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Diet Doctor Low Carb Challenge

Oh well....mine is easy tonight. Still have chicken from yesterday so roast chicken , celeriac chips and salad mark II. Was planning on the Diet Doctor tuna melt but never got the oopsie bread made yet.
 
maglil55 said:
I'm following the Diet Doctor 2 week challenge and the carb intake is 20g or less per day. My main motive was to get my BG back to where I wanted to be and it was certainly doing that until I fell victim to this stinking cold (although BG has not risen as much as it usually does when I am ill. )
However, I have only lost 1lb. Prior to this I'd lost 17lbs on a moderate LC diet (about 40 - 50g carbs). Lowering BG is the priority and I'm happy with how it's going. However, I do want to lose more weight. I know Diet Doctor say you don't count calories on their keto diet but I've checked some of their recipes now and the daily total is around 1800 calories. I intend to give the VLC another couple of weeks to see if I can get my BG back in the 4's but after that I think I have to tweak the Diet a bit to lower the calorie intake as I really don't think I will lose anything much on 1800 calories a day.
Does anyone know if the full nutritional information for the Diet Doctor recipes are lurking anywhere on the net or am I just going to have to plod on putting the recipes into my Fitness Pal? (Some were there already but were a bit dubious).
If anyone wants to know what the 2 week challenge is like it is surprisingly easy. I have never been hungry, if anything it is too much food. The shopping lists do help because you only buy what you need. Hubby mostly ate the same as me although I add carbs for him as he won't eat the quantity of greens I get through. You only cook once a day as one day's dinner becomes the next day's lunch (I don't count breakfast as cooking as scrambled eggs only take minutes). Talking of eggs you get through loads of them!! Recipes are very good and some are Really good (don't think I would have found Diet Doctor without this forum).
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I started the Diet Doctor 2 week challenge on the 18th Feb this year. The food is really tasty, the portions are huge, and being in Zim some of the ingredients are either not available or are completely out of the question in terms of price. (Salmon is over $40/kg) .... cost of living here is high so we make a plan, I do not use nearly as much cheese as the recipes ask for but I supplement with cream cheese where I can and I use creme fraishe instead of mayo..... I adapt a lot, but never use carbs instead, I have used broccoli and cauli instead of cabbage when it is in season and we eat a lot of Avo and salad veg. I also use courgette (zucchini) in place of the keto pasta. ..... I digress. I have lost 6 inches around my belly (directly below my navel) and 4 1/2 around my hips in 7 weeks, the weight is starting to move now I am down 4 1/2 kgs. I am never hungry between meals and frequently don't bother with either breakfast or lunch, the main thing being 'Eat when hungry and only when hungry'. I have more energy and feel about 10 years younger already, The startup 2 week menu planner makes this so easy to follow rather than so many other programmes which leave you to decide for yourself what to eat (here's a recipe book and a list of good and bad foods, go for gold). So having found the ideal beginner diet site I have now found a forum for support which is the other thing that seems hard to find.

So now on with my questions - sorry if they are dumb and if others have asked before, but here goes. I am a little concerned with the variation in blood sugar. I have had low blood sugar for years and this is what prompted the challenge. when I started my BG was averaging around 4.5 - 5.5 but recently I have had spikes up to 8.1 and down to 4.4. Is this normal? Am I worrying for nothing? and what should I be aiming for? I test twice a day, when I wake up and before I go to bed. Any advice would be appreciated.
TIA
 
Hi and welcome @Tracyjmg ! Good to have your input :)

And I'm so glad DD is working for you. :)

I think with blood glucose, timing is everything. When are you getting those readings? (By that, i mean are you restng before or after food?) And what had you eaten before getting the 8.1?
 
I test before and 2 hrs after meals s o I get an idea of what each different meal does to my levels
 
Hello and welcome @Tracyjmg. Reading your post again you are saying you only test twice daily? Once in the morning and before bed. If the 8.1 is in the morning welcome to the nightmare which is Dawn Phenomenon and afflicts a fair few of us myself included. For most of the day we are fine but the point up to breakfast can result in any number of rises. Is it the morning that gives you the high?
 
Brunneria said:
Hi and welcome @Tracyjmg ! Good to have your input :)

And I'm so glad DD is working for you. :)

I think with blood glucose, timing is everything. When are you getting those readings? (By that, i mean are you restng before or after food?) And what had you eaten before getting the 8.1?
Click to expand...


Ok Brunneria, I do 2 readings a day, the first is as I wake up, literally the first thing I do before anything else, so rested (usually between 6 & 7am) . the second is directly last thing before I switch the light out at night (usually around 10pm) the 8.1 reading was (I think) after a late dinner so less than 2 hours after food. (also looking back on my diary I did a lot of physical work and probably no breakfast or lunch.... (ok I am getting the idea)
I have not been cheating at all with sugar or white carbs so was a little concerned. I have not even been having berries or the keto/low carb sweet/desserts/breads.... I did on Easter Sunday have 2 hot cross buns fresh out the toaster covered in a load of butter and 2 lindt chocolates.... bad move I felt terrible and went to bed early with a screaming headache and BG of 8.0 at about 7:30.
Other than that obvious fail (and lesson learned the pleasure did not outweigh the pain) I have stuck to the diet doctor recipes and mostly keto/strict low carb, occasionally having a moderate low meal in the mix. Sadly I haven't been keeping a food diary (should perhaps start doing that and will get a better idea of what causes the spikes). I put together about 2 or 3 weeks menu at a time and then sort the shopping lists accordingly, the menu changes within that set of recipes only based on what is and isn't available at the time. Since most of the recipes take very little time to actually prepare it is seldom based on whether or not I could be fagged to cook at the end of the day which was my problem in the past.
I don't know how much effect water has on BG but I am not drinking very much at the moment, sometimes only a couple of cups of tea in the day and maybe a glass of water when I think about it... sometimes not at all.

Thanks for your feedback and for allowing me to ramble and think things out loud so to speak.
 
maglil55 said:
Hello and welcome @Tracyjmg. Reading your post again you are saying you only test twice daily? Once in the morning and before bed. If the 8.1 is in the morning welcome to the nightmare which is Dawn Phenomenon and afflicts a fair few of us myself included. For most of the day we are fine but the point up to breakfast can result in any number of rises. Is it the morning that gives you the high?
Click to expand...

Hi maglil55, looking back all my "highs" are the bedtime reading, the morning ones are the ones that have gone down to 4.5, although that has only happened once in April so far.
 
Hi @Tracyjmg :D

Are you testing at those times (early and late) on the instructions of your doc or nurse?

Many of us use a different testing regime which allows us to monitor the effect that individual foods are having on us, and therefore helps us to tailor our diet to control our blood glucose on an individual basis. By that I mean that some of us can tolerate potatoes, and some can't, while others can tolerate bread, or porridge, and others can't.

We test our blood glucose as we start to eat, and then 2 hours later. Ideally our blood glucose should be back to the starting point by then, so the numbers would be similar - if we were 'normal'. However, for us diabetics and pre-ds, we aim at having a rise of no more than 2mmol/l at 2 hours. So if you started at 5.5, then being 7.5 or under at 2 hours is a good thing. :)

Now, obviously, there is a lot of leeway in this. The NHS has a set of target numbers for before and after eating, shown here
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes_care/blood-sugar-level-ranges.html
and those are a bit looser than what I am talking about. :)

There are no strict rules on this, but it is a good way of monitoring what a food does to you.

So if you are only testing twice a day, you might find it useful to do the before and 2 hrs after test on your meals. Maybe breakfast one day, lunch the next, dinner the next, and if you have any snacks, then you can check them out too.

Personally, I find that if I stick to the DD menus, my blood glucose barely moves all day.
But as soon as I start introducing discrepancies (cough!) like your Hot Cross Buns, then it all goes pearshaped... ;)
However, I do find that seeing the results of my, er... crimes... is a very good motivation to keep me on the straight and narrow for a while. :hilarious:
 
The mysterious contents of the plastic tub turned out to be chicken and aubergine curry - very nice - I don't know why but curry always tastes better the day after its cooked or after being frozen and defrosted - same as bolognaise sauce or chilli.

I must have another go at oopsie bread - I've only made it once and it welded itself to the baking parchment I cooked it on and had to be scraped off in little bits. It tasted okay though. Its strange only cooking for myself now that Mr C has moved on to the afternoon/evening shift - its a good job we've frozen so many meals in the last few months because I really don't feel any enthusiasm for cooking at the moment. Tonight is an exception - just tikka'd chicken breast with salad and avocado. I must remember to order a celeriac and make some garlic chips - maybe at the weekend with steak.

Its going to be non stop politics for a while. We've got elections for a new mayor in Doncaster in May and then the biggie in June. I'm bored of non stop politics on TV already.
 
Chook said:
The mysterious contents of the plastic tub turned out to be chicken and aubergine curry - very nice - I don't know why but curry always tastes better the day after its cooked or after being frozen and defrosted - same as bolognaise sauce or chilli.

I must have another go at oopsie bread - I've only made it once and it welded itself to the baking parchment I cooked it on and had to be scraped off in little bits. It tasted okay though. Its strange only cooking for myself now that Mr C has moved on to the afternoon/evening shift - its a good job we've frozen so many meals in the last few months because I really don't feel any enthusiasm for cooking at the moment. Tonight is an exception - just tikka'd chicken breast with salad and avocado. I must remember to order a celeriac and make some garlic chips - maybe at the weekend with steak.

Its going to be non stop politics for a while. We've got elections for a new mayor in Doncaster in May and then the biggie in June. I'm bored of non stop politics on TV already.
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I'm having a night off from celeriac chips (although there's garlic in the tuna cheese melt). Oopsies came out fluffy and golden. Mix was very yellow - must have been the eggs. So I have 4 extra Oopsies to make sandwiches with over the next 2 days as they kept great last time I made them. I had one that stuck slightly but it was easily freed. The rest came away no problem. I wait until they cool a bit before I free them.
I was going to ask what the mystery dish was. I would like that curry hubby would hate it. Both boys are staying well away from him (don't want his cold). No 2 was amazingly polite today. He informed me he learnt something today ' I want doesn't get but please may I have does'. Difficult to believe he's 3!
 
Ah, he sounds so sweet. My daughter was always told if she asked me to buy her something she wouldn't get it and used to find some very imaginative ways to let me know that she wanted something without actually using the words 'I want' or 'Can I have'. She's 38 now and still does it. :)

Do you grease the baking parchment before spooning the oopsie mixture on to it?

I've put garlic celeriac chips on the meal plan for Saturday to have with steak (with crumbled stilton on) and salad. My husband cooks on Saturdays. :) Did you get the recipe from a website or decide it yourself?
 
Chook said:
Ah, he sounds so sweet. My daughter was always told if she asked me to buy her something she wouldn't get it and used to find some very imaginative ways to let me know that she wanted something without actually using the words 'I want' or 'Can I have'. She's 38 now and still does it. :)

Do you grease the baking parchment before spooning the oopsie mixture on to it?

I've put garlic celeriac chips on the meal plan for Saturday to have with steak (with crumbled stilton on) and salad. My husband cooks on Saturdays. :) Did you get the recipe from a website or decide it yourself?
Click to expand...
No I don't grease the parchment. I wet the corners underneath so that it sticks to the baking sheet. I only do 2 or 3 to the sheet as they spread a bit.
Celeriac çhips I just experiment until I'm happy. Reckoned they had to be blanched as it is so hard. All the methods worked but I think the pot was the best for crispness. As well as the garlic salt I like some paprika on them. Cayenne could work too but not a lot. I think parmesan might work too.
Air fryer and oven is easiest but there is a fine line between crisp and burnt.
 
haha! my family (mother's side, Cornish) have a saying

'Them as ask, don't get, and them as don't ask, don't want!'

Which was basically a way of saying 'we can't afford it, so don't bother asking.' :D
 
Got all the ingredients for oopsie bread but not got around to it yet. May have a go later today as work admin are very behind - my papers for Tuesday were only posted yesterday and out postie gets here by 4pm on a good day.

Looking forward to making the Indian crackslaw later. Off to osteopath this morning as back is dreadful so hope I will be able to stand up to make it!

A chef told me the curry spices mature overnight and that is why curry tastes better a day later

Edited to say: Actifry paddle broke yesterday so no chips of any sort for us until the replacement arrives. Can't be faffed to use the oven.
 
maglil55 said:
Hello and welcome @Tracyjmg. Reading your post again you are saying you only test twice daily? Once in the morning and before bed. If the 8.1 is in the morning welcome to the nightmare which is Dawn Phenomenon and afflicts a fair few of us myself included. For most of the day we are fine but the point up to breakfast can result in any number of rises. Is it the morning that gives you the high?
Click to expand...

Hi maglil55, looking back all my "highs" are the bedtime reading, the morning ones are the ones that have gone down to 4.5, although that has only happened once in April so far.
Brunneria said:
Hi @Tracyjmg :D

Are you testing at those times (early and late) on the instructions of your doc or nurse?

Many of us use a different testing regime which allows us to monitor the effect that individual foods are having on us, and therefore helps us to tailor our diet to control our blood glucose on an individual basis. By that I mean that some of us can tolerate potatoes, and some can't, while others can tolerate bread, or porridge, and others can't.

We test our blood glucose as we start to eat, and then 2 hours later. Ideally our blood glucose should be back to the starting point by then, so the numbers would be similar - if we were 'normal'. However, for us diabetics and pre-ds, we aim at having a rise of no more than 2mmol/l at 2 hours. So if you started at 5.5, then being 7.5 or under at 2 hours is a good thing. :)

Now, obviously, there is a lot of leeway in this. The NHS has a set of target numbers for before and after eating, shown here
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes_care/blood-sugar-level-ranges.html
and those are a bit looser than what I am talking about. :)

There are no strict rules on this, but it is a good way of monitoring what a food does to you.

So if you are only testing twice a day, you might find it useful to do the before and 2 hrs after test on your meals. Maybe breakfast one day, lunch the next, dinner the next, and if you have any snacks, then you can check them out too.

Personally, I find that if I stick to the DD menus, my blood glucose barely moves all day.
But as soon as I start introducing discrepancies (cough!) like your Hot Cross Buns, then it all goes pearshaped... ;)
However, I do find that seeing the results of my, er... crimes... is a very good motivation to keep me on the straight and narrow for a while. :hilarious:
Click to expand...

Thanks Brunneria, I will try the different times for readings, I was told by the Pharmacist that you either test before and after all meals and morning and night (8 times a day.....strips are expensive here) or to just do morning and night, but she had no other useful suggestions.
Oh and don't worry I shan't be playing with bread or hot cross buns again. That was a once off, next time I will just politely decline no matter what the rest of the family say.

Thanks again for the tips and encouragement It is good to have a forum for support.
 
Ultramum said:
Got all the ingredients for oopsie bread but not got around to it yet. May have a go later today as work admin are very behind - my papers for Tuesday were only posted yesterday and out postie gets here by 4pm on a good day.

Looking forward to making the Indian crackslaw later. Off to osteopath this morning as back is dreadful so hope I will be able to stand up to make it!

A chef told me the curry spices mature overnight and that is why curry tastes better a day later

Edited to say: Actifry paddle broke yesterday so no chips of any sort for us until the replacement arrives. Can't be faffed to use the oven.
Click to expand...
I'm sitting waiting at the physio at the moment waiting to be stretched by my good looking sadist! Oopsie keeps well in the fridge wrapped in greasproof. I am looking forward to my oopsie sandwiches today and tomorrow.
 
Ultramum said:
Got all the ingredients for oopsie bread but not got around to it yet. May have a go later today as work admin are very behind - my papers for Tuesday were only posted yesterday and out postie gets here by 4pm on a good day.

Looking forward to making the Indian crackslaw later. Off to osteopath this morning as back is dreadful so hope I will be able to stand up to make it!

A chef told me the curry spices mature overnight and that is why curry tastes better a day later

Edited to say: Actifry paddle broke yesterday so no chips of any sort for us until the replacement arrives. Can't be faffed to use the oven.
Click to expand...
Meant to say you can use the Actifry without the paddle. Just open and turn them over every so often. I do it with aubergine chips as they are too soft for the paddle.
 
In sooooo tired and I don't know why. I'm eating okay and getting a good eight hours sleep at night but I can hardly keep my eyes open no matter what time of the day. My BG has been okay. I'm keeping to set bedtimes and getting up times. Any ideas?
 
Could it be a delayed reaction to your work stress and handing in your notice.

I know that seems ages ago, but sometimes stress is like that. We live with it as a chronic, grinding, endless condition, for so long that we think it is normal, and then when it is over, it can take a surprisingly long time for the tense bits to realise they can start to unwind.
 
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