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Carbs per day

Irishmist66

Irishmist66

Well-Known Member
Messages
75
Hi all I'm type 2 diabetic take metformin 500mg twice a day and 3mg trulicity once a week. Trying get my head round the carbs have bought carbs and cal counter but finding it a minefield. What is recommended carb intake per day. Thanks in advance
 
Hi @Irishmist66 All Type 2 diabetics have problems in safely processing carbohydrates, but we all have our own unique genetics and gut biomes (not to mention our medications and current Blood Glucose levels). So there is no specific answer to your question.
As a general guide What is generally accepted as Low Carbohydrate eating would be staring at 130gms of carbs per day and below.
Do you have a Blood Glucose Meter? - If so, that is an unbiased and completely personalised guide, so I would say just eat to your mete's guidance.

For me, on no medication (so no possible complications between medication and diet) for my body that is between 20gms and 40gms per day; but you are taking Trulicity and your body isn't mine, so should talk to your doctor before going Low Carb.
 
There isn’t one set level. It depends on so many things. Your degree of insulin resistance (how bad your diabetes is), how active you are, to some degree how much extra fat you carry and where etc etc. And also what medications you do or don’t take

Low carb is loosely recognised as being under 150g a day. For some that’s low enough to get normal levels without drugs. Others need to go as low as 20g a day and barely get below prediabetic levels.

Some medications don’t go well with more extreme versions of low carb (eg the flozins or other sglt2 medications as they can cause dka even at relatively normal blood glucose levels). Others will need to quickly be lowered so you don’t hypo as going low carb is powerful and can soon make your current medication stronger than it needs to be.

Can I suggest you work out how many you currently have now and aim to reduce it bit by bit til you find your sweet spot. To do that you need to monitor with a meter or something like a libre.

Have a read of www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb for a good overview and loads of other info for free on that site. If you can see the links below this message in my signature they have lots more resources that can explain it to you clearly.
 
Irishmist66 said:
Hi all I'm type 2 diabetic take metformin 500mg twice a day and 3mg trulicity once a week. Trying get my head round the carbs have bought carbs and cal counter but finding it a minefield. What is recommended carb intake per day. Thanks in advance
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That's not a particularly easy question to answer because we are all different.

We have people on the forums who are (to all intents and purposes) consuming zero carbs. and others who manage on moderate carb diets of about 120g.

At this point I would suggest starting out by assessing what your current intake is and then having a look at where you can cut down comfortably without going mad about it.

You may find this information page to be useful read.
 
Thank you all... had a rough count today and have had 200 carbs I've bought myself a food journal and am going to keep it and as you all advice start cutting back. I am getting my hba1c done on Wednesday so will see how it is.. it was 41 about 7 months ago ..thank you all for reply .. I'm just scared of it all
 
Irishmist66 said:
Thank you all... had a rough count today and have had 200 carbs I've bought myself a food journal and am going to keep it and as you all advice start cutting back. I am getting my hba1c done on Wednesday so will see how it is.. it was 41 about 7 months ago ..thank you all for reply .. I'm just scared of it all
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Well the good news there is you have plenty of scope to reduce carbs. It might be halving anything like bread rice pasta potatoes cereals oats etc for now and then see where that gets you.

Unfortunately as a prediabetic the nhs is unlikely to retest the hba1c for a year (unless you have a cooperative nurse/dr you can convince you need an earlier one to test your changes). You can pay for them privately or you could start monitoring daily levels (waking/fasting, pre and post meals) and keeping a log alongside the food.
 
As others have said, everybody is different and there's no universal answer. I can only tell you what works for me. For a few months after being diagnosed, I kept a food journal and tested myself (finger-prick test) before, and two hours, after each meal. That gave me enough data so that I could see exactly how much the readings would go up and down for different amounts of carbs. Then I could work back to see how much I should limit myself to, to keep the levels below any chosen target.

For me, it worked out that 120g of total carbs a day, spread evenly over three meals, would keep me below 7.6 which I decided was a safe level to aim for. And it worked, after three months my HbA1c had gone down from 50 to 43. I'm hoping to get it down a couple more notches when I'm next tested.

I'm not saying that 120g is a useful number for anyone else to aim for; you have to find your own number. But correlating levels with measured food intake is really the only way to work it out.

Hope this helps.
 
BoldItalic said:
As others have said, everybody is different and there's no universal answer. I can only tell you what works for me. For a few months after being diagnosed, I kept a food journal and tested myself (finger-prick test) before, and two hours, after each meal. That gave me enough data so that I could see exactly how much the readings would go up and down for different amounts of carbs. Then I could work back to see how much I should limit myself to, to keep the levels below any chosen target.

For me, it worked out that 120g of total carbs a day, spread evenly over three meals, would keep me below 7.6 which I decided was a safe level to aim for. And it worked, after three months my HbA1c had gone down from 50 to 43. I'm hoping to get it down a couple more notches when I'm next tested.

I'm not saying that 120g is a useful number for anyone else to aim for; you have to find your own number. But correlating levels with measured food intake is really the only way to work it out.

Hope this helps.
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As an addendum to the above, I got new test results today and I'm down to 41 HbA1c so I've dropped by a hairs-breadth below the magic 42 threshold. Lo-carb has worked for me :) but only because I was able to do the measurements, do the science and work out what was the right level to go for.

The down side is that I've lost three inches round the middle and had to buy new pairs of trousers but you don't need to know that :rolleyes:
 
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