Hi Dave, welcome to the forum. Oh dear, you didn't stand a chance!
Well done so far, keep it up and don't be too hard on yourself; it's a long road.
Thank you. Maybe I should have emphasised that my primary means of weight loss was cutting back drastically on the carbs and replacing the small remainder with low GI in bold and capitals. My reluctance to cut them out completely is due to the fact that I am reasonably active and would not like to do vigorous exercise without any in my diet. As to testing well no doubt this will tell me whether I should cut out further or even completely. What do others think about testing in the first month?
AgreedIf you follow a LowCarb diet you should start losing weight and Lowering your BG in weeks not months,and like many T2D,s on this forum reverse your diabetes,when you start looking at the food you can eat there a lots things that are surprising, bacon and eggs fried in butter,nice fatty pork chops,Mayo, full day Greek yogurt ,the opposite to what you have been told and it works
Don't worry about doing lots of exercise on a low carb diet. Have a look at the dietdoctor.com website as there is a lot of free and very good info on there about low carb diets (and not calorie restricted ones either which would seem a harder ask to me). There are also videos about exercise and being fuelled by fat. When I ate a normal diet with plenty of 'good' carbs e.g. porridge and wholewheat bread and pasta I could barely run 50 yards with out being out of breath. Since adopting the low carb high fat diet i have taken up weight training and HIITs exercise and am currently training for a 10 k run in the summer - can happily get up in the morning and run 3 - 4k before breakfast! and still not feel hungry!
Also I would definitely get a meter and start testing after foods to see what foods spike your blood sugar. People can be spiked by different things so you need to test to see what affects your blood sugar and the you can find alternatives or cut those out of your diet. The sooner you can get blood sugar under control through diet the sooner you are likely to lose any excess weight. Be aware that losing weight does not 'reverse' diabetes for everyone. For some of us it makes no difference (except for the other general health benefits being lighter brings).
To be honest I didnt own a meter in the first month but then again I was too sick to eat as well so my initial weight loss and reduction in BS was pretty good. You have already made some great changes to your diet and a meter will help you fine tune your food choices over the coming months no doubt. It took me a year to sort myself out so it is definately a marathon and not a race. It is very much a personal decision only you can make as to when to get a meter and what structure to follow in your testing regime, just remember there is a reason to test and that is to determine what foods affect your BS and to see if your BS is reducing. Its no good to simply get a meter and to just test whenever, thats just a waste of time and money. My diet is pretty much sorted now so I rarely test during the day at all now but it is always great to have it on hand.
Hi @Dave from Weeton and welcome to the forum! I went against the general advice on this forum and didn't test for the first 3 months after diagnosis, until after I had my 3 month HbA1c blood retest. But I have since started testing as otherwise I won't know how I am progressing until my next HbA1c retest after 12 months.
Hi @Dave from Weeton and welcome to the forum! I went against the general advice on this forum and didn't test for the first 3 months after diagnosis, until after I had my 3 month HbA1c blood retest. But I have since started testing as otherwise I won't know how I am progressing until my next HbA1c retest after 12 months.
It will turn out to be your best purchase ever. The.month before my Hb test I stock up on strips and I test my FBG and before and after each meal to gauge a really good picture on what my BS is doing and it seems to work well for me. Last year through doing this I predicted my Hb result would be 35 and it was actually 34 so it gives you a good indication of your progress.
Yes after 4 days of testing with my new meter it certainly is essential to me managing my diabetes. So far it has confirmed that my LCHF diet is working well. Not only is my weight now down by around 6 - 7kg but my low carb choices have had a big impact on reducing blood sugars back to a healthy range. Apart from one try of biscuits when I went up to 9 I have not gone above 7.5 at all. Even this figure was a high spike due to porridge this morning.
This morning I went from a waking 5.4 to 7.5 (tea and V8 veg juice already confirmed as having little effect). I find this spike incredible given that the sachet of a well known instant porridge oats that only weighs 27g with a claim of 15.9g of carbohydrates raised my blood sugars by 2.1 in 2 hours. No doubt these 'healthy' oats maintained a reading of 6.5 5 hours later!
Hi I had trouble with porridge now through someone telling me to try the Raw Oats from Aldi 89p a bag. I have no trouble eat them soaked in Alpro almond yogurt with raspberries delicious!!! you can only but try.I found in the early stages of my 'eat and test' porridge spiked my blood sugar also. I just avoided it thereafter. I never really enjoyed it anyway, apart from feeling self-righteous that I was 'eating healthily'Of course now I understand what eating healthily really means.
Congratulations on your early weight loss. As you are probably aware some of that is fluid so things will be a little less dramatic (but constant if you keep the faith) thereafter.
I hope your results have/ will turn out well. I have another HbA1c myself in just over a week so hopefully these will reflect the changes already made. Having lost over a stone in the last 3 week I have just gone from obese to 'over weight', more importantly the weight is coming off from my waist and stomach area. Even had to reduce my blood pressure medicine (ARB) by half yesterday to the lowest dose following discussion with a GP due to low blood pressure at work!
Well done @Dave from Weeton! You are doing great. What did your GP say about you doing LCHF?
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