Diabetic T2 - Metformin

Yup. I thought I was immortal too. I lost my mum to T1D complications some time ago, but because I was T2D those rules did not apply to me (or so I thought). Then I had my first stroke. I was in hospital overnight then they kicked me out the door next morning with advice to see my GP. A week later I had my second stroke, and had 2 days in hospital. Again - told to go see GP to get meds sorted out. A scan showed complete blockage of a neck artery and half my brainbox frazzled. Took a while to retrain my brain to organise left from right, up from down etc. But I went back to work, and I am managing quite well, all things considered. Then I had my heart attack a couple of years ago. Still here, but now I take my diabetes a bit more seriously. I have decided to take control. My HbA1c level was over 100 last year. By cutting out certain carb foods and sugary things, I have reduced my levels down to those of a nondiabetic, so I am lucky. It took several major events to make me take notice, so I know where your OH is. I sympathise, but until he feels empowered to start taking control, this behaviour will carry on. Nagging him will only strengthen his behaviour,

He has to want to take action. He will need to take the lead and start dragging you along, not the other way. I have done this with my own family, and they are on same diet regime as me (with their own variations, of course), and they actually prefer my low carb meals to the type of meals we used to use. So LC pizza is preferred to shop bought cr**p. Cauli mash rules. Crisps are now a rare treat for them
It is fun, and I see the results on my meter, so we can know very quickly which foods are wrong for me. This is real empowerment.
My advice is to try to interest him in reading a forum such as this, where people like me are able to discuss what is going on in our world, and where there are many success stories being posted by ordinary people with no medical training. If he feels that there is light ahead, then it may help him realize that he is not necessarily facing a bleak future. Its up to him.

Hi. It must be very difficult and I suspect you will need to change things slowly and in a way that he doesn't notice. Good for getting 85% Dark Choccie. Even if he has more than 2 squares it remains a good, low'ish carb treat. Many would say not to worry too much about fat as it isn't the main cause of circulatory problems whereas carbs are a real problem as the liver just stores excess as fat but finds it more difficult to do that with fat. Try to replace high carb foods with low carb ones. Look at the labels. Perhaps buy or make some cakes as a treat but no icing and low or zero added sugar. Still carbs but a lot lower. Have nuts berries and cheese around for snacking. You can always buy lower-fat cheese but again many would say cheese is better than carbs.

From a LCHF point of view I would say stuff him with fat, double cream in coffee (with whipped cream on top), chunks of cheese, bacon , fatty cuts of meat, mayo etc... and as said let him go mad (within reason) on the 85% choc.............


Sounds like a recipe for a heart attack I know , but all the latest research is rapidly debunking the idea that dietary fat causes heart attacks, cholesterol etc, .......

soria said:

Hi,
My hubby was diagnosed DT2 diet control 3/4yrs ago, and we went to a Desmond course.

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Sadly, you are not the first lady on this forum with a partner who thinks he knows best. As a man, I struggle to understand what must be going through their heads when they make the kind of life threatening decisions that they do and I can see that you are well aware of what I'm talking about without me explaining.

My father was and is exactly like that and in fact worse now that he's 89 and who cares? My father has never changed his ways, partially due to poor dietary advice and partly through being pig ignorant. He's progressed from "careful with diet" (who are they kidding), to Metformin, to other diabetic drugs like Gliclazide and now Insulin. Even at this stage he's stubborn enough to say that he will not inject 3 times a day to gain better control than he has and all because he's afraid of needles. He could of course not eat the chocolate he buys, or he could avoid the cereal he eats every day because "it's healthy".

What you will find on this forum is that most have cut their carb intake by varying degrees. I cut out bread, rice, pasta, and potatoes, they're all infrequent treats now and I don't really miss them that much, so I'm down to about 80 gms of carb a day which is in all the veg I now eat (now that is healthy). In my case I did it originally wanted to lose weight, but I also through away Gliclazide, Januvia and Atorvastatin because I didn't need them and I avoided having to inject insulin which was on the cards. So, a no brainer as they say.

I'm not sure what they teach in Desmond these days, but you'll find low carb is the preferred route to good health rather than increasing meds all the time and then still having poor control and having bits amputated like my dad did.

How to get the message across? I wish I could answer that without being cruel and unkind, but being cruel to be kind might be the best way. What Oldvatr say make lots of sense. Using the old BG meter will show the damage being done. Definitely get him on this forum, it's not all gloom and doom, plenty of success stories to learn from.

All the best.

mfactor said:

From a LCHF point of view I would say stuff him with fat, double cream in coffee (with whipped cream on top), chunks of cheese, bacon , fatty cuts of meat, mayo etc...

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That's fine, if you don't gain weight. Not everybody's metabolism works the same way. Over the last month or two, having been told by my GP that I don't eat enough, I increased my fat intake, mostly by eating proper yoghurt and as a treat having proper cream in coffee, once in a while. End result? As of today, an extra 5 kg since April 1st. In theory that suggests that I've eaten 38,500 calories more than my body needs, or 1375 calories a day. I'm pretty sure that I didn't eat that much yoghurt. Could be water, except gain has been gradual.
I would only suggest being careful with fat intake unless you know it doesn't affect your weight too much.

DavidGrahamJones said:

That's fine, if you don't gain weight. Not everybody's metabolism works the same way. Over the last month or two, having been told by my GP that I don't eat enough, I increased my fat intake, mostly by eating proper yoghurt and as a treat having proper cream in coffee, once in a while. End result? As of today, an extra 5 kg since April 1st. In theory that suggests that I've eaten 38,500 calories more than my body needs, or 1375 calories a day. I'm pretty sure that I didn't eat that much yoghurt. Could be water, except gain has been gradual.
I would only suggest being careful with fat intake unless you know it doesn't affect your weight too much.

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I am using the HF part of LCHF to adjust my weight so as to keep it static while also providing energy for ketosis. As a slight aside, I found that I had not been going keto much, so I dropped my carb input by 20g a day. I am happy to report that today my Ketostix registered a colour change for the first time, but unfortunaately the colour did not match any hues on the chart, so I am none the wiser.

DavidGrahamJones said:

Could be water, except gain has been gradual.

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Mmmm! Just lost 2kg, lots of water eh? I wish dieting was a more exact science, there seems to be too many moving goal posts.

DavidGrahamJones said:

As of today, an extra 5 kg since April 1st. In theory that suggests that I've eaten 38,500 calories more than my body needs, or 1375 calories a day. I'm pretty sure that I didn't eat that much yoghurt. Could be water, except gain has been gradual.
I would only suggest being careful with fat intake unless you know it doesn't affect your weight too much.

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I am by no means an expert but weight is a tricky thing , sometimes it comes on fast sometimes slow, some people lose 5kgs the first month then it tapers off , maybe you are just having the opposite effect, fast weight gain then it tapers, but the answer is the same whichever, adjust your calories in until you get the desired weight gain/loss.

Galja said:

Really, read what enabling is to an alcoholic and don't enable. Beyond that, eat in front of him what he can be eating. Go gracery shopping and buy what he can eat and throw out everything form the house that he can't.

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the OP has already mentioned that her OH is able to go out and purchase his own contrabanned, so this approach will not work. It most certainly would not work with me, and if my OH did it to me, I would be motivated strongly in the opposite direction just to show who is boss (in theory, that is). This is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.