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Could someone please explain

A

artdecomum

Active Member
I was diagnosed type 2 about 4 weeks ago and I have put myself on a very strict 800 calorie and very low carbs diet. I have stuck to it and don't eat anything that isn't weighed and measured. My BG started falling until I was managing to get into the 5's early in the morning. However, I stuck to less than 700 cals and 20 gms of carbs on Monday and Tuesday this week and my BG shot up to being in the 7's all day Monday and Tuesday. Then on Wednesday I was having a new boiler fitted and couldn't get into my kitchen so lived on cheese, cold meats and nuts (large handfuls). So went over the calorie and carb counts. My BG all day was in the low 6's. I am not ill but was stressed the same on all the last two days. Does this mean that I need to eat more to stimulate the production of insulin. I need to lose a great deal of weight so I am hoping that I don't have to eat more to keep the BG down. Totally confused newbie at this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Stress will raise BG for sure. Keep eating the way you were before. It will sort itself out.
 
It may take a while for your body to adjust to a new regime in diet. As has been said, stress raises bg.
You may have seen the slight lowering of bg while you were eating cheese etc because you were getting your calories from fats rather than from carbs and there is a difference, not all calories are metabolised in the same way.

The point of a lower carb diet is not to stimulate (too much) insulin. Most of us have too high an insulin response and work toward lowering that response. You may like to use the search bar and look up 'Insulin Resistance'. (This all depends on your medications, of course).
 
Increasing insulin production may reduce bgl levels, but at the expense of adding weight.since this is what insulin tends to do.

I would suggest that if this 800 cal diet is new to you, then your body may be fighting back to maintain the bgl levels at the old pre-diet level, and using stored glucose from its own internal stores (called Liver Dump). If this is what is going on, then using up these stores will deplete them and (1) reduce your weight, 2) lose the ability to liver dump, and 3) reset the bgl thermostat to expect the new lower bg's so the longer term effect is that both weight and bgl levels should drop, This is the main purpose of a calorie limited diet after all. and it sounds like it is just starting to work.
 
Not to muddy the waters, the way it works is when you eat you stimulate your hormones in response to what you have tucked away.
The food is digested and turns to glucose. This response triggers insulin to counter the glucose. The energy from this is how you have been living.
However, the high amount of carbs and sugars probably in your diet, will drive your glucose and insulin responses too much. Because your insulin is too much because your body wants to get back to normal levels range. You start getting insulin resistance. You store insulin, this usually attaches to your organs and creates visceral fat. This means again, too much glucose in your because the insulin isn't working. Higher Hba1c and blood glucose levels. Classic T2!
BTW, fat does not make you fat! Full fat is good for you. Butter, cheese, cream eaten in a balanced low carb diet is part of losing that weight you want to get rid of.
But it's not that easy to give up the foods you are use to.
It can be done and low carb works, I lost nearly six stone!
Low carb works because you are lowering your hormonal response to food, by not eating those foods that drives up your glucose and insulin levels.
Of course, portion size is important as is exercise, walking an extra hundred yards a day, eating less, and low carb is the way to get results. You have to be patient and believe that you can do it. Your health depends on it!
Do read the low carb forum and the success stories forum.

Hope this helps
 
low calorie also works, provided you keep low. This is the principle behind the Newcastle and Blood Sugar 101 diets which are also discussed in this Forum. There are other diets too, But I too find the Low Carb approach suits me better than these, and I have been using a variant for controlling my condition for 3 years now.
 

I totally agree, but a caloric diet can stimulate too much insulin, in some T2s that have high circulating insulin and insulin resistance already, this is why some calorie diets are too full of carbs to be effective.
 

It has to be VERY low calorie unless suger and carbs are also cut, but lets remember nearly all diets remove suger as their first step.
 
Lamont D said:
I totally agree, but a caloric diet can stimulate too much insulin, in some T2s that have high circulating insulin and insulin resistance already, this is why some calorie diets are too full of carbs to be effective.
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Whilst it is true that the ND diet did not benefit all participants, I am not sure that anyone has yet established the cause of it. I think that any diet that gets to 800 cals/day is going to be lowish in carbs, If the aim is to achieve keto then I suppose some do have a very low personal threshold which may not be achieved. I would think that the effect of protein intake is also becoming significant in the equation, The OP is already LC diet, so the problems reported are probably not due to that.

The question asked is whether to eat more to get the bgl lower, and whether to eat specifically to stimulate Stage 1 Insulin response? I think this was prompted by them initially achieving an fbg in the 5's, but saw higher levels when they cut the calories and the carbs. My response is that this was to their bgl rising during the day which is a symptom of dawn phenomenon and liver dump which many report when starting a restricted intake diet.

Edit to add: The OP also tells us that the rise in bgl occurred after cutting carbs to 20 g /day so they are already aware of what LC means.
 
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It takes time I'm afraid I did that regime you are trying for over twelve months but it did lose me over 8 stone and bring my blood sugar levels down to normal and now have a HbA1c of 35 but it was tough going and the weight loss and reduction of BS was slow to start and a bit up and down for a while.
 
Thank you everyone for taking the trouble to reply, it was very much appreciated. I am eating very few carbs and calories. The only thing i can't eat is fat as i have very angry gallstones of 25 years duration and other health concerns which makes an operation to remove them a little dangerous. Ihave taken much encouragement from your replies and stories. By the way my Hb1Ac was 47 four weeks ago and last week was 46 which despite being diabetic level doesn't seem so high when i look at other levels on peoples posts.
 

You are doing great your very low calorie diet is excellent to do something about type 2
 
Hi I have been a dieter for as long as I can remember. I've learned so much about foods, how our bodies work and then how my body works or doesn't! It is my experience that when I don't eat enough my body decides to store all the energy I put into it. In fact my body is great at storing energy (as fat) but doesn't like giving it up. I learned that I lose more weight when I fool my body into thinking I'm not depriving it. I lost the.most weight ever when I consumed 6 small meals a day. The first of the day starts the ball rolling the next ensures that the energy is used as energy and not stored as fat. Going into starvation mode means my body will start on the muscle before relinquishing it's fat stores .... my heart is a muscle in don't want to lose! I found a low carb eating plan the best for me. But I chose to count carbs and not calories. It went against all that I knew about losing weight but the results.more than made up for it. Good luck in learning about how your body works.
 
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