does this sound right ?

For sure blood glucose response after eating is not simple. Alcohol can result in lower levels. Also, consuming fat with carbs can result in "the pizza effect", where the spike in blood glucose levels occurs later than is normally expected.

I would highly recommend avoiding potatoes. They are pure starch (i.e. carbs). So, if you avoid potatoes (and other starchy veg), fruit, flour (you've cut out bread and pasta, but need to cut out everything made from flour), rice, and sugar, you will likely not see spikes in blood glucose. If you do, you'll need to review what you've eaten and figure out what caused the spike.

Personally, I try to avoid going above 7.8 at any time as that's the level above which organ and nerve damage is supposed to occur.

And fats shouldn't be restricted, but should be in the form of natural fats (from animals or plant) that have been minimally processed - so avoid refined veg oil. If you are going to restrict carb intake you'll need to replace the calories with something and natural fat is the best thing to have instead of carbs. Your protein intake should be about the same as it was on a high carb/low fat "healthy plate" diet.

Hope that helps.

Carbs are anything sweet or starchy. Potatoes of any kind are almost pure carb and seem to be keeping your numbers high. If your intent is to use a low carb diet to control your blood sugar, you need to cut out or seriously reduce pasta, rice, bread, potatoes, root veggies, fruit (except berries), sweets and all grains. Grains include corn and anything made with flour.
As @NoCrbs4Me has said, you need to replace the carb calories with fats or you will be hungry all the time.

Hi @ukmartian ..
I suggest you simply forget the ways that you used to eat - eg: particularly potatoes (any type), bread (any type) sweets and beer ..

The key point to take on board is that managing and controlling your diabetes through exercise, diet and testing your Blood Glucose seems to be the best way forward for many people. For me, committing to an LCHF (Low Carb High Fat) lifestyle and testing 3-5 times a day seems to be working and you'll find that there is a wealth of info, relevant advice and positive support about LCHF on the forum ..

I suggest that you read the discussion on the Low Carb Diet forum .. together with the following Diet Doctor websites ...
Low Carb Intro and Information
Low Carbs in 60 Seconds

Hope this helps

NoCrbs4Me said:

but should be in the form of natural fats (from animals or plant) that have been minimally processed - so avoid refined veg oil.

Click to expand...

Is there actual evidence for this or just a feeling that natural must be best?

Mr_Pot said:

Is there actual evidence for this or just a feeling that natural must be best?

Click to expand...

There might be some evidence - I don't know of any intervention studies comparing animal fat to industrially processed plant oil. I guess it just seems obvious to me. It's more the opinion of myself and many other people based on the idea that something that has been a large part of the human diet for >100,000 years (animal fat) is probably healthy and something that has been a part of the human diet <100 years (industrially processed oil from plants) is likely to be less healthy. And, just the fact that the government tells us that industrially processed plant oils are healthier than animal fats makes me highly suspicious of the validity of the idea, since these are the same people telling me to eat lots of carbs and minimal animal fat.

There weer a lot of potatoes. I had 2-3 chips on holiday. i didn't order them. They were left on the plate when one of my kids had finished lunch. 12+. Nightmare. Cut out potatoes. Potato salad is still a potato and a jacket potato................you may as well eat a bowl of sugar (not quite but you see where I am coming from.

Early days - keep working at it and good luck.