Carbohydrate sugars?

All carbs count.. so look at the total number per 100g (assuming you are UK based).
Reason being that all carbs turn to glucose once ingested.

Just use the total carbs, you can ignore the ‘of which sugars’. Don’t worry about asking questions, that’s what the forum is for

Hi, @Waterlady , I see from your posts yesterday that your husband is waiting to hear whether the diagnosis is T1 or T2.

While it is true that all carbs turn to glucose, if the dx turns out to be T1, the "of which sugars" part can be quite important.

If I as a T1 am eating, say, 50g carbs, of which 40g is sugars, that will absorb into my bloodstream very quickly, so I would be inclined to inject insulin quite far in advance so it has time to get to work and meet the glucose on a level playing field.

Whereas if I was eating 50g of which 5g was sugars, like, say, pulses, that would take much longer to break down into glucose, so a too early injection of insulin would drop me way too low.

So T1s, if that turns out to be the diagnosis, do need to pay attention to how simple or complex the carb is.

That's my take on it as a T1, but it can have some relevance to T2s as well, some people's natural insulin responses can manage quite well with complex carbs, not so well with simpler carbs.

The only exception to the do not deduct rule in the UK is for sugar alcohols, which Humans do not digest - but I do warn that the bacterial in the gut can - and they have a party.
When I over indulged I thought that I was going to become Geography, I was so blown up.

Thanks @Resurgam for the info. I've bought some 'sugar-free' wine gums etc and will need to avoid scoffing too much at one time to avoid such developments!

Look up sugar free gummi bears on amazon and read the reviews - absolutely hysterical if you have a sense of humour with a scatological bent.

Waterlady said:

Thank you so much for your replies! So how many grams of carbs would you maybe stay under? Like per portion?

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It varies from person to person. In the beginning it all about experimenting to work out how the body reacts to different levels. Did your husband get a blood sugar meter? If not he would do well to get one. He needs to test right before a meal and then 2 hours after first bite. He’s looking for a rise of no more than 2 mmol/l (and to not go above around 8 in any case). If the reading does rise by more then there were too many carbs in the meal.
I started on 100g carbs per day on diagnosis, but over the first nine months I gradually reduced down to between 30- 50g/day and that’s where I stay to maintain non diabetic HbA1cs. Some type 2s can tolerate more, some need to go lower still.

Waterlady said:

Do Metformin help in reducing the BG levels?

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Metformin doesn’t have a huge direct effect on blood sugars, it’s effect is more in stopping the liver releasing too much glucose. I found when I experimented with dropping one tablet last year my readings only went up by about 0.3 mol/l

Waterlady said:

Thank you so much for your replies! So how many grams of carbs would you maybe stay under? Like per portion?

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Depends entirely on his needs. So Rachox' advice on using a meter to eat to is solid. Just aim for under 2.0 mmol/l and he's good. (He could go for keto, which is 20 grams of carbs a day or less, but that's quite the switch to make out of nowhere!) Out of interest; you say your husband is eating a lot less. Do you mean his portions are smaller, or he's snacking less, is he going hungry or just doesn't feel like he needs to eat? Portion control is one method of going things, and if he's feeling alright on that, that's perfectly fine... But if he'd love to work down 5 eggs instead of 3 on a morning, maybe with some high meat content sausages to go with it (I'm going for a really big hungry bloke here, in my mind's eye), then that's fine too. Right now you need to focus on carb content, and if that is low, he doesn't strictly have to reduce portions right now. I mean.... He's going to have to eat low carb for a long, long time, so he has to be comfortable with the diet. As in, satisfied, in both volume as well as taste. (Can't keep up a diet if you hate what you're eating and you're hungry all the time.).

I found a turning point when I was under 8mmol/l after meals - once I found how to do that I stuck to the same meals and my numbers dropped, then went erratic for a few weeks and then dropped down again. That was at 50 gm of carbs a day as a maximum. I was not trying to get by on small amounts of high carb food but eating only things with less than 11 percent carbs, except for small amounts of high cocoa chocolate once in a while.
Apart from reducing carbs I don't really restrict anything - so if I want another egg I have one, and meat fish cheese are all low carb options.