn't anymore because some how or other your brain switches the way it thinks. I don't eat many carbs, I reckon about 35g a day but can't be precise. I don't weigh any either as @helensaramay says and I never did. You really will find it really does get easier although I wouldn't have believed you if you'd told me that at the start. If I feel like a slice of bread I have one, it's not often but you can if you want. I'm sure they'll be a lot more people who've got way more experience than me on this and will help. As far as the tiredness is concerned, I would certainly have a test for that. Be positive and live your name. Good luck
 
I use the free version of MyFitnessPal. There are two versions; the mobile phone version reads barcodes on food labels but does not do food reports. Whereas the desktop version does food reports but not barcodes.

The other main product for calorie and carb counting is the “carbs and cals” book. This consists of 1700 pictures of typical portion sizes of common foods.

I prefer MyFitnessPal however with some digital scales that do TARE weights. Tare allows you to put (for example) a dish on the scales and set the weight to zero then as you add food to the dish you are just weighing the food you add.

Because MyFitnessPal stores any meal plans based on your account name not locally, if you add food items using a mobile phone barcode then switch to the desktop version you can scan barcodes AND get food reports from the desktop version.

MyFitnessPal has 6.5 million entries for food rather than just the limited number of pictures in carbs and cals book.

It’s hard starting either system until you build up a list of pre calculated meals. Most people tend to eat just a few different meals. So after about one month 90% of meals are already worked out.
 
You don't say if you've been on a carb counting course yet? if not nag your specialists to get on one.

Besides just carb counting are you also adjusting your insulin ratios for activity? Are you running a log of your carb intake/activity levels/insulin use and also noting down the time you test, eat and what you've been doing. If you are then you will soon see patterns emerge. They wont be the same everyday but things like 'I always go low after I've cleaned the house.' will emerge and that tells you that cleaning is using up more energy than you have been allowing for.

If I sit watching the TV of an evening I need to use a ratio of 1 unit of fast acting insulin per 8 gram CHO in the evening meal. On the other hand if I'm taking a day long walk over Dartmoor then a ratio of 1:15 is more appropriate or even 1:20 if there are lots of ups and downs along the path.

I've found I need to count up every last carb, there is a great temptation to simplify things, so don't ignore the numbers on a packet of sausages that says 1.8g carbohydrates per sausage because by the time you've eaten 3 of them that 5.4g CHO and probably half a unit of insulin that you didn't and should have added to the total you injected and you wonder after the event why you next BG test is higher. You'll get to remember the number of grams of CHO in things like potatoes but don't ignore the sugars in other veg like carrots and peas.

There are other factors as well, the more fat there is in the meal the longer it takes for the carbs to get into the blood stream so you could test 3 hours after a meal and think everything's ok only to find that 5 ours later or the next morning you've gone very high. you can blame that on not getting the base of last nights pizza wrong but it might be more to do with the excessive amount of cheese on the top.

These are just some of the things that I've found that appear to throw the BG readings on the meter.
 

This single post has helped me more than the 4 diabetic appointments I have attended in the past 6 months thanks!!
 
Was diagnosed as a T1 4 months back with a Hba1c of 14 (does it go any higher?).

3 months later was my first lab test and the count came to 7.4. Not bad but my morning BG was still hitting the roof and that would mess with the entire day. Since the last month I started counting carbs and though it may not be an exact number and sometimes an approximation it went a long way in controlling my BG. Since the last 15 days the morning BG is normal and hope my next Hba1c is better.

So, yes counting carbs can be a bit of a pain at times but then its worth the effort.
 
Yes it is true WFS.
 
I have been treated like a type1 for a bit more than a year, after six weeks of tablets, so I guess I'm LADA, although my DN probably doesn't have a clue. I don't carb-count, I'm more of an insulin-guesser. Works quite well for me. It meant a lot of testing though, to get used to the effects food and other things have on my bg, very happy I have the freestyle libre now which makes things so much easier. I do read the back of all packages though, so I can differentiate between (almost)no carbs/ little carbs/ moderate carbs/ stuff better left in the store, and I tend to eat not too much carbs in one sitting.
Well done on your drop in hba1c and good luck with the next phase!
 
I have been type 1 for 43 yrs so have always carb counted sometimes just guessing , but when my sister in law was told a couple of weeks ago she had type 2 I thought I would give her some advice and told her to aim for around 200 carbs a day, at diagnosis her bgs were in the high 20s and still have not dropped below 20 so she paid a visit to the diabetic nurse at her surgery who told her that as she is type 2 she does not have to watch her carbs! surely this can't be correct can it?
 

You are right in that the info given to your SIL by the nurse is quite wrong. She should be counting carbs and I suggest a starting point of around 150g of carbs per day gradually lowering that number to a point that she and her glucometer is happy with. This depends on whether she is on meds/insulin though.
 
Thanks Guzzler, She is on meds not Insulin and is overweight but I just cannot believe a diabetic specialist would say don't bother watching your carbs.
 
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