Diagnosis type 2 yesterday

Hi. The advice given at diagnosis is often poor. Diet is key and that means keeping the carbs down but having proteins and fats to keep you feeling full plus veg and non-tropical fruit. Many of us will have eggs and bacon or similar for breakfast rather than cereals or porridge for example

Hi @DianeSedd and welcome to the forum. I agree with @Daibell , that advice following older guidelines is often poor. Have a read of this link created by one of our members, then come back with any questions you might have:
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog-entry/the-nutritional-thingy.2330/

Welcome @DianeSedd
Base your meals around meat, fish, eggs, natural fats, (olive oil, butter) dairy, above ground vegetables and salads. Avoid or limit as much as possible bread, rice, pasta, cereals, starchy veg and be careful with fruit. Remember that if something tastes sweet it's usually because of its sugar content.
You will probably get lots of advice from well meaning family and friends that might sound good but could make things worse for you, for example.

Brown/wholemeal bread, rice, pasta are OK.
Nope, your body just sees the carbs it doesn't matter what colour they are

Porridge is a good breakfast choice for people with T2
Although I've seen a few say they can tolerate porridge it has around 65 grams of carbs per 100.gr and sends my blood sugar higher than I find acceptable. I would have to eat such a small amount that it would hardly count as a breakfast.

You need carbs in your diet
Nope, our food is made up mainly of fat, protein and carbohydrates. Fat and protein are essential but the glucose we get from carbs can be manufactured from the fat & protein by our bodies so carbs are pretty much redundant

Everything in moderation
I think this is the most useless advice I've ever heard, what does it even mean? Seems to me its saying eat anything you want, so chips, pies, cake, pizza, chocolates, but do it moderately? Once a month, week, day? Or maybe chips one day, cake and chocolates the next?

Be careful with cook books most of the ones I've seen use very carby ingredients, there is so much free information on the Internet, why spend your money on dubious Cook books, just type whatever you fancy into Google and add the words low carb or keto. Spend your money on a book that will actually help like
The Diabetes code by Dr Jason Fung
Good luck x

Fresjwell Low Carb website and app are excellent and free. The latter contains a 6 week course.
https://lowcarbfreshwell.co.uk/
I've also recently got hold of the Low Carb Kickstarter book from this site and I think it is an excellent resource.
Don't spend too much time wondering around cookbooks as as a substitute for action. Get going possibly 1 meal at a time or straight in with prescription strength' low carb by which I mean going all in for every meal/snacks.

DianeSedd said:

Thank you all. I’m going to base things on a keto diet. What do you think?

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Keto is just a word, there's no legal definition. Its really just very very low carb. Just be aware on some websites , fb groups and forums that some people are very strict on it and police it very strongly. I found them quite intimidating.
Having said that it is a good way to go to to give your body a sudden sharp shock that diabetes seems to react well to. Give it a good go, if it does prove too strict too soon there are other options and you'll always get support here

For me keto or carnivore are the only things that work. That usually means 20g of carbs or less a day for me. Some diabetics might be able to tolerate 100g or 150g even and insulin users can probably have a lot more if they can manage the balancing act. Everybody is different.

I was diagnosed 6th April 2022 with blood at 20 and HBa1C of 86. I was sent straight to A&E as I also had Hypertension.

Ive had several medical appointments since but very little in the way of support or guidance. I have learnt an awful lot about type 2 via this website and several others. Ive tried a lot of the recipes listed here and found the move away from carbs quite easy. I'm struggling to get my daily blood sugars down below 10 but realise it is a gradual process.

The weight loss has been good and the feeling of having more energy is most welcome but alas the cost of buying smaller clothes is one burden I will have to bare.

DianeSedd said:

Thank you all. I’m going to base things on a keto diet. What do you think?

Click to expand...

Great idea. Only advice would be to also base on real foods (meat, fish, eggs, some dairy, green veg) and avoid ‘keto’ processed foods / products.

DianeSedd said:

Thank you all. I’m going to base things on a keto diet. What do you think?

Click to expand...

Great idea.. try and limit yourself to 20g of carbs a day and try not to slip for at least 3 months.

By then your tastes will likely have changed and you won't miss or crave what you have excluded.

Ref. Those smaller clothes - I found a lovely local lady who takes in dressmaking. My old clothes now fit again! Maybe there will be someone similar near you. Of course, I still had to buy some new outfits......yay for keto!

KETO is something people write books about and the original concept - ketosis, seems to have become rather blurred.
I still have the Dr Atkins New Diet Revolution and other Atkins Books, where ketosis is explained, and its management. He doesn't get everything right - his maths is something to watch, and to check, but there is a lot of good stuff in there.
It isn't a modern concept - William Banting wrote his Essay on Corpulence in the 1860s and was told it was old then.

As others have said, everybody reacts differently and you should take the time to work out what foods spike your blood sugar and what you can tolerate. I was diagnosed at HBa1c at 97 in March 2021. My reading in September was 37 and my reading in February this year was 35 and expect lower in August. I'm not on any meds yet I still average about 100g of carbs per day. Can't eat porridge but can eat pasta as an example.

What you have to keep in mind is that diabetes does not go away. You can get it into remission but as soon as you revert to old eating habits it comes back with a vengeance. So what ever diet you decide to pursue it has to be sustainable. Maybe you can do Keto for a few months and knock your HBa1c on the head but if you cannot sustain Keto for life then you are not going to know what your broader dietary tolerances are after that couple of months of Keto.

What worked for me early days was lots and lots of blood testing, sometimes 8 - 10 per day for 3 or 4 months to work out which foods work for me and which don't. My diet is now much lower carb than it was pre-diagnosis but it is not at Keto levels because I did not feel I could live the rest of my life on that strict a regime.

From what I see, one big challenge that looms with diabetes is fatigue. Some people who are diagnosed (like me) go full on at making lifestyle changes, losing weight, going low carb, exercising etc etc. Often they make huge gains in the first year (like me) but some then start to hit a wall. The discipline of maintaining these changes becomes too hard as you realise there is no quick fix, it must be change for life.

So whilst I think it is important to get your blood sugar under control as quickly as possible, it is also important to make sure you understand what foods do what to your sugars and you can live with the changes you make.