Good evening

this is too difficult said:

Don't apologise for making me feel good about myself
.

Click to expand...

I think now that diabetes may have saved my life.

Hi. Yes the meter comes with a finger-pricker and test strips. There are many makes and you can usually get the meter FOC direct from the manufacturer, but the strips do cost. The SD Codefree form Amazon has lower-cost strips. Also the web is a source of discounted strips. Ref diet there is increaing evidence that the 'have low-fat' recommendation over the last 30 years or so is based on manipulated data and the food manufacturers have been careful to conceal the damage carbs cause. So, don't worry too much about fat; go for unsaturated where you can.

don't over do the exercise by hurting yourself and there is no reason to puff and pant, you exercise for fitness 3x half hour walks a week, it's shown to be not that good for weight loss

Totto said:

Thing is, if you have a meter you can learn to avoid the foods that will raise your bg so in a few months you know how to keep bg normal. Their fear of us panicking in our work place is plain stupid.

What does work is to test before and after meals. I test at one hour after food and keep testing every hour or sometimes half hour until my bg is back to baseline, not all the time obviously but when I want to know how a food item or combination of foods and drink affect me. My aim is to keep under 7, preferably 6 at all times but that is me. I have seen what badly controlled diabetes did to my dad and if I have to make sacrifices in my diet no problem, compared to all the complications he got. He was diagnosed at 50, like me, but only lived 22 years after diagnosis. He didn't have a bg monitor, I do.

Click to expand...

Well as you haven't mentioned it yet I think I am duty bound to do so. Hi there! When I was first diagnosed on 28th of jan this year, Totto recommended www.dietdoctor.com to me. This explained the concept of LCHF to me. I have halved my blood sugar and lost 1 stone 12lbs so far. I also use a meter and test regularly. Particularly if I'm trying a new food. I don't eat rice, pasta, bread or potatoes. LCHF leaves you full and still able to eat nice food. Good luck!

I wouldn't say my diagnoses in december was riddled with grief. More self annoyance that I hadn't sorted myself before and that I had buried my head in the sand for so long. Being diagnosed has changed my life and that has only been for the better at the moment. Who knows what is to come no matter what path we travel.

I am 4 stone down since Christmas and my response to glucose is now normal. I do not follow a very low carb diet but reduced my daily carb intake to between 60 and 90g for the first few weeks (out of ignorance actually) and have slowly increased this to 150g (occasionally more). The key for me was reducing the fat in my abdomen by not eating much for a few weeks.

I would say that one of the most important things I did was start a food/blood glucose/exercise diary so I could look back at what impact different things had on my system.

Good luck with whatever path you decide to take and keep talking to us/asking questions.

dawniet said:

Did you cut all carbs. Hope you don't mind me asking. Am in awe.
I have started walking with my son. He's 19 and its great cos it's quality time together with him chatting and me puffing and panting and muttering whilst trying to keep up with him. Haha. But afterwards once my knees stop hurting I do feel better for it. X

Click to expand...

Not sure if it is me you asked but I did not cut all carbs. I eat wholemeal pasta occasionally and new potatoes in the skin too, but not much of either.
People here will get fed up with me banging on about if but I use pearl barley to replace rice and potatoes with meals. It works very well for me.
The main thing I think is no snacks. I have breakfast lunch and dinner most days. Occasionally a few nuts or a little cheese if I feel I need it rather than want it. The big mistake I made initially was going low carb AND low fat. I was starving myself. I have increased my fat a little and put 2 pounds on last week . My worry was that I could not stop losing weight and keep my BG down at the same time. Now I know I can I will reduce food intake a little.

dawniet said:

Morning. Hope you are all well. I have had more help and advice in less than one day on this lovely site than I have since beginning Feb when I was diagnosed. It's like a big huge relief that I now know some links to look at and loads of lovely advice. Can't thank you all enough.
I can't seem to shake the lonely feeling but at the Desmonds course I went to a couple of people said they went through a grief process when diagnosed. Grief for the life they had lived and food they had been eating i expect.

I also seem to be bombarded with information from people who have had no experience of diabetes, have googled it and are now experts and love giving me this info and when I dare to say it's different to what I've been told, I'm the one whose wrong. Now I just smile and say thank you haha. It does get me down but I seem to be over emotional recently for some reason.

Thank you all again xxx

Click to expand...

Welcome to the daily lectures club. The urge to say, so dr Gillian (mcleith) what are your medical qualifications is overwhelming! I just smile and mention the halved bs - hba1c 79 - 42! And the 2 stone weight loss! Soon this will be you!

this is too difficult said:

Not sure if it is me you asked but I did not cut all carbs. I eat wholemeal pasta occasionally and new potatoes in the skin too, but not much of either.
People here will get fed up with me banging on about if but I use pearl barley to replace rice and potatoes with meals. It works very well for me.
The main thing I think is no snacks. I have breakfast lunch and dinner most days. Occasionally a few nuts or a little cheese if I feel I need it rather than want it. The big mistake I made initially was going low carb AND low fat. I was starving myself. I have increased my fat a little and put 2 pounds on last week . My worry was that I could not stop losing weight and keep my BG down at the same time. Now I know I can I will reduce food intake a little.

Click to expand...

Ave you tried Puy lentils? Very lush if stirred into melted garlic butter!

Hi Dawn and welcome to the forum

You have already had loads of information from other members of the forum but here is the information we give to new members which I hope you will find useful too. Ask as many questions as you need to and someone will try to help.


BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED DIABETICS

Diabetes is the general term to describe people who have blood that is sweeter than normal. A number of different types of diabetes exist.

A diagnosis of diabetes tends to be a big shock for most of us. It’s far from the end of the world though and on this forum you’ll find well over 70,000 people who are demonstrating this.

On the forum we have found that with the number of new people being diagnosed with diabetes each day, sometimes the NHS is not being able to give all the advice it would perhaps like to deliver - particularly with regards to people with type 2 diabetes.

The role of carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are a factor in diabetes because they ultimately break down into sugar (glucose) within our blood. We then need enough insulin to either convert the blood sugar into energy for our body, or to store the blood sugar as body fat.

If the amount of carbohydrate we take in is more than our body’s own (or injected) insulin can cope with, then our blood sugar will rise.

The bad news

Research indicates that raised blood sugar levels over a period of years can lead to organ damage, commonly referred to as diabetic complications.

The good news

People on the forum here have shown that there is plenty of opportunity to keep blood sugar levels from going too high. It’s a daily task but it’s within our reach and it’s well worth the effort.

Controlling your carbs

The info below is primarily aimed at people with type 2 diabetes, however, it may also be of benefit for other types of diabetes as well.
There are two approaches to controlling your carbs:

• Reduce your carbohydrate intake
• Choose ‘better’ carbohydrates

Reduce your carbohydrates

A large number of people on this forum have chosen to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat as they have found this to be an effective way of improving (lowering) their blood sugar levels.

The carbohydrates which tend to have the most pronounced effect on blood sugar levels tend to be starchy carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and similar root vegetables, flour based products (pastry, cakes, biscuits, battered food etc) and certain fruits.

Choosing better carbohydrates

Another option is to replace ‘white carbohydrates’ (such as white bread, white rice, white flour etc) with whole grain varieties. The idea behind having whole grain varieties is that the carbohydrates get broken down slower than the white varieties –and these are said to have a lower glycaemic index.
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/food/diabetes-and-whole-grains.html

The low glycaemic index diet is often favoured by healthcare professionals but some people with diabetes find that low GI does not help their blood sugar enough and may wish to cut out these foods altogether.

Read more on carbohydrates and diabetes

Eating what works for you

Different people respond differently to different types of food. What works for one person may not work so well for another. The best way to see which foods are working for you is to test your blood sugar with a glucose meter.

To be able to see what effect a particular type of food or meal has on your blood sugar is to do a test before the meal and then test after the meal. A test 2 hours after the meal gives a good idea of how your body has reacted to the meal.

The blood sugar ranges recommended by NICE are as follows:

Blood glucose ranges for type 2 diabetes

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 8.5 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (adults)

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 9 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (children)

• Before meals: 4 to 8 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 10 mmol/l

However, those that are able to, may wish to keep blood sugar levels below the NICE after meal targets.

Access to blood glucose test strips

The NICE guidelines suggest that people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should be offered:

• structured education to every person and/or their carer at and around the time of diagnosis, with annual reinforcement and review
• self-monitoring of plasma glucose to a person newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only as an integral part of his or her self-management education

Therefore both structured education and self-monitoring of blood glucose should be offered to people with type 2 diabetes. Read more on getting access to bloodglucose testing supplies.

You may also be interested to read questions to ask at a diabetic clinic

Note: This post has been edited from Sue/Ken's post to include up to date information.

Then try it out - what have you got to lose? Why not start by planning your meals for the next week, buying your supplies tomorrow and start.

LCHF is a very easy way to keep bg normal and, in many cases, to loose weight as well.

Basically, you cut out carbs as these will affect your bg badly and make you fat, and eat fat instead as fat neither rises bg nor makes you fat. Very easy.

The current belief you need to cut down on fat to loose weight is built on an extremely simplified version of metabolism with the body as a machine and food as fuel that has lead to the idea of energy in - energy out but completely disregards the fact that metabolism is about hormones.

By eating fat but not carbs you help your body and all the hormones involved in regulation of hunger, satiety, fat metabolism and everything else.

High levels of insulin will stop your body from using fat as fuel so when you cut out carbs insulin level will go down and your body will be able to use body fat instead of glucose. Your leptin levels will normalise and possible leptin resistance will normalise as well.

Good luck!

Hi Dawniet, as I mentioned in an earlier post I have lost 24lbs since being diagnosed in February. I cut out bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, cakes, biscuits, anything made with flour really. but continued eating low fat yoghurts, skimmed milk, not too much cheese etc., but soon realised that I couldn't stop losing weight, so switched to having my coffee with double cream, eating lots of cheese, full fat milk and full fat youghurts and my wieght has now stabilised. I am still very much in the learning curve at the moment, but have realised that the NHS is seriously out of touch when it comes to diabetes and I have learned so much more from this site and tend to ignore what my DSN says and do what is best for me. I was also told to only test once a week, but again I ignored this and test as much as I want, or need to see what my levels are doing and feel much better than I have in a long time.

So I suggest you give it a go and see how you get on. Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.

Marilyn

its hard to hear that fat is ok, when weve spent our whole lives being told the opposite, i am 6 stone lighter from my heaviest,(first 2 stone was an accident, no idea why i lost it, it was before dx) the weight was falling off and i still couldnt believe that fat was ok, it took a long while to eat the fat without the guilt, but yes, it is too good to be true, but true it is it dosent mean you have to consume blocks of lard, it just means you ignore the fat, cook with fat, have butter etc, just forget about the fat in stuff, i dont look for fat, i just dont avoid it, if i avoid anything, its low fat stuff, i also eat saturated fat with no regard, also my cholesterol and bp and beyond perfect, makes no sense does it hehe

edit: this is just my experience and opinion

Great possitive attitude im certain you will do brilliantly

Only remember that for the first couple of weeks or so you may get the low carb flu but this will pass. Plenty of water and some extra salt helps.

dawniet said:

HAPPY EASTER TO YOU ALL.

I have just read about the LCHF from the links people have kindly given on my thread. It makes totally perfect sense but I am having a little problem with the High Fat part.
Always had it drummed into me (from being very overweight) that it had to be Low Carb Low Fat. The diabetes nurse and DESMONDs course advocated this. And I am now confused haha.
But I can see that the High Fat in the LCHF diet is for energy.
I do drink a lot of diet coke and coffee with skimmed milk and sweeteners. And low fat yoghurts.
Have I got it right that these should be cut out?
It sounds like a great diet to follow and from reading back through this again loads of you have lost weight this way and I am totally in awe of you all.
Sorry if I am repeating what I have already been advised. Would love to get started as soon as I can but have always been a person who needs strict guidelines and this is the opposite and sounds like a great way of eating and, possibly, too good to be true...... Sounds like the diet I have been searching for all my life haha
xxx

Click to expand...

low fat yoghurts usually have added sugar.