General questions please

pavlosn said:

Hi Mike

If I may suggest, people may be able to offer more constructive comments if you could list your actual counts and relate them to your meals e.g 7,5 mmol 1 hour after lunch of ....

Regards

Pavlos

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Squire Fulwood said:

1. I looked up the carbs in peas and if you are happy eating carrots and mushrooms then peas do not seem to pose a hazard. In all cases the carb content is mostly fibre.
2. Could be a liver rush. That's all I can think of. Are you leaving too long between meals? Are you trying to cut all carbs from your meals? Are you losing weight?
3.I suppose if you were addicted to carbs it might take a while. Many people say they had no trouble. I think that the volunteers written about in Southport GP's paper said they were quite happy with it.
4. All drinkers get the shakes. When I used to drink beer the local landlord took amusement by filling the pint glass to the brim just to see how his customers negotiated the first sip. "It'll be OK after the first mouthful" he would say.
5 As I understand it Low Carb is a way of life. I don't understand the question.

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kimbo1962 said:

Morning Mike- or g'day !
Well, from my personal view experience:
1 haven't eaten peas in my 18 weeks so far, probably just me being too strict! I'm ok with a few carrots, have lots of cauli and greens though (mushrooms most days) I'm sure I saw a post on here about mange tout being ok?
2 it's,been a while since I saw 7's, usually go mid 6 after a Sunday roast dinner but after 2 hours back to mid 5 I know we can have days where we run higher even though we haven't done anything different
3 I took to lchf really well, so for me straight away! Are you struggling?
4 I haven't really had shaking- a few times I wake early hours with a hot feeling and faster heart beat, not sure if that's hormonal though!
5 I normally have carb free breakfast, low carb or carb free lunch, low carb dinner so for me more by day I guess and I'm comfy with that
Hope my points help?!

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pavlosn said:

My understanding is that the question is whether in implementing an LCHF diet one should set himself a maximum carb allowance of x grams per day ( and then allocate these between meals as he sees fit) or whether one need to stick to an additional limit of say a maximum of y grams of carbs per individual meal.

I suspect that there is no one answer to this question. It all depends on the individual and the meter readings one gets when monitoring glucose before and after each meal.

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pavlosn said:

My understanding is that the question is whether in implementing an LCHF diet one should set himself a maximum carb allowance of x grams per day ( and then allocate these between meals as he sees fit) or whether one need to stick to an additional limit of say a maximum of y grams of carbs per individual meal.

I suspect that there is no one answer to this question. It all depends on the individual and the meter readings one gets when monitoring glucose before and after each meal.

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kimbo1962 said:

Yes you WILL Mike, we are all here as a group with the same aim

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Ruth B said:

Sugarsnap peas and mange tout are mainstays in my veg choices, along with mushrooms and they don't seem to do me much harm. I don't really know but I do wonder if the name Sugarsnap peas is a bit of a misnomer. I would also assume that as you eat the pod as well as the peas the carbs per gram is probably less than normal peas. No actual data, just assuptions.

When I start reduced carbing (I still have between 80 - 120g per day) it took me a couple of weeks to get used to it, I felt really bad for a week or so, a bit like flu, but with out the cold, I used to average 250 - 300g per day so it was quite a drop. I now feel much better and far more awake than I did before, although if I do fall off the wagon and have a bit of a binge it does make me feel really rough and tired for the rest of the day at least.

I tend to feel shaky if my BS goes lower than it is used to. At first the high 5s would mean I would be irritable, shaky and not thinking entirely straight, that was back when my HbA1C was 71 (which I worked out meant my BS were averaging about 11), now I go down to the low 4s before I start to notice it. From what you have said your BS is about 4.8 in the morning which is one time you notice the shaking, what is it in the evening just before the glass of wine. I would love to have a 4.8 in the morning, my fasting levels are nearly always in the 6s, it is in the afternoon I drop furthest to 5s and occasional 4s.

Low carb is by the meal for me, 20 -30g for small meals, 30 - 50g for my main meal. If I went all day with no carbs then had an evening meal containing 100g or carbs my liver would try and keep my BS higher during the day and then I would spike into the teens after the main meal, little and often seems to work best for me, no less than 3 hours and no more than 5 hours between eating a few carbs seems to keep my levels on an even keel best.

My best advise is to keep your meter handy and if you notice you are shaky try testing then, and make sure that you test before and after food to try and keep things even, hopefully your overall levels will drop with time.

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Squire Fulwood said:

I agree with the whole post and I suspect that when Mike D gets up and reads the bit above he will be very interested.

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Bluetit1802 said:

Peas are one of the few veggies I like, so I do have them most days, and they are full of fibre and good for you. However, eat to your meter is all I can advise, and limit the portions if necessary.

We all get good days and less good days, no matter how well we think we are eating. What is the temperature down under where you are? Many of us get higher levels when it is hot (doesn't happen too often here!) Stress doesn't help either.

I low carb by the day, with most of my allowance at evening meal as that is our main meal. I don't have a meal split at all. I average about 60g a day, some days higher, some days lower. Monday for example I had 78g. (that was unusual) but other days it may be as low as 52g. I am not so obsessive about it as long as a weekly average is 60g. I also reduced my carbs gradually over a few months, bit by bit, until I reached a level I know I can cope with. Some people go cold turkey, but that wasn't for me personally. I never had any cravings or shakes.

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Robbity said:

I now occasionally eat a few mangetout or sugar snap peas, tiny new carrots, or "baby" sweetcorn in conjunction with my "good" green veggies. As far as I'm aware young vegetables like these don't have nearly as much starch/carbs in them as their mature counterparts. Raw or lightly looked vegetables are apparently also better than heavily cooked ones ( I think because their starchy content is then partly broken down so will get absorbed faster?) so I try to make sure they're just lightly cooked, and often eat them raw with a salad.

I try not to have more than one smalish helping of any slightly higher carb vegetable at one meal, and I try to spread (all) my carbs over the day, so as not too give my poor pancreas too much work at one go. Doing it this way this also helps to keep any after meal spikes a bit lower too. But see what your meter has to say about such things!

I did my low carb conversion in two batchs - when first diagnosed I cut out all sweets, sugar, cake, biscuits, jam etc, fruit juice, as advised. but carried on eating starchy veggies, potatoes, rice, pasta, etc, also as (mis)advised. And didn't really notice any issues, apart from missing out on many of my existnig favourite foods over Christmas I wasn't told, and was also a bit slow on the uptake that i ought to be watching carbohydrate as well as sugar content , so when I finally did realise, and decided that I'd be better off on a low carb diet, and cut out all the rest of the "baddies" , I did suffer a bit from "low carb flu", and at the same time from a few initial "metfartin" side effects, both for about 2-3 weeks at most.

Robbity

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