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Feeling defeated

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gowest12

Well-Known Member
Messages
133
Hi I have been diagnosed as prediabetic hba1c of 42 I have high blood pressure which they put me on medication for and high cholesterol but I am slim and have no weight to lose. I suffer with anxiety and depression and now I believe I caused all this on myself. I am 49 years old and I don’t want to live anymore. I am concerned that I developed all this with my anxiety and depression and that if I am slim and have no weight to lose I won’t be able to control it. I just don’t think I can cope.
 


So sorry you feel this way, You don`t have to be fat to be diabetic, it can be inheritance, or just what you eat and you don`t need to diet to lose weight but diet to change what you eat, there is a load of help and advice here from members i am newly diagnosed and not much help but others will be able to guide you, i have anxiety and depression, we over think and blame a lot on ourselves, all i can say is the same as i try remind myself every day is be kind to yourself
 
If your Ac1 is 42 that's "just" pre-diabetic, a couple of dietary charges and you'll be flying. The easiest is to drop the cereal/toast for breakfast and have something less carby (carbs are the thing someone who has diabetes has difficulties processing, not just sugar, (a fast acting carb) but all of them, brown, white, low GI it doesn't matter) try eggs in any form, cooked breakfast, full fat natural greek yoghurt, ditch the sandwich at lunchtime have a salad, or your usual filling wrapped in a lettuce leaf. Don't blame yourself, everyone's body has a different tolerance, and your just an unlucky TOFI (thin outside, fat inside) which just means you have what is called visceral fat around your pancreas/liver
 
It is possible to reduce carbs without losing weight if you have extra unprocessed/lightly processed fats instead. Add oily dressings to green salad, butter on green veg, cheese in omelettes. Homemade cheese or mushroom cream-based sauces on chicken.
 

That horrible feeling of "I did this to myself" is one that I think many of us have felt at one point or another when first diagnosed. The great news is that you can do something about it and being at pre-diabetic levels is a good place to start; you've can turn this around.

You can also do so without losing weight. All of those things that were "really bad for you" are now foods you can reach for. Cheese, cream in your coffee, butter, low carb oils (olive oil), fatty meats etc are all low carb but high in calories depending on the serving.

Try not to beat yourself up about this, take it as an opportunity to make some changes and with some hard work, you can get that HbA1c down!
 
As you didn't bring this on yourself - no one does, and you don't need to lose weight to control your blood glucose, the two aren't directly linked there is every possibility that you can alter your diet and not really need to be concerned about diabetes ever again.
You are barely out of normal numbers so a few alterations to reduce sugar and starch a little should sort things. Increase the protein and fat you have to compensate for the reduction and you might start to look a bit trimmer with a smaller waistline and a little more muscle, as that is a natural consequence of a better diet, so you might need a few new clothes or to make adjustments to clothes already in your wardrobe if that is something you can do for yourself.
 
There is a lot you can do to improve body composition without losing weight that you cannot afford to lose (I don't have any to lose either, by the way). I think the best thing that slender people like us can do to improve our metabolic health is to cut right back on sugar and starchy carbs and (and the next bit is not optional) MAKE SURE WE FULLY MAKE UP THE ENERGY DEFICIT WITH PROTEINS AND NATURAL FATS. The mistake that thin people often make is doing the first thing while neglecting the second and just getting more weedy and miserable and no healthier.

The other thing to do is to up your exercise regime. You want to build plenty of lean muscle mass: muscle is great at hoovering excess glucose out of the blood stream, and the more you have the better your metabolic health will tend to be. I'm much older than you, but even at your age a person ought to be thinking about getting as strong as he/she can possibly be because there is nothing like good strength and balance and a healthy metabolism to support healthy aging. One other thing: some of us are just born with an inclination to anxiety and depression - I'm in that club too - and it isn't our fault; it's just the way we're wired. Good nutrition and a strong, healthy metabolism and body won't work miracles with that, but it surely gives us our best chance of keeping our mood positive and stable. So please don't despair: there's lots to play for. Good luck.
 
What if its the other way round, and its the way your body has been mishandling certain foods (carbs) and that has caused or worsened your mood and anxiety? By changing some foods you might well find your mood lifts.
There's loads of research out there proving links between the gut and the brain.
Check out Dr Chris Palmer, an American psychiatrist who swears by low carb as one tool in his box of treatments
 
You are very lucky to be pre diabetic. This is when efforts should be made to stop the development of full on Diabetes. By simply tweaking your diet to reduce the level of carbs you eat you should find yourself back at normal range glucose levels again. And as long as you maintain your new way of life, diabetes should never be a problem for you.
We all know here that the "healthy eating mantra" of the last 50 years or so, is a recipe for disaster for anyone with the susceptibility to type 2 diabetes, it's not anybody's fault if they are genetically susceptible to diabetes, but it is very much the fault of the food industry and health system for promoting a high carb diet.
Many people have religiously followed "medical advice" as to how they should eat, and then find themselves joining our club.
Cut out cereals, bread, rice, pasta, potatoes and pastry as much as possible, and i'm sure you will be fine, as a side effect you will find your clarity of thought and energy levels should improve, very often little niggles that you never really thought about will magically disappear.
Your new mantra should be "if they say it's good it's bad, and if they say it's bad it's actually good."
 
Do you think I can cut down slowly rather than all in one go? I grew up on pasta and potatoes being Italian origin and am finding this very hard. Would it be ok to maybe use lentils instead of pasta is that a good swap? Or some beans I’m finding cutting carbs completely to be really hard. I’ve cut out all sugary drinks already just drink water
 
I have been suffering for so long with anxiety and depression and have not managed to do any exercise I’m slim but unfit and don’t have the desire to exercise how can I start??? Can you please give me advice. Not sure how to progress. I have started going swimming so that’s something I guess but what else can I do? How can I build muscle I lost some weight recently going low carb and my arms look absolutely awful how can I build muscle I feel like I’m losing muscle. This scares me so much
 
Swimming’s terrific, and there’s nothing better for giving a person a health appetite for the proteins we need for muscle repair and growth, so that’s a win. If you have access to a gym for some weight and resistance work, that’s particularly good. Exercise of any sort in fresh air and nature is good for both body and soul. Whatever gets the blood flowing and gets you out of your head and into your body for while.

I know how hard it is to keep weight on when eating low carb - believe me. Particularly when fats and proteins are so satiating. I find I routinely need to eat a little more than I actually want in order to not lose ground. But with low carb food so delicious, that no hardship.
 
I am sorry to hear that you are feeling things are so difficult right now. I hope this forum gives you some support. Here are a few things to consider.

1. You mention anxiety and depression. Are you on any meds for those? The reason I ask is that sometimes antidepressants do cause people's blood sugar to go up. So perhaps you can look into that and see if that is a possible side efect of any drug you might have been put on by a doctor. If so, is there an alternative drug that will not do that?

2. Better still, perhaps get to tthe root of some problems. Would you like to try some Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (a popular type of counseling) to help you adjust your thought processes to better deal with the anxiety and perhaps then be able to very slowly wean off any drug, if that is the case? I can't emphasize enough how anxiety's stress hormones will influence blood sugar issues. Cortisol, one of the stress hormones, really isn't great for maintaining good blood sugar balance. (Many people gain weight that way, so consider yourself lucky in that aspect.) I hear it is not easy to get counseling on the NHS due to wait lists? Is going private a possibility for you?

2. You are only in the pre-diabetic range, so you are catching this early and it may still be reversible at this point. Did you get this way post Covid? That seems to be happening to a lot of people in the USA, where I live. Again, if that is the case, not your fault. This happened to a good freind of mine and she is handling it by making changes to how she eats. Now I hear you that you are not overweight. So perhaps instead of changing everything about what you eat, perhaps just a few small changes may get things in better control. A few things to consider: make sure that your carbohydrate portions are reasonable and limited, not eliminated. Always balance carbs with some protein and healthy fats and fiber foods. All those things help slow the carbohydrates from entering the blood stream as quickly and causing high blood sugar spikes. Try to make the carbs be less "white" or processed carbs and more of the whole grain or carbs from vegetabes or fruits that have fiber. (Examples: Eat an orange instead of drinking orange juice; use thin apple slices with peanut butter instead of sugary jam; or eat peanut butter on a celery stick instead of on bread; eat a half can of beans with a sausage instead of beans on white toast; eat only about 1/3 cup of rice (one serving/ 15 grams of carbs) with a curry or a small wedge or naan, but not both in the same meal. If you have something with too many carbs to eat, just eat half now and perhaps save the rest for 2 hours, but that may stop working if you do it constantly, so only if there is no alternative food; Eat fewer biscuits when eating cheese and biscuits or add cucumber slices; Put a bit more filling in your sandwiches, but leave off the top piece of bread. Eat almonds instead of crisps. Choose sweet potato (has more fiber) instead of white potato, believe it or not.

3. Are you able to get a good night's sleep? Eight hours? Not getting enough sleep is another thing that can raise your blood sugar. And can you get the sleep at a time when you go to bed before midnight most of the time? Enough sleep, with it not too late, seems best for blood sugar. And I know, as a night owl myself, how hard that can be!

I hope this isn't too much overwhelming info at once. I should stop here.
 
I have managed to maintain a normal hba1c for 9 years on approx 130 carbs per day. When I have pasta I cook it, cool it under a cold tap and then reheat it - this method doesn’t affect my BS too much. Have you got a meter so you test how different foods affect you?
 
Probably the easiest and quickest is to change your breakfast, if this isn't enough then look at other adaptations, everyone has a different carb tolerance level
 
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