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Carbs, or 'of which sugars'?

A

AmandaS

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Hi, I joined last night. I have been diagnosed for a couple of years at least, but because I am housebound I haven't had much input from the diabetic nurse.
I never really took the diabetes seriously (Eating loads of chocolate, cakes, etc, daily.) as I thought I'd end up limbless, or stroke, or heart attack anyway, but that was a long, long way off. But, I have been having warning signs lately. For instance, if I eat chocolate before bed I get terrible cramps in my calves, mainly my left. I have had oral thrush and a rash on my chest and belly button. I have been feeling like utter rubbish (Don't know if I can swear on here! lol). I honestly didn't link the last one to diabetes. I was feeling rubbish, then eating chocolate for an energy boost, then dipping...and round and round it goes. I only started to notice the correlation recently, as the feeling like poop was happening quicker, and with more intensity. I took my BS a few days ago and it was 17. I threw all the sweet stuff into a bag and took out the same in my online shopping. (It's due today.) I took my BS today and it's down to 9.7. I'm really pleased with that but obviously want it to go lower.
My questions, when I finally get round to them, lol, is when looking at food labels, do you count 'Carbohydrates', or' Of which sugars,' and what numbers should I be looking out for?
Thank you ever so much for any help. :)
 
All carbs turn to sugars, so total carbs
Aim is up to you, some gong for as close to zero as they can in a day, others are higher. Personally I try to aim sub 90, tend to be closer to 130 but that’s what works mostly for me
 
Thank you for your reply Andy. :) So, just to get this straight, it's the 'carbs' bit. Like for Wheatbix, it's
Carbohydrates 26g
Of which sugars 1.6
So I should go with the 26g?
 
Yes its the total carbs, so in this case yes the 26g

Do note that some T2's can cope with more carbs than others, some can cope with upto 150g carbs a day and keep good blood sugar levels, whereas some have to drop down to less than 20g a day, so you will have to find out how many you can cope with, only way to tell is by doing blood tests
 
AmandaS said:
Thank you for your reply Andy. :) So, just to get this straight, it's the 'carbs' bit. Like for Wheatbix, it's
Carbohydrates 26g
Of which sugars 1.6
So I should go with the 26g?
Click to expand...
Hi Amanda, yes that's right you look at the total carbohydrate. Good luck and well done for making a change x
 
Thank you both for your replies, they are very helpful. :)
I was told on another forum (Mums net) to aim for about 150g per day. I'm going to try that and see how it goes. I'm just concentrating on giving up the sweet stuff first! :D
 
On UK labels you use total carbs, but not on USA labels or recipe nutrition as they include fibre in their total carb count - in which case you can take out the fibre.
150g is a good start but you may have to go down below that.
I started on 100g a day, then went to 85g to get into remission.
After a year I went back up to 100g, even 120g some days and I seem fine on that for maintenance.
If you have a sweet tooth there are two schools of thought, some find that cutting out sweeteners as well as sugars means they lose their taste for sweet foods. I didn't. Although I don't like very sweet foods any more I still eat chocolate - just less of it and only 85% or higher now and I do make low carb/keto cake sometimes.
There are lots of recipes and suggestions for food swaps to help cut carbs, and don't forget to eat more fat instead - I use butter, full fat milk, greek yogurt and cream.
 
AmandaS said:
Thank you both for your replies, they are very helpful. :)
I was told on another forum (Mums net) to aim for about 150g per day. I'm going to try that and see how it goes. I'm just concentrating on giving up the sweet stuff first! :D
Click to expand...
I started on 130 or so but that was also a dramatic drop for me as I generally ate a lot of bread, potatoes, pasta etc. I also ate fruit and weetabix as I thought they were good for me. I reckon my prior lifestyle was more to the 300+ carbs level

As I said before, now on a good day I’m nearer the 75g level. Without going carnivore i don’t see I could do much different as salad and lower carb veg still have carbs. Fruit is limited to strawberries and with yoghurt to try and mitigate my sweet tooth

mad you will see on other posts, I do occasionally do high carb days like fish and chips or pizza but I try to be majorly exceptional but one day I may not be able to

so, a question for you is what is your current carb level? Dropping from that and testing your bloods pre and 2 hour post meals is a way to go.
 
What you are seeing is a negative feed back loop, carbohydrate reduction definitely reduces blood glucose. To get a value of the carbs in sugar terms, divide by 4 e.g. total of 48 g of carbs, equates to 12 teaspoons of sugar. If you are aiming for optimum results the majority of foods will not have a label.
 
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