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Diet ideas

C

Concerned wife

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15
I'm asking for yet more help!! Ive been reading alot about this low carb diet and after Xmas I want to put my hubby on it as his sugars are all of a sudden reading 14 before he goes dr as he is feeling fit and well I wanna try this low carb diet. It qud be fab if you could let me know what you eat on a daily basis breakfast and lunch and snacks are what I'm struggling to prepare for him dinners I can do!!
We don't eat pre packed foods but we do love a takeaway any advice I'd be very grateful 
 
Hi

For breakfast I either have home-made muesli i.e. porridge oats, various seeds etc and no sugar or I have a fry-up with eggs and bacon. I also have no sugar added cranberry juice. For lunch I may have a sandwich made from low GI bread. I try avoid snacks as that is where the carbs can creep up but for afternoon tea I may have a crumpet, wholemeal muffin etc which are fairly low GI. I do have 85% dark chocolate most evenings. My wife has started making Molly cake for me (recipe on the web). It has low carbs using ground almond, dried fruit and no added-sugar etc. Hope this provides a few ideas.
 
Hi!

The diet I follow is a sticky thread at the top of the Low-carb diet forum on the Board Index - Viv's Modified Atkins Diet.

As it stands it's very low carb - about 25g - 30g gram, which may be too low for your husband at the moment. Have a read of it, though , because the listed foods are all either low-carb or no-carb, and you can use that list to build in some more carbs (wholemeal or multi-grain bread, extra vegetables), using a carb counter book and choosing from those with the lowest number of carbs

Have a look at the low-carb recipe section, WhitbyJet is a wonderful cook and has given us lots of low-carb recipes, particularly for Christmas :D

Christmas is not too bad really - try to get your husband to avoid mince pies and trifle and chocolate biscuits (or at least to have just one!) but nuts are okay, and fresh berries and cream, and cheese, and most of the Christmas dinner. If he fills up on turkey and sausages and sprouts, broccoli and other greens, roast potatoes but not too many, only 1 parsnip I'm afraid! he should be quite satisfied.

On a daily basis, I usually start with an omelette - plain or cheese or mushroom. However, the great British breakdast is fine, as long as no baked beans or fried bread. Watch the ketchup - sugar!

I'll have fish or cold meat with a salad (and mayonnaise) for lunch, and lots of meat with vegetables from my diet's list, with butter or mayo or both :oops: I'm a good cook, but often don't want to spend the time, and straightforward and simple does me. Sometimes I make a big ratatouille and eat it over a number of days, eg with cheese one day, then sausage cooked in it, or salmon or a pork steak (place salmon or pork in casserole, cover with ratatouille, cook in oven until fish/meat is done. Dead simple!).

I eat a little very dark chocolate, and I go for berries or a small apple or satsumas as fruit. If I need a sweetener I use Splenda, tabs or granulated. Other sweeteners are available :wink:

If your husband can manage to resist all those sweet carby things and keep off the biscuits and nibbles, you'll both come through Christmas okay and be ready to start in earnest in the New Year. Don't forget to test :D

Best of luck - and a happy Christmas to you both! :D

Viv 8)
 
Concerned wife said:
I'm asking for yet more help!! Ive been reading alot about this low carb diet and after Xmas I want to put my hubby on it as his sugars are all of a sudden reading 14 before he goes dr as he is feeling fit and well I wanna try this low carb diet. It qud be fab if you could let me know what you eat on a daily basis breakfast and lunch and snacks are what I'm struggling to prepare for him dinners I can do!!
We don't eat pre packed foods but we do love a takeaway any advice I'd be very grateful 
Click to expand...

Kind of depends on what level of carbs you want to go to. Some are on very low carbs, others on more moderate levels. It depends on what you level of diabetes can take. I think it's best to start at a moderate level, and do blood tests to see what results you get. If after a few weeks it's not enough, you can reduce the carbs even lower. Ultimately, if you still can't get your sugars low enough, you have to go on stronger meds. I'm on about 150 to 180 grams of carbs a day, about 50 to 60% of the "norm" for a man.
I have shredded wheat for breakfast, it has lots of carbs like all cereals but hardly any sugar so is very low GI. I'm fine with that. Some people can't take carbs at breakfast so have a fry up or an omelette, or boiled egg (although bread/toast with it has carbs)
Lunchtime I have a two-slice sandwich with Bergen soya and linseed bread, with ham, cheese, chicken whatever. I have a bit of lettuce and a few cherry tomatos with it. I have an apple after.
Evenings, my main meal could be fish (have lots of that) but NOT in batter. Plain white fish in a foil parcel with pesto, diced mushrooms, whatever. Or a meat meal with new potatos boiled. Ocasionally a curry with a SMALL amount of basmati rice, but NOT naan bread! Anything really, but watch the carbs. You can get carb counter books on the internet - you'll be suprised where carbs lurk! After dinner, I have a satsuma.
Takeaways are OK, but the trouble is, you don't know what's in them! Curry is normally OK, but no breads and not too much rice. Chinese is normally stuffed with sugar, and pizzas are a no-no. Fish and chips alright if you take the batter off the fish (batter sends my sugars sky-high) and not too many chips. So bit limiting really!
In the evening, for a snack, I have nuts. Lots! low carb, and very low GI so an excellent snack. Not cashews mind - they're not really nuts, they're a seed pod. A hard boiled egg is a good snack too, or some cheese - but watch the biscuit!
My rule then is NO FOOD within 2 hours of going to bed - before that is! If you eat before bed, you go to bed with raised sugar levels, so you wake up with them. It's different for type !'s on insulin who I believe often need to snack before bed, but we don't and shouldn't in my view.
There are lots of other ideas you'll get, but hopefully that's a few to get on with.
Last thing = I exercise hard just for 10 minutes about anhour after my main meal - that's when my sugars will be peaking, and it brings them back down more quickly. I use an exercise machine, but you can do anything; go up and down stairs quickly for 10 minutes, or stay upstairs and do some more fun exercises! :lol:
Good luck!
 
I wrote my reply while Viv was posting hers! So now you have a low-carb idea and a moderate carb one. Nothing wrong with either, so Over to you!
 
You lot are amazing thank you. One more question and I promise to shut up 
What about crisps I know these are a no no but trying to wean him off isn't going to be easy is rivita any good or whole-wheat cracker type crisps vie been on Internet and ordered shed loads of books so hopefully will be able to sort myself out soon but in the mean time I'm afraid you are stuck with my questions 
 
Ryvita isn't bad, the multigrain perhaps best. I confess I have half a small bag of crisps with my lunch! I have just got some low carb Atkins crackers off the internet (from Avidlite) but haven't tried them so don't know what they're like. Trouble is, you need to order loads of stuff at the same time to make it worthwhile as delivery is expensive. Go for the Ryvita.
 
Concerned wife, you still can have trifle, bake a sponge cake, instead of flour use almond flour, replace the sugar with something like Splenda.
Use strawberries or other berries, sugarfree jelly, make up real custard, using egg yolks ansd sweetener (buying ready made custard or making it with cornflour is cheating anyway!!).
And top with whipped cream - perfect low carb trifle thats actually healthy, those eggs and almond flour are full of goodness.
Enjoy :D :D
 
My hubby was diagnosed at the beginning of this year. At first we went really low carb with him. He was having eggs for breakfast, usually scrambled with cheese. Salad or home made soup for lunch, and low carb dinner such as roast chicken with loads of veg but no potatoes for tea. He lost loads of weight and his sugars have come down so we have now relaxed a bit but test him with new foods just to see how he gets on. He finds he gets on better with tortilla chips (such as doritos) than ordinary crisps or he loves pork scratchings for a change. I make him ice cream for puds if he wants a change from sf jelly. To make ice cream get some frozen berries, put them in a blender still frozen with some cream and then some sweetener, or fruit sugar, or agarve syrup and blitz until smooth. Instant ice cream.
I have also discovered a great soup that he seems to be able to eat loads of and really fill up on without it affecting him. I use my slow cooker, and into that I add half a packet of soup broth dried bean mix, a whole can of tomatoes, loads of veggies, whatever I have in stock and any leftover meat from the roast. Add 1 stock cube, some paprika, herbs or whatever other flavouring you like and top up with cold water. Cook on low all night and in the morning he has gorgeous soup to take to work in his flask. I make this in big batches and freeze it for regular use.
Good luck, and message me if you need any help with the soup.
 
Thanks any ideas on supper? We have small kids and all eat together as a family but due to this we eat at 5 so by 9 hubby is peckish. Had rivita and cheese last night but this morning sugars were 12 so want to try something else??????
 
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