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For those of you in remission

D

Deediabetic

Active Member
Hello Everyone

Backstory: Was diagnosed as a type 2 at the end of June with a hba1c of 13.3%. I've been low carbing, excercising, losing weight over the last four months and I had my latest hba1c test last week and it has come in at 5.6% or 38mmol/mol which puts me into the non diabetic range.

My question is for those of you in remission who aren't keto but low carb and have been in remission for a long period, do you ever have the occasional day off and enjoy a plate of pasta, a regular ice cream, a few slices of normal pizza, a small serving of chips etc and still get good numbers? I'm fine eating low carb the majority of the time but I'd really like to be able to eat an occasional treat without pushing myself into high unhealthy numbers again.

Any tips, words of wisdom etc for me?
 
I'm not sure if I'm officially classed as remission yet, I was diagnosed in September 2020 and that has been my only diabetic hba1c. But my blood sugars have been normal for quite a while now, my most recent hba1c was 31 and I'm due another soon which I think will be normal as i test my blood sugars all the time and I've not had a high fasting for ages. As long as I don't over do it, I still see good numbers after eating carb heavy food. I'm pregnant at the moment and allowed myself more carbs than normal but I need to make sure I don't go back into old ways. I think self control is really important and some people will think it's better to avoid it then get a taste for it again. I've always continued to eat pasta, it doesn't seem to effect me badly anyway, but I try to limit the portion, probably about half of what I ate previously! I'm also very active during the day which helps.

Well done your recent blood test!
 
I had painful diabetes diagnosed at 14.4% or 134. I have not eaten wheat pasta, rice, potatoes, milk chocolate, crisps, beans, lentils, bread, mints, high sugar fruits for around 5 years.

But I have had and continue to have tasty foods, based on a meat / fish base with keto berries and veg. Logically I do not want to eat the foods that I correlate with getting diabetes. I look at the savoury carby foods and see nothing special. Sweet stuff such as ice cream I just see as over processed fake foods. I have made keto pizza's would good success and items such as pancakes, chaffles, but find my whole food animal based diet leaves little room physically and mentally for inferior stuff.

An fbg of 4.1 for example this morning is so motivational.
 
Regading the 'treat' I am not in remission but my palate has changed. I got a small, cheap pizza from the Coop last week and did not enjoy it. I do not crave chips at all. I used to happily eat Pringles with hummous or dips of an evening, but again dont ,iss that.

I do miss some lovely properly well cooked pasta. So if on holiday in Italy or at a good restaurant I would allow myself soem pasta with pesto. Same goes for an excellent thin crust pizza
 
I agree with the palate change thing mightily - I've developed a real taste for Montezuma's 100% chocolate (the orange and mint ones are fab!). A few days ago the blokeshape opened the bar of Lindt 70% that's been lurking for a while in the kitchen. I tried a little - it was SO SWEET!

That said, when we went to the seaside a couple of weeks ago I did have some chips - I ate mine slowly and bloke shape hoovered up the ones I didn't get round to by the time he'd finished his. My numbers were fine that day/the next day - we did walk a fair bit along the beach.

(I am not diagnosed diabetic, I hit pre-diabetic in June and went low carb immediately on hearing the diagnosis)
 
As others mentioned the palette does change significantly, and with it, the cravings. You're not that far in yet, maybe, but what was once heaven to me (like a scoop of nutella) now is sickeningly sweet. That could well happen to you as time goes on.

I'm ridiculously low carb, so not keto but carnivore, and my insulin sensitivity has improved in the past five years. That said, I gave myself a small treat last week. And while it didn't ruin my blood glucose, and I remained in the non-diabetic range, I did get carb-flu something awful in the days after. So it's really about what you can tolerate at any given point, and what the price tag is. For me, the cost is just too high, so I'll not be doing that again, even if it was just a small indiscretion. The headaches just weren't worth it, nor the going-to-the-loo five times in a single night.

Since you asked about low carb rather than keto though: I had more leeway when I didn't go to extremes, a year or two, three ago, before going keto. Your meter'll tell you. Just be wary of carb-creep (having more and more, more often, as "once won't hurt", and it never remains just the once), and check what your bloods are up to. This is a completely individual journey and what doesn't work for me, could be fantastic for you, and vice versa.
 
The problem with occasional treets is that over time they tend to become less of an occasional treat and more the norm and if that happens you find yourself back where you started remissiom is not cured it is down to controlling your intake of carbs in the long term.

After all would a snicker bar be a treat for a person with a nut allergy.all right may be overstating the case but a diabetic cannot handle carbs and should avoid them.

All I can say is eat to your meter .

To be honest not withstanding all that yes I have sinned mea culpa on occasion more so of late and my HbA1c has risen because of it but my levels remain in the normal range but are in danger of rising so I am having to take my own advice here and say no in the long term occasional treats are not a good thing.the more carbs and sweet things you eat the more you want and that becomes a downward spiral.
 

I've noticed that. When we've gone out for dinner, I've had a chip off of husbands plate on the odd occasion and it doesn't taste very good anymore, to the point I have no desire to eat another one. I have also gotten my husband to taste my pepsi max order when out at a place that serves it in glasses instead of a can because it tastes super sweet and I'm certain it's regular pepsi because it's so sweet to me! I did that today too with 95% belgian chocolate. I purchased it for husband and I was never a dark chocolate fan but i tried little bit because he said it was really nice and it tasted super sweet to me too and tolerable when before I would have discreetly spat it out.

I enjoy cooking and I enjoy eating out and I'd like to still be able to enjoy a night out at a good restaurant or go for a walk along the beach in summer and eat an ice cream once in a while. It seems from what many of you are saying, that you don't have a treat once or twice a month that isn't low carb or diabetic friendly.
 
I don't cheat much, no... But I do eat out! Not so much now with covid, but used to at least lunch out once a week, and the occasional dinner. Just prefer Argentinian steak restaurants, or Greek mixed grill platters... All you can eat restaurants are fine if I stick with the low carb options. I never leave hungry, and I can binge all I want without going over my limit. I don't have the fries, rice or whatever, but if there's plenty of meat and such to be had, I'm not complaining. Beef for the win and all. And you can easily have them replace spuds/bread/rice/pasta with veggies/salad/more meat/fish/poultry/eggs. This past summer I was at a place that had steaks for insane prices... So if they were going to go that low anyway, I just ordered two! Cozied up on a plate together, and they were so juicy you could've drank them through a straw. Due to kidney stones I couldn't do anything with salad or veg on the side, but nothing's stopping you. As for cold stuff in the summer... Look up Oppo ice cream. Yes, it is "diabetic friendly", but I think it still counts. Might also be an idea for Christmas pud, actually...

These are some of my meals at restaurants... Not bad, right? And if it's more a bit of a snack rather than a meal, or I'm in a place where they don't actually cater to my way of eating, sometimes they'll just make a plate with the things I can have, outside of the menu... I don't need much, and sometimes it's just nice to join my husband when he's having lunch, but I don't really need something. You have more options than I do these days, you just have to learn how to use them.
 
I appreciate for those who do have a palette change however that isn’t a given. Mine hasn’t, I enjoy the foods that are bad or good for me exactly as before. They taste the same as always. So where people state as fact it changes… no, not always. It’s individual

this needs willpower and it’s not something I am always able to manage but I try my best.

as others have said, it is a downwards journey though. The cravings are hard to manage so you have to be careful

whilst remission and time may allow more carbs than before, it isn’t hard to see some become more become many… thereafter the bloods follow

so… if you want an occasional treat day then that’s your choice. There may well be an impact for a short term, there may be a longer term. It’s not ever something I’d recommend but we all have our weaknesses
 
I can and do eat some higher carb foods - but pasta or pizza or potato hold no attraction.
I have eaten good icecream when out at an event in high summer, but I can tell when the formula has been changed to include more chemicals in the recipe to bulk it up.
Increasing carbs usually means gaining weight which can take a week of being more careful to lose again, so it is not something I do lightly or more than a few times a year.
 
Since I was diagnosed (nearly 2 years ago, blimey!) I haven’t eaten any preprocessed food with the exception of bit of bacon, salami, good sausages etc. And I much prefer it. I haven’t even tried any of the traditional carbs - bread, pasta etc since I got going with low carb so I don’t actually know what they do to my BG, but I have made my peace with not having them. Perhaps I could try the ‘odd bit’ but frankly I am very wary of waking the sleeping dragon. Right now I am content with my diet and I don’t suffer from cravings or the munchies and I am only hungry when it’s time to eat. I know myself, and I truly believe that carbs are genuinely addictive. I don’t think I would be capable of just having something like bread or ‘proper’ cake just now and then, I’d be back to my old ways before I knew it!
 

Sounds like you haven't really given them up so hardly surprising that they don't taste different?
 
I still have sweet tooth, and very little palette change for me.
During lockdowns my control slipped a little so after getting my HbA1c down to 32 it crept up. Still in the normal range but I know the occasional 'treat' that takes me over my optimum carb level is a bad idea for me.
 
You've done well.

I can only give you my experience, which will probably be different to yours and everyone else's. I do have occasional breaks from routine - I mean about once a month - and I might then eat something I don't usually eat because of the carb content. So far this has usually been a small starter portion of spaghetti al vongole.... as I usually have a glass or two of red at the same time immediate fingerprick readings are misleading, but the carb intake knocks me out of ketosis and I have the three day climb back to look forward to.

I don't want to allow "creep" - my worry is that one cheat meal becomes two becomes four. There are ways round this - I've gone as far as taking half a dozen eggs to a friend's house and making myself an omelette while everyone else had what looked like a really good meat and potato pie. Long story short - it's possible for me this far, but you need willpower to stop it becoming a frequent occurrence.
 
bulkbiker said:
Sounds like you haven't really given them up so hardly surprising that they don't taste different?
Click to expand...
Going multiple months without I would say is giving them up and they don’t taste any different to me but maybe if I were to give up longer the difference would kick in

all different of course but highlighting the challenge for @Deediabetic that cheat days may easily lead to more especially if taste hasn’t changed
 

Lesson learned. I thought it was pretty universal, but I guess not! (Fascinating stuff, really!)
 
Similarly to @Andydragon my palette hasn’t really changed.

I try not to have them as a treat but occasionally, once every 2-3 months, when the restaurant choice is out of our hands or something similar, I will a piece of bread with my pate or one or two (actually one or two!) chips with my steak.

Again I think this can be down to individual factors - I am someone who can easily have it for one night and then nothing die the next 6 months which makes it easier.
 
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