going shopping , can you help plz?

Hi,

The trick is to ignore the 'of which sugar' bit.

All the carbohydrates and sugar will turn into glucose. So only look at the carbohydrate content as that will be a while number which includes the sugar content.

the 'of which sugar' but is just a further breakdown of carbohydrates and can be misleading when first looking at the carb content.

as you are just starting out i would buy certain things in small portions (as to not waste if you find you are unable to tolerate these well) count how many carbs are in your meal/snack. Then test 2-3 hours later to see how it's affected your Blood glucose levels. If it's out of range you can consider lowering the portion next time.

So for example you buy 100g or fruit salad in fruit juice. You know this is 11.9g of carb in the full 100g. You decide to eat 50g of this, which would be 5.95g of carb in the portion you are about to eat.

It would be a good idea to keep a food diary so you can note what your eating, the portion size and carb content of the full meal/snack. Test your BG beforehand and 2 hours after and note this all down. Then you can see if you need to alter what you are eating and can do this accordingly by knowing how much of a particular food affected you before.

Hope this makes sense and helps.

Good luck shopping. Take your time and read things as many times as it takes you to understand exactly what your buying

Good advice - the most important thing for me is NEVER go shopping on an empty stomach! Much harder to resist the impulse buys when your hungry! :wink:

WRT fruit, certain fruits are better than others. Berries are low carb, so stock up Strawberries, Raspberries, Blackberries, etc...

Best thing to do is test after eating fruit and see which ones hit your Bg the hardest, then avoid 'em!

Roxy,

If you had three low GI veg at meals and added a high one, it would lower the overall G.I.

An example,

19 +17+27+70= 133. Divide this by 4 = 33.25.

Hi Roxy,

It is all new and confusing to you. We have all been there.
The numbers are the G.I. value of foods. This was just an example, they do not relate to anything in particular.
I do not have any numbers to hand but say you had broccoli, spinach and cauliflower, low Gi veggies, and you added parsnips, high G.I veg, then it would work like the example above.

Here is a website you can use to find out the G.I. values of anything you are not sure about.
http://www.glycemicindex.com/

I find the best way to read labels is to look on-line. Since I usually shop at Tesco I can find whatever product I'm interested in and they have the nutritional info on the website, I think all the big supermarkets so the same. Reading labels at home with a cuppa is much less stressful all round than doing in in the shop with my 4 year old in tow.

Hi guys, I am a very newbie as well and just seen the great advice about going shopping from ebony and patch, thanks by the way. One more question please, I am trying to find a good cereal with low carbs. They all seem high per 100g. Best bread seems to either nimble wholemeal at 8.1g per slice or milk roll at the same, have you any experience with these ?

Thanks Roxy, that's great, I will try weetabix, have seen the Burgen breads I will try one of them and let you know. :wink:

Most cereals are going to be high in carbs and may be best avoided while you are striving to achieve good control and weight loss although you may find that very small portions of some are OK, the only way to find out is to test I found half a grapefruit was a good low carb start to the day, but you must avoid these if on a statin.

Whilst carrots are medium GI and quite high in carbs for a vegetable they are high in micro nutrients which are good for you like most brightly coloured veggies and Catherine's tip of mixing high and low GI veggies to get a good mix which is still medium GI is a good one

roxy44 said:

i know Sid, but i need my cereal...and feel happy to find 1 that low fat and doesnt push my sugars up, i cant eat anything cooked in a morning, and fruit just doesnt cut it first thing

thanx x

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Hi Roxy,
I like muesli in the mornings but they are a bit tricky. I found most have raisins which tend to spike me so I now make my own mixture.
I mix Jumbo oats, Flaxseed, Pumpkin seeds, Sunflower seeds, almonds, walnuts and brazil nuts. It doesn't taste quite perfect but it isn't quite so lethal. If I'm not too high first thing in the morning I can tolerate a bit of dried fruit mixed in too.
It's just a case of experimenting.
Hope this helps
Angie

Hi Roxy44, Very new at this, started with a visit to chemist for free test. Hospital confirmed with blood test. That was 18 days ago ! Only started the tablets 3 days ago. Might do away with the high arb cereals and have a slice of nimble wholemeal with a poached on it. I don't have a test kit, they said I didn't need one :?: I think I would like to test 2 hrs after a meal to see what affects me most. Thoughts ? :?