Confused !!!

Hi @Sharprita I am amazed you haven't had a reply to this at present.

You have pre-diabetes so you have time to turn this around fast. The answer is to lose fat from around your middle. Diet I hear you say; well yep I am afraid so. So how to do it. I have discovered this simple fact that when trying to lose weight high insulin levels are your enemy. Unfortunately with pre-D your pancreas is creating lots of insulin and you get into this viscous cycle of putting on more weight as your insulin levels rise to counteract the increase blood glucose levels. You need to counteract this! So drop those starchy carbs and fruit, stop eating sugar in all forms (fruit, sweets, in your tea, in processed food, ...); may be look at doing a 5-2 diet, where for a couple of days a week you fast - I know many that it has worked for, or go on a very low calorie diet for a few weeks - worked for me to sort out my D (see the link in my signature)

So you have stopped eating those carbs so what do you replace them with. Three choices really:
1. Protein - you body breaks this down into glucose when it has excess which raises your background levels.
2. Fat - this will give you the energy you need to replace the lost calories. 9 calories per gram against 4 for carbohydrate. What is amazing is that eating high fat without the carbs causes you to not increase weight and for many to lose weight. Do not be scared of fat - by the way low fat foods have high sugar so not a good choice for you and is the road to D
3. Water and fresh air for a while - drastic but sufficient. You liver has plenty of stores to keep you going for a while so use it up and get back to normal

You are aiming to get your waistline to under 37" for men or 32" for women - these do vary with height but not by much.

Hi and welcome!

Sorry you didn't get a response til @Andrew Colvin bumped your post back up to the top.

Yes to everything Andrew said. With one teensy proviso. Some of us (a minority) develop type 2 for different reasons than having visceral fat and a fatty liver. For those, the slimming down and the exercise remain very, very important - the single most beneficial thing we can do. But I wouldn't want anyone to think that everyone is automatically guaranteed to get off the diabetes bus with weight loss. Age, genetics, environment and other health factors can play a part.

However, hopefully those comments won't apply to you, and with a few carb reductions, a bit less visceral fat (fat around and in the organs) you may stave T2 off indefinitely.

Don't worry about needles for the test meter. They are adjustable, so you dial it down to the teensiest most pain free prick, and I barely even notice it. Have you seen people recommending inexpensive meters? I use the SD Codefree - very 'cheap to run'

Sharprita said:

Many thanks Andrew and Bruneria.i will read your posts until I digest it all. I'll look at the 5-2 diet.that could work for me as some days I'm not very hungry.Nurse did say probably genetic as sister has it and an uncle had it .i have already lost 3lb if my scales are right.i cut right back on carbs ,fats and sugar and have smaller portions.stop eating as soon as I felt full .it has taken about 4 weeks .its surprising what you can do when it's your health at risk.if it had been a diet I think I'd have fallen by the wayside earlier.thanks again to you both , I had given up getting a reply .ill get the SD codefree and give it a try

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Yep that was the same motivating factor for me - 18 stone to 12 stone but before the diagnosis it just went up and up
That is pretty good losing those 3lbs. Mine is also in the family to but I didnt know until I got diagnosed. Shame they didnt tell us then we could have taken some action before (umm but doubt it would have happened).

For your info I am so much happier and healthier now than I was. So keep it up and fingers crossed for you.

Hi Sharprita,

I'm in the same boat as you. Recently diagnosed with pre-diabetes.
I have always eaten healthily (but with too many carbs? such as brown rice and wholemeal bread and home-made muesli), am slim (BMI 20, waist well within range), and have always been a keen cyclist and long-distance walker. So I was surprised, to say the least.

I'm determined to roll back into the normal range, if I possibly can.

I've ordered the Codefree (on advice from this forum) and am starting to self-test today. Yikes. (I also hate needles!)

I've modified my diet to low/carb-high fat. So I've got rid of the bread, rice, pasta, spuds... And I'm eating more nuts, and about the same amount of cheese, more full-fat Greek yoghurt, more eggs. I've always eaten oily fish, and now I'm just eating more. Large amounts of green veg too: broccoli, leeks, Savoy cabbage, green beans. Salads. A few bits of small fruit and some berries, and no bananas.
And no more beer.

Already this has made impact on my well-being (I already had several symptoms of diabetes): no more feeling fuzzy mentally, and managing to get through most of night without running to loo all the time. Fatigue is receding too. And less groin/skin itching! Blood pressure has gone down too.
And I don't feel hungry.

I'm now making sure that I do a piece of serious exercise every day. So something that stretches me physically, not just hours of walking.

On advice from this forum, I ordered Dr Trudi Deakin's 'Eat Fat' book (from her website). It's arrived and looks good. Explains clearly most things you need to know about low carb, if you want to go down that route to a lesser or greater extent.

I also borrowed Carbs & Cals book from the library, and will probably buy my own, just to familiarise myself with some of the numbers.

I'm making one change at a time, and making sure I put my health before other things, for a change.

(I had some more blood tests this week, and waiting to get results in 10 days or so...)

Good luck and keep us updated with your progress.

My mum is Basque (northern Spain), so I know what you mean about upbringing. Food has always been real food.

I think sweet potato is an 'occasional only', not a staple. I had some today with my lunch (chicken, cauliflower...) but haven't had any for over a week.

Keeping a food diary is pretty key. Then you can check how often you are having things.

If you have a headache, make sure you are getting enough water and enough salt. Both really important.

Try drinking a cup of bouillon. I buy a pot of Marigold Swiss Veg Bouillon from my local shop. Great as a hot drink, contains a little salt so can be useful if you lack in diet. And it has no gluten, preservatives or nasty stuff, if that's a concern.

You can't really cut both carbs/sugar and fat. You need one or the other. Or you run out of energy.

Kind of refreshing to see I am not the only one struggling with a million questions. It is always hard to accept that after eating what you think is healthily you end up diabetic. For me it is probably genetic as a lot of females in my family have it. It doesn't make it any easier to take on board when it happens to you. There is a lot of information in the replies here that will help me too. I think the ''eat more fat'' is the hardest part as I have never eaten fat and the fear of putting on weight by starting now looms large. I have lost about half a stone in a very short time although that has now ground to a halt The dreaded ''donut belly fat'' is the hardest to shift....everywhere else is slim but that little beggar just refuses to budge grrrrr

inow why this has happened to me its my own stupid fault fizzy drinks lack of excerise plenty of excuses hopefully i can get off this train before i go all the way

chris555 said:

inow why this has happened to me its my own stupid fault fizzy drinks lack of excerise plenty of excuses hopefully i can get off this train before i go all the way

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Sure you can....the train stops right here and goes into reverse It takes an awful lot of willpower and effort to change the things we have eaten for so long but every single one of the changes we make will be one more step towards the goal of kicking this diabetes thing up the wall

Sharprita said:

Hi All,I have taken the plunge and got the codefree test meter after feeling really ill on two occasions .i need to know if has anything to do with the prediabeties ..finding it very difficult at the moment mentally to be having to adjust my diet when I have a healthy diet as it is and I can't have the few 'treats' that I had..I don't know when I should test and how often ..have had it a couple of days now and not plucked up the courage to do it yet...any advice please ?? xx

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Hi @Sharprita
I test nine times a day!
But you don't need to.
I would test before and 2 hours later after first bite. You need to pick and choose how you do it.
Experiment with different foods, different combinations of foods. All types of foods, to see what they do to your blood glucose levels.
Keep a diary, after a while, you get to know what your particular favourites do to you. Also you can test and experiment about how much of any particular food you can cope with.
For example, 3 strawberries is fine, 5 is not for me.

You could also, do your fasting bloods in the morning, to keep an eye on that.

After a while you could also test your spike at one hour.

The reasoning behind it all is that your bloods should not rise above 2mmols after 2 hours.
If it does, then either cut down on the amount of that particular food or stop eating it altogether.

I really couldn't be sure.
It could have been any coatings on the meat. Something like that.
You could have just ate too much.
It could be that your blood levels have dropped and / or the amount of alcohol.
You can never tell. Until you test.