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Confused of Canary Islands!

S

Seansie.

Member
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Hey, I'm Sean, am type 2 and currently feeling super complicated about everything Diabetes. I Was diagnosed start of lock down and feel health advise via my GP and the NHS has been shambolic or non existent. I lost a lot of weight 106 to 79kg. I'm currently taking 500 mg's of Metformin and would prefer to get off it. My weight has increased recently to nearly 86 kg. Despite walking an average of 10,000 steps daily and swimming most days. My confusion has stemmed from a friend adding me to Dr Jason Fung's fasting page on Fb and from there watching video's by Dr Ken Berry. It feels like everything I had learned and mainly heard from diabetic friends or found online is all so contradictory and then when you listen to what these guys say, it's as if everything I learned is wrong. I was having a slice of toast occasionally, oats most mornings, apples, pears and a small potato on occasion. I have now cut all of those out completely. I feel exhausted a lot of the time and my feet hurt a lot. I generally reside in London, but have been travelling for 5.5 months, that's partly why my weight ballooned. Not being able to prepare my own food was for a time, very tricky (In Asia). Not the case now. Any advice would be good. My sugars were 6.4 this morning, after coffee. Maybe I overdid it yesterday, i'm dehydrated today. Cleaned the entire house and two balconies and walked/swam! P.s I eat chicken and fish but the idea of consuming red meat after 30 years without it, does not appeal in the slightest. Gross!
 
Noting that exercise makes you fitter, but unless done to extreme it doesn't reduce weight.

The best way to lose weight and keep it off is to change what you eat.
Your friends seem to be steering you in the right direction.
Toast porridge potatoes are all high in carbohydrates.
Slow or fast release, it still pushes up your blood glucose.

If you have recently cut out a lot of carbohydrates from your diet you are likely to feel exhausted for a while until your body becomes keto adapted.
That is, adjusts to using ketones as the main energy source instead of glucose.
This is known as keto flu.
If you waver between low carbohydrate and eating more because you feel tired, then you can end up in almost permanent keto flu.

It is important to keep well hydrated if you are changing your eating habits.
Again that will not help with energy levels.

No need to eat red meat if you don't want to.
Chicken and fish (especially oily fish) are more than adequate.
Make sure you increase your protein and fat intake to make up any energy shortfall from cutting out the carbohydrates.

Very well done on the weight loss - that will help you enormously.
 
And add in some electrolytes as you adjust to fewer carbs. The lack of them from processed foods can make you feel rubbish. Also carbs hold water and when you first cut them right down you lose water and electrolytes so both need a conscious effort to maintain them at this point. You’ve already noticed the dehydration. A bit of extra sodium, potassium and magnesium will likely make you feel a lot better. Ideally from low carb foods but a supplement or sugar free drink (even the sachets for diarrhoea) will help.
 
Thank you for those responses. I came here to delete what I had written b/c I felt like a whinging Brit. I actually decided myself to take electrolyte yesterday as the dehydration came from nowhere.I am potato loving in all it's forms, but i'm surprised how easily i am finding ignoring that slice of toast and the potato. Protein really does fill us up, it seems more of a psychological attachment to those foods. I feel better today but there seems to be other stuff going on too, i am trying to figure out. I find if I over do exercise I can't sleep well and my body gets screwed up. Thanks again for responding, diabetes and getting old sucks! Have a good day.
 
Glad you’re feeling better. I saw no whinging. Perfectly reasonable questions. Stick around for moral support and answering of new questions, which you are bound to have we all do.
 
When you start cutting carbs, you get dehydrated. Tired. Headachy. They hold on to water, and as the carbs go, and the water goes, so do your electrolytes. Takes a little while for your body to find a new, low-carb equilibrium, so give yourself some time, and keep the supplements coming. https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html might help a little, but between Dr. Ken Berry (Who does hammer home the Carnivore mantra a bit much... If you're not into red meats, it might not be super helpful, but he makes good points otherwise), and Dr. Jason Fung, you can't go far wrong.

As for conflicting advice, that stems partially from decades of now debunked research, partially, well... We're all different. So. Get yourself a meter, and find out what works specifically for you. (How is in the above link too, should you not know yet). I thought what I was reading advice-wise was insane, but my meter told me it was working, long before my waist started shrinking. So I stuck with it. Not right now, mind you... I've thoroughly fallen off the wagon since a massive jaw infection (lost me a molar), and then my mom got sick a month and a half ago. She passed away last Thursday. I try to keep an eye on things, but sometimes I don't have any other options than the carby ones, running aroiund to the hospital, the hospice, the dentist.... Thing is though, after about 7 years or so of low carbing, I get back to normal numbers pretty quick now after a spike, so my insulin resistance has improved over time. And I'll be back to proper low carbing when this nightmare is over. This is to also add: It takes time. And sometimes we stumble. But you can always start over.
Hugs,
Jo
 
Hi, it can be confusing. You're obviously doing a lot right. By definition, if we're T2, we have problems dealing with carbohydrate. The more you eat, the more you challenge your system and the more likely it is that the excess carb (digested to glucose) will be converted into bodyfat or remain in your blood.

Short answer is to stick to a traditional diet - eat less carb and more protein and fat. There is as you say a lot of confusion around. Reducing carb intake was the standard advice for T2s up to around 1980: you can see it in things like WW2 ration books and in encyclopaedias published into the 1970s.

However at that point the "eats lots of starchy carbs" camp changed the advice largely on the back of seriously flawed research: and because it was endorsed by the major processed food companies. In my opinion the "eat high carb" advice is directly linked to the incidence of T2 rocketing up since.
 
That's interesting and fascinating. It really is incredible how much conflicting stuff is out there and on line regards the entire thing. 'Endorsed by the processed food companies'....I bet!
 
I seem to continually experience a sort of overwhelming anxiety at present. It will just come on so easily and can make me feel dreadful and totally insecure/ like I will collapse. This morning I was 5.1 after a coffee and then I had a few cbd sprays as I started to feel it and when I checked my levels I was 6.5 before food. Can someone explain this to me please, i'd be very grateful. Took too much sun yesterday and it was hotter than usual.
 
Could be a number of things. I found a list once somewhere on the internet which included over 40 things that people had found to affect BG. Heat is one thing that affects mine - the hotter, the higher my baseline goes. Not something I need to worry about in Yorkshire.

If you didn't eat this morning it might just be the dawn phenomenon ticking on - it can continue upping your BGs for hours.

Could be overdoing it in the sun - any illness/stress will elevate my bg

I have no idea what effect CBD sprays might have one way or the other.
 
My guess would be that it was your anxiety that caused your rise. When we are anxious/stressed certain hormones like cortisol and adrenaline get released, it's the fight or flight response. The hormones job is to prepare us to meet the imagined threat by increasing our heart and breathing rate, to get oxygen pumping to our muscles. They also cause our liver to release some of its stored glucose to give us a shot of energy in our time of need.
Have you thought of trying mindfulness, just concentrating on the present moment, stop listening to your thoughts for a while.
After all most of the things you have ever worried about never happened, and if they did, you obviously dealt with whatever it was, because you're still here dealing with life.
 
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