• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

daily amount of carbs?

craigieboy001

craigieboy001

Member
Messages
24
Location
Edinburgh
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
hi guys

im on a diet at the moment and wanted to know if there is a recommended daily intake of carbs that i should be having?

many thanks

Craig
 
Hi Craig,

That really is a "horses for courses" question. I lost 5 stone in weight and have "normalised" my bg's and got my HBA1C down to 5.4% and gotten off medication. I was diagnosed in May 2009 and have been on a personal target of 30grams of carbs per day. Many might say that is too low, but it works for me. If I eat generous fruit portions, rice or bread, then my bg's spike significantly, so my 30g keeps me in the safe zone.

Hope my response generates some further comments for you.

All the best Steve
 
Hi Craig. I eat no starchy carbs at all, just keeping to protein and veg or salad and fruit. I have lost 6 stone so far, my last HbA1c was 5.3 down from 8.4 in 4 months and I have never felt better. I no longer have to take insulin as my blood sugars are within guidelines. But it is entirely up to you how much carb you eat. It really is trial and error. I still try new foods and then do a blood test. If it's high then I don't eat that food again. Good luck! :D
 
thanks for the advice guys

ive been on my diet now for 3 weeks and have definately lost weight!

my jeans are very loose and i was checking through t-shirts that i have never worn in ages due to being too big for them and they are starting to fit now.

feeling better for it too.

Sue - how long did it take you to drop the 6 stone?

i have around 5 / 6 stone to loose over all, im starting the gym next week and that will definately help me too, ive got maximuscle diet shake in the house that im going to start using to get more protein in my diet. anyone have any ideas for decent protein?

ive ditched cerial or toast in the morning and opting for a portion of scrambles eggs and sometimes a bit of bacon, lunch is chicken and some cheese (or soup) dinner im eating steamed veg with chicken or a low fat micro meal
 
It's not how many carbs you eat, it's the glycemic value of those carbs that counts. That's why the idea of carb counting is flawed - not all carbs react the same on your blood sugar. Learn about the glycemic index and forget carb counting.
 
I disagree with you strongly there !

Carb counting and the glycemic Index should go hand in hand. Not all diabetics can tolerate any sort of starchy carbs. They have to experiment to find out and the best way to do this is to start by carb counting. After they become confident with this then maybe using the GI/GL will help them add foods to their diet.
 
I have noticed that low GI foods give me a good first 2 hours post meal response as long as the overall carbs are not "too high", however I have also noticed that if i eat low GI constantly and ignore the carb content, then I begin to see a rise in my bg's. Generous portions of low GI foods also spike my blood, eg chick peas and basmati rice.

So its low carb for me, low GI doesnt cut my mustard...

All the best Steve.
 
I use carb counting to make sure I know my total carb intake because I am carb sensitive, low GI to make sure that I mainly only eat low GI foods, and low GL to ensure that I can eat small portions of some foods that are taboo to others, higher on the GI. Makes for more variety.

Ignore carbs at your peril whatever method you use........just because it is a low GI/GL food doesn't mean that you can ignore everything else. It needs to be included in any calculations.
 
robertconroy said:
It's not how many carbs you eat, it's the glycemic value of those carbs that counts. That's why the idea of carb counting is flawed - not all carbs react the same on your blood sugar. Learn about the glycemic index and forget carb counting.
Click to expand...

I can't really believe you have said the above Robert! :?

Counting carbs is paramount with diabetes, to do otherwise would mean unstable control leading to long-term complications whether you use low/medium-gi foods or not.

You can't honestly say that you can consume a meal containing 80/100g of carbs and this will have no more effect on postprandial bg than a meal of say 30g just because you use lower gi foods? I could get away with it just, but that is because I am a type 1 using insulin, it is much more difficult and unachievable to those on oral meds or a diet controlled as with type 2's.

I'm a firm believer that using low-gi foods works in controlling diabetes alongside carb reduction, more and more diabetes patients are realising the potential of using low-gi/gl approach to eating and controlling their diabetes, but in all cases you will find that this must also co-incides with a reduction in carbohydrates. I have greatly improved my diabetes since adopting this approach and hope to continue to do so, but I thought it necessary to take exception to what you wrote as it's simply not true.

Nigel
 
Basically the gi of a food will always be the same because it's a ranking of foods containing the same amount of carbs. If you eat 30g carbs from a low gi food like chickpeas you should get a lower spike (and less overall exposure to raised glucose) than if you ate 30g of carb in a high gi food such as a serving of mashed potato
If you doubled the quantities the glucose rise will be higher and longer for both foods though the chick peas would still have less of an effect than the mashed potato.
 
It's only taken me about 12 months to lose the 6 stone, but it's an ongoing battle. I tend to follow more GL than GI. GL focuses more on the amount of food you eat rather than the GI of the food. I stick to this more than looking at the GI of the food.
 
I find this item very interesting as I had been meaning to ask about this for some time now.
I have been on a diet for several months now and lost 22lb but recently decided to include in my daily statistics my bg count as well and was more than a little surprised that it was quite regularly at 6.7 - 7.5. The carb count on this was usually around 150 having an approximate 1000 calories per day. The highest carbs are in my 1oz of branflakes in the morning and 2 - 1oz slices of bread. Can't imagine cutting them out. One item is an 8 floz glass of cranberry juice which is 29 carbs - really surprised about that - but I do like to keep that as it helps to fend off any reoccurring bouts of gout.
Hard job trying to fathom out the pros and cons of these carbs!.. :mrgreen:
 
I have 2slices of Burgen bread a day, thats about 50 carbs, I've only lost a very small amount of weight, in 4mths now, and yet I have cut out all other carbs?, and my bg's are still averaging, 8's. over the day, how on earth you lucky people get 5's i'll never know .....trand
 
trand said:
I have 2slices of Burgen bread a day, thats about 50 carbs, I've only lost a very small amount of weight, in 4mths now, and yet I have cut out all other carbs?, and my bg's are still averaging, 8's. over the day, how on earth you lucky people get 5's i'll never know .....trand
Click to expand...


Surely you must be eating other stuff and drinks throughout the day or do you just have the bread and that's it ?? Is everything you eat devoid of carbs ?

When you say your average is 8 over the day, how often and when do you test ?
 
Hi, yes I do eat, my normal day consist of
Breakfast. 2toast, ham,or eggs, or bacon.
Lunch.. not really, I nibble a few nuts during the day, maybe slices of ham or chicken
Tea, meat, red, white, or fish with veg. cauli, brocc, cabbage, sometimes a few carrots, or other veg
Supper, 1/2 slice of toast, with cheese or pate.

On getting up I test, its normally, 6.4 to 7.2-3-4, then before my tea and normally 2hrs after or sometimes later, I am t2, so can't really test as often as I would like to, I seem to have hit a happy medium with my diet regime, cutting out carbs, I take a multi-vit tab as I am a bit concerned about if I am getting enough other than that I have sort resolved myself to this type of life now,I just look on here and other places, and learn ...
 
Thanks for that.....I had this horrible feeling you were existing on toast alone. :lol:

All looks good to me, and if it's working that is great. I am sure eventually you too will get down to lower levels. It all takes a little time sometimes.
 
Don't forget - portion size matters as well. It's OK saying you're eating 'good' foods, but it's how much of it you eat as well. It's not what you eat, it's how much of it you eat. :)
 
My brother was diagnosed T2 in Austraia and straight away was told to reduce his carbs. The advice he was given by his doctor there was to eat no more than 100gm carb a day and spread it out over the day.

The advice I was given here was (if I remember correctly, coz I don't do it) was to make carbs 40% of my meals.
 
Back
Top