Hi,
Please excuse the long context before my questions...
First off, I should maybe mention that I do not have an official diagnosis yet, I have a blood test scheduled on the 19/07, I'm hoping it will put my mind at rest, but I'm not optimistic.
I went to the doctors because for the past few months, I had been feeling incredibly tired; then about 10 days ago - and the change was really clear cut, I can pinpoint the exact day it happened - I started feeling EXTREMELY weak when walking around, even inside, and EXTREMELY foggy headed, especially after a few hours without eating, but after eating too, just pretty much all the time. My stomach started to hurt, like I was hungry, but if that was hunger, I was feeling hungry 15 minutes after eating.
So being over 40 and...yes...overweight, I immediately thought of diabetes (my mum was diagnosed with type 2 at some point), and I was worried enough that I went to buy a blood sugar monitor. At the same time, over the past few days, I drastically cut down carbohydrates from my diet, and increased the protein content, because I'd noticed before that having protein in a meal makes me (or used to make me...) feel full for longer. I don't really plan on eating a hugely high in protein diet for the rest of my life if I can avoid it (I gather that creates its own health problems?), but I wanted to try and get rid of the hunger like stomach pain and the muscle weakness, so that I could try and exercise again (used to exercise regularly until a couple of months ago, and I actually really miss it, but at the moment, I can barely walk around, which is massively frustrating, I've always been very good at walking a fair bit of I did nothing else!) I'm not sure it's working, but I have been feeling a little less foggy headed.
So I've been taking blood glucose reading first thing on waking and through the day, and the morning ones worry me on two levels. First because they are consistently within the pre-diabetic range; secondly, they have so far consistently been going up: the first one I took was 5.9, then 5.8, then 6.6, then this morning was 6.9. That last one, the previous meal was 11 hours previously, and getting a result that close to 7 (which is the treshold, right?) after 11 hours of not eating - as I say, I'm scared. (The highest level during the day so far has been 10.4, 2.5 hours after a meal...not good, right?)
So I'm REALLY confused....yesterday's food was mostly protein and some vegetables, and probably too high in fat too (not a good thing I know, and I'm definitely going to make sure that I eat a LOT more vegetables, and just east "better" generally speaking...but I find it really hard, on a practical level, daft as that sounds....)
Can eating a diet high in protein raise your blood sugar to that level? I would have thought that reducing the carbonhydrates in my diet would make fasting blood sugar go down overall, but I'm obviously missing something...
Also, I've been doing some quick research to see if there's a recommended diet for diabetics (at this point whether I'm going to test positive for diabetes or just for pre-diabetes -or even if the test comes back clear!- doesn't make much of a difference to me as far needing to overhaul my diet, it's something that needs to be done, and pretty urgently at that), and that's where I get REALLY confused; there just seems to be a lot of contradictory information out there, as to how much carbs a diabetic can/should eat. Is there some kind of generally accepted guidelines out there? I've read somewhere that ALL starches should be avoided, is that true? Is it even possible? Is there no difference, ultimately, between white bread and, say, wholegrain rice, from a diabetics point of view? I'm not one for unrefined carbs, but my normal diet is/was certainly carbs rich - brown rice, wholegrain pasta, sometimes quinoa, with vegetables and probably too much cheese (love cheese); eggs and salmon for animal protein, not much meat etc... Can that still be the case, and if not, what should/can I eat?
I'm incredibly grateful to have found this board...I'm definitely going to invest some time reading up as much as I can, I'm sure there's a wealth of good advice in here, but if anybody has pointers to resources that are a good starting point (on this board or somewhere else), I would be incredibly grateful!
Thank you in advance if you managed to read this far. I have a real talent for rambling on.
Please excuse the long context before my questions...
First off, I should maybe mention that I do not have an official diagnosis yet, I have a blood test scheduled on the 19/07, I'm hoping it will put my mind at rest, but I'm not optimistic.
I went to the doctors because for the past few months, I had been feeling incredibly tired; then about 10 days ago - and the change was really clear cut, I can pinpoint the exact day it happened - I started feeling EXTREMELY weak when walking around, even inside, and EXTREMELY foggy headed, especially after a few hours without eating, but after eating too, just pretty much all the time. My stomach started to hurt, like I was hungry, but if that was hunger, I was feeling hungry 15 minutes after eating.
So being over 40 and...yes...overweight, I immediately thought of diabetes (my mum was diagnosed with type 2 at some point), and I was worried enough that I went to buy a blood sugar monitor. At the same time, over the past few days, I drastically cut down carbohydrates from my diet, and increased the protein content, because I'd noticed before that having protein in a meal makes me (or used to make me...) feel full for longer. I don't really plan on eating a hugely high in protein diet for the rest of my life if I can avoid it (I gather that creates its own health problems?), but I wanted to try and get rid of the hunger like stomach pain and the muscle weakness, so that I could try and exercise again (used to exercise regularly until a couple of months ago, and I actually really miss it, but at the moment, I can barely walk around, which is massively frustrating, I've always been very good at walking a fair bit of I did nothing else!) I'm not sure it's working, but I have been feeling a little less foggy headed.
So I've been taking blood glucose reading first thing on waking and through the day, and the morning ones worry me on two levels. First because they are consistently within the pre-diabetic range; secondly, they have so far consistently been going up: the first one I took was 5.9, then 5.8, then 6.6, then this morning was 6.9. That last one, the previous meal was 11 hours previously, and getting a result that close to 7 (which is the treshold, right?) after 11 hours of not eating - as I say, I'm scared. (The highest level during the day so far has been 10.4, 2.5 hours after a meal...not good, right?)
So I'm REALLY confused....yesterday's food was mostly protein and some vegetables, and probably too high in fat too (not a good thing I know, and I'm definitely going to make sure that I eat a LOT more vegetables, and just east "better" generally speaking...but I find it really hard, on a practical level, daft as that sounds....)
Can eating a diet high in protein raise your blood sugar to that level? I would have thought that reducing the carbonhydrates in my diet would make fasting blood sugar go down overall, but I'm obviously missing something...
Also, I've been doing some quick research to see if there's a recommended diet for diabetics (at this point whether I'm going to test positive for diabetes or just for pre-diabetes -or even if the test comes back clear!- doesn't make much of a difference to me as far needing to overhaul my diet, it's something that needs to be done, and pretty urgently at that), and that's where I get REALLY confused; there just seems to be a lot of contradictory information out there, as to how much carbs a diabetic can/should eat. Is there some kind of generally accepted guidelines out there? I've read somewhere that ALL starches should be avoided, is that true? Is it even possible? Is there no difference, ultimately, between white bread and, say, wholegrain rice, from a diabetics point of view? I'm not one for unrefined carbs, but my normal diet is/was certainly carbs rich - brown rice, wholegrain pasta, sometimes quinoa, with vegetables and probably too much cheese (love cheese); eggs and salmon for animal protein, not much meat etc... Can that still be the case, and if not, what should/can I eat?
I'm incredibly grateful to have found this board...I'm definitely going to invest some time reading up as much as I can, I'm sure there's a wealth of good advice in here, but if anybody has pointers to resources that are a good starting point (on this board or somewhere else), I would be incredibly grateful!
Thank you in advance if you managed to read this far. I have a real talent for rambling on.