Hi and welcome! You don't need to either low carb or non-low carb. You need to eat the level of carbs that you can tolerate.
Here is some info which hopefully might help you get to grips with your Diabetes.
In general terms you will need to reduce the total number of carbohydrates you eat per day. All carbohydrates turn to sugar when we eat them, and no type 2 diabetic on diet only, or on diet and metformin only, can control their blood sugars (BGs) without controlling their carb intake. Even those on strong medication normally choose to control their carb intake to keep the level of medication they take down. The total number of carbs per day you can eat depends on how advanced your diabetes is. It’s perhaps worth starting at about 50% of normal levels for a non-diabetic then adjusting up or down according to how you get on. So that means eating 150 grams of carbs per day for a man, 125 for a woman. You can read the total carb content of food under “nutritional info” on the packet or wrapping, or look it up on the internet for loose food. Just google “carb content..”
You also need to stop or reduce the bad carbs; that is the starchy ones that make your BG go up quickly.
So obviously no sugar or glucose! But also no white bread, white rice, pasta, flour products like pastry, cake and batter. You can eat a little basmati rice, wholewheat pasta or the tri-color pasta fusilli ones in small quantities. Boiled new potatos (again not too many) are OK but not old pots mashed, boiled or in their jackets. (Roast is not so bad, the fat slows their absorption and conversion to glucose in the blood) Amongst other veg, parsnips are about the worst for BG, and carrots not great but ok in smaller amounts.
Multi grain bread (not wholemeal) is not SO bad, but lots of us eat Burgen soya and linseed bread from tescos and sainsburys, although all bread should be in limited amounts.
All fruit has carbohydrates, and needs to be included in the amounts of carbs you eat in a day. For most people, bananas are about the worst for pushing our BG up and berries (like strawberries, raspberries etc) are the least bad.
No sweeties!
Exercise is important. I tend to exercise about an hour after eating when I know my BG will be peaking. This helps to bring it down quicker and further. I do ten minutes hard work on an exercise machine, but you could run up and down stairs for ten minutes or go for a brisk walk.
Returning to types of food and quantities of carbs - you can only find out how many you can eat by testing. Most type 2’s are not given access to testing equipment, so you should get your own – although try arguing with your Doc that you want to manage to NICE guideline blood sugar levels, and can’t do that without testing! If you have to buy a meter, they are cheap and most manufacturers will give them away for free. They make their money on the strips you have to use! So go for the meter with the cheapest testing strips. The SD Codefree available on the internet is about the cheapest at the moment. Some people test before and after eating, on waking (fasting test) and before bed. But if you have limited strips because of cost, the key to me is testing 2 hours after eating. If your BG is above, say, 7.8 at that stage, you need to cut down on the carb content the next time you have that meal. Test after various different meals and you soon get to see a pattern of what you can and can’t eat, and in what quantities. Keep careful records of what you ate and when, together with the result, so you can refer back at a later date. You can then reduce your testing. I said “below, say, 7.8” because NICE guidelines are below 8.5 but most of us think that’s a little high. 7.8 is the max. level at 2 hours after eating that a non-diabetic normally gets to so is perhaps a better target. Some then set progressively lower targets.
Do ask lots of questions; there is normally an answer on here. The more you get to learn about your diabetes, the better it will be.
Good luck!
Grazers advice is as ever excellent. I should know as I followed it when first diagnosed last December and now have the disease under control with normalized blood sugar levels, cholesterol levels and blood pressure and I've also lost 4 stone in weight. The art is to find a sustainable regime that gets your blood levels back under the 8 level two hours after eating. You may initially find that difficult, it took me around 6 to 8 weeks of really restricting my carbohydrates to get all levels back into safety. You really should get a meter and test regardless of any opposition you get from your gp or dsn. How else will you get to know what foods are safe for you to eat and at what levels you can tolerate them? If you do get a meter and find your levels are initially very high then try measuring before a meal then at two hours after and aim to get roughly the same score. If you do that then you should begin to find your overall levels will progressively begin to return to normal. The UK guidelines are to be under 8ish two hours after eating and to be between 4 and 7 at all other times.
