Eat More Fruit!

You need to give all starchy veg a miss - potatoes, parsnips, etc, sweetcorn, peas, beans eg broad beans although green beans are okay. A rough rule of thumb is, if it grows underground don't eat it (root veg and tubers). Radishes are okay. Above ground is usually okay, (except sweet corn) especially green and leafy veg, peppers, cucumber etc, but don't overdo it on tomatoes - they contain some sugars. I eat about 6 or 8 tiny ones every day.

Fruit can be tricky, 'cos fruit sugar (fructose) is a carbohydrate and can send your blood sugars up as quickly as table sugar. I can't or don't eat bananas and grapes, and am wary of all other fruits, only eating them occasionally or in small quantities. At this time of year I eat the most fruit in the whole year - berry fruits are generally okay (strawbs, raspbs, blueberries), also apricots and plums. Don't go mad! I eat a few peaches and nectarines, but never more than 1 a day and not every day.

Get hold of a carb counter book (Collins do one in their Gem series which is portable) and have a look at the carb content of the stuff you usually eat. Then use your meter, if you have one, to test 2 hours after eating and see what each food does to your blood glucose levels.

I have a thread on here called 'Viv's Modified Atkins Diet' (go on to the Low Carb Forum and type 'Modified' into the search box, though the thread might be on the 'View New Posts' tab at the moment). I'm not suggesting that you follow the diet (though I find it great and it works) but there is a list of vegetables on there that is a useful one to stick to if you want low-carb veg that is full of nutrients.

Hope that helps

Viv 8)

I would disagree with Viv on this occasion and say that "You need to give all starchy veg a miss - potatoes, parsnips, etc, sweetcorn, peas, beans eg broad beans" is a sweeping statment that may or may not be the case, until you test these foods you have no way of knowing how much of them if any at all you can eat but many diabetics do and can happily eat these foods just as I do.

I find that very few foods need to be 'given a miss' just reduced in the portion sizes they are eaten in.

Even those things that I dont normally eat like pasta, as even a small portion spikes my bg, are not off the menu for me, its not something that I would chose to eat all the time but If I eat out at friends or go to a restaurant in company and its on the menu, I will happily eat it on odd occasions, yes it spikes my bg but do I really care if its once or twice a year, no of course I dont. I know that by the next day my bg will be back to normal

Everything depends on an individuals insulin resistance and pancreatic function as to what they can and cant eat or how large or small a portion is going to be OK. We are all different and our diabetes is different too.

Test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test and test, test, test, test, test, test, test and test

Hi and welcome to the forum.

I note that you have been given the information for newly diagnosed. It is a good place to start.

We are all different and that has been shown in the answers so far.

Viv has success with her diet, Sid has success with his and I have success with mine. They are not identical and it is trial and error as to what will work for you. There is some work involved and lots of testing until you devise an eating plan that is personal to you, that you enjoy and you can stick to.
Nobody else can do this for you as your body will react to your food choices and not somebody else's. There is no blueprint for a successful diet, we all wish that there was.

As Sid say, test,test, test. Your meter is your best friend for working out your plan.

Ask as many questions as you like, we will try to help.

It's a good idea to get your BG under control as much as possible before you start testing the effect of different foods on your BG.

In my own case, I have found that a food that increses my BG by 3mmol/L when my starting point was 4mmol/L (pre-meal) will give me a much higher increase if my starting point was 6mmol/L.

I call it The Cummulative Carb Effect.

I ALWAYS test new food when my BG is between 5mmol/L and 6mmol/L.

There are many good diabetic food guides on the net and in books. I have quite a few. I have found that my food preparation became more complex when i was dx'd last year, and definitely more expensive. So, here is what I have been experimenting with -- a more or less constant menu every day with the greater variation being at suppertime. This is the general idea:

Breakfast:

1 cup of oat meal with Splenda white and brown pseudo-sugar;
1 coffee black;

Mid-breakfast:

1 Banana

Lunch:

1 BLT (with 1 tbsp low-cal mayo, 1 or 2 thin bacon strip) with 1/2 tomato and several lettuce leaves;

OR

1 tuna sandwich with whole wheat or bran bread

Mid-afternoon Snack:

1 cup yogourt
OR
1 fruit
OR
A few rusks with cheese

Supper:

Fish, mixed vegetables and potato
OR
Chicken, salad, and rice
OR
Beef baked, or sauteed, with vegetables and rice
Peyole (shrimp, rice, salad)
with a bread bun for all


Evening snack before bed:

-Nuts - pistachios or macademia (about 200 calories)
OR
Melon slices, or corn on the cob


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That's it. And I try to keep it standard because cooking variety is something I do for my family but it's too much of a hassle to change every meal for myself. If my numbers show low, I do take Glucose tablets or something sweet. My drinks are confined to Diet Coke, Diet Ice Tea and Water -- i love water. I often drink Tomato juice with supper, and Orange Juice if I am low.

superlec,

The best advice is to eat to your meter, by testing bg after eating will determine what fruit and veg you can tolerate.

Nigel

Unfortunatly, there is not a one size fits all. It's all a matter of trial and error and testing to see what suits you.

Quite right, Sid - obviously anything before 09:00 is too early for my one remaining brain cell - didn't someone say something about thinking about your posts, elsewhere on this forum?

What I should have said, superlec, is that in my case giving all starchy veg a miss works for me. I favour a very low carb diet, and other people manage perfectly well on more carbs than I eat. We vary a lot, as individuals, but very many of us agree that controlling our carbohydrate intake helps our bg levels. We are all individuals, and our diets are as individual as we are!

Sid's lifestyle, or Catherine's, or Erin's, might work well for you.

I'm just off to eat a super rump steak, with mushrooms and peppers. Any questions, either on here or feel free to PM me!

Viv 8)

I think i'm getting a hint here: lower the carbs? :wink:

Patch said:

I call it The Cummulative Carb Effect.

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Could you please give me a little more detailed explanation about this?

I ALWAYS test new food when my BG is between 5mmol/L and 6mmol/L.

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Sorry Patch, just trying to understand something here as you've confused me a little.

I always believed that the whole idea of low carbing was to keep your pre-meal (as well as post-meals of course) at the same level as non-diabetics. So if I am not mistaken your pre-meal levels should never be in the 5's or 6's? Could you please tell me if I misunderstood the whole concept of low-carbing?

Thanks

I always believed that the whole idea of low carbing was to keep your pre-meal (as well as post-meals of course) at the same level as non-diabetics. So if I am not mistaken your pre-meal levels should never be in the 5's or 6's? Could you please tell me if I misunderstood the whole concept of low-carbing

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Patch can explain the other bit of his post himself but average pre prandial readings taken for non diabetics in a recent study fell between 5 .1 and 5.6 (median 5.3) Obviously some individuals would have had levels below 5, but the norm was most definitely in the 5s.

Real-life glycaemic profiles in non-diabetic individuals with low fasting glucose and normal HbA1c: the A1C-Derived Average Glucose (ADAG) study
http://www.springerlink.com/content/a55l12337v273511/

The idea of low carbing - or any form of diabetes control - is to keep you BG as low and as even as possible - but we are still diabetic and some of us don't reach non diabetic levels no mattter how low carb we are.

Ka-Mon - I've cut n' pasted this from a previous post:

I said:

My theory, is that my body can deal with one of incidents of high (ish) carb intakes much better than it can deal with a contstant bombardment of carb intake at low/moderate levels.

Think of it as my body storing up the ability/strength/energy (but don't get energy confused with calories!) to deal with carbs on the odd ocassion. But if it is bombarded with carbs daily, it does not have the time to recover between bouts, and my BG creeps up.

A spike never fully recovers back to normal pre-carb levels, and the next low (ish) intake of carbs causes another spike, with the original spike only half recovered. Now, these spikes may not even push my BG up by more than 1mmol, but if it only recovers by 0.5mmol before the next small spike, the Cumulative Effect starts to take hold.

The Cumulative Carb Effect. (Copyright: Patch 2011).

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May not be of interest to many - but being aware of this has definitely helped me, and may help others.

This theory obviously has relevance for you Patch. So are you saying that if you limit your carbs and only have a blow out occasionally then your blood sugars quickly return to an acceptable range?

phoenix said:

the A1C-Derived Average Glucose (ADAG) study
http://www.springerlink.com/content/a55l12337v273511/

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Great find Phoenix - I always get a glassy eyed response when I ask health care professionals what the non diabetic ranges are, so this is perfect for addressing that.

The number of studies on dietary and control levels affecting organs in diabetics, is simply mind-boggling. I have a few books, some guides from the hospital and also follow the American Endocrinological Assoc., the Canadian Diabetic Association, and American Diabetic Assoc. The general ones, including my Diabetic team, put the safe range at 5-7 on average. There is fear among some doctors of more damage being caused by hypos, than the occasional hypers-- esp. to the heart and brain.

The latest book I got is from Jenny Ruhl, "BLOOD SUGAR 101". She analyzes much of the literature and current ideas about diabetes. She is also very critical of the mass studies, pointing to the contradictory results of e.g. ADVANCE and ACCORD.

Regarding carbs, here is a small extract from her book:

p. 69, ...."Most people with diabetes will see blood sugar values that are going into the 200s or higher after just about every meal. [1-2hrs] That's what got them diagnosed as diabetic!.
Now it's time to face an important fact. *It is the carbohydrates you eat that raise your blood sugar after meals.* Sugars and staraches. Nothing else.
The fats you eat do not raise your blood sugar because your liver is able to convert about 58% of the protein you eat into carbohydrate. But since it takes up to seven hours to digest dietary protein and turn it into glucose, the only people who see a rise in blood sugar after eating protein are those whose diabetes is so severe that they have no beta cell function left at all. So, it is unlikely that eating protein will cause an observable rise in blood sugar.
But every gram of carbohydrate you eat, whether it comes from sugar, bread, potato, pastas, fruit "low glycemic foods" or what the food industry like to call "healthy whole grains" will turn into glucose once digested. When it does you will experience a blood sugar spike."

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However, i have not seen a comparison between non-carbs and carbs vis a vis the *quantity* and its effect of blood sugar. But you people speaking of low carbs are in harmony with Ms Ruhl's analysis.

Probably, the most frightening statistics of not keeping your numbers low by whatever means, are the complications, which are a sure thing in diabetic research and statistics. On the other hand, non-diabetics also get heart attacks, strokes, cancer but not retinopathy or neuropathy. It seems that the most certain damage is microvascular disease for diabetics.

Erin said:

The latest book I got is from Jenny Ruhl, "BLOOD SUGAR 101".

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That's a great book.

CC said:

So are you saying that if you limit your carbs and only have a blow out occasionally then your blood sugars quickly return to an acceptable range?

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Yes. I can deal with a single instances of larger carb intakes much better than a sustained intake at moderate levels.

I'm an "all or nothing" kinda guy... :wink:

How did we get from fruit to here? Oh well!

the only people who see a rise in blood sugar after eating protein are those whose diabetes is so severe that they have no beta cell function left at all. So, it is unlikely that eating protein will cause an observable rise in blood sugar.

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I know I do find that I get a high spike with a protein/fat only meal, but I am T1 so that's in accord with the statement.
In reality there hasn't actually been much testing of the immediate glucose response to protein. There is a lot of evidence to show it produces a release of insulin and over 10 years ago researchers devised a mini insulin index which included protein foods. Apparently though no real testing has been done to find out whether it produces any sort of glucose spike in 'normal' people
.
I found a really tiny study (must have been a pilot or a student study that somehow got published) This tested the glucose response to proteins after an overnight fast. There were only 2 subjects. One of them had almost the same response to 4oz of Turkey as to 25g of glucose, the other had a response but it was only half as much. The strange thing was it seemed the larger the piece of meat, the lower the glucose response (ie the spike)!. (my thoughts are perhaps eating a larger meal caused slower digestion)
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/iub.333/full

So 2 people had a response to protein by itself for breakfast. It's certainly worth checking with your own meter and comparing with your response to a mixed breakfast, rather than simply believing it causes no response.