Head, Sand & Buried - Diagnosed last year as type 2

[Jogon]

I did come here and post about my new diagnosis and was given some very good info but not all of it did I understand so i'm going to try again and add in my journey so far.

First off my stats (revised)

I'm male
60yrs old
108kg (17st 6 in old money), so overweight..
188CM (6ft 2)
BMI 31.3 (if anyone acutally uses it as a guide
with a recommended daily calorie intake 2100 to 2700.
I have moderately high blood pressure so take 32mg of one tablet
and a small dose salt reducing and which since taking the salt tablet
has helped greatly reduce my bp to an aveage of 120 over 82

I also take a variety of other tablets, inclusive of Morphine/Pregablin
to help with pain relief as without them I struggle to walk any distance
and by that I mean Metres not 10's or 100s of and as such exercise
is difficult...with that said I am fairly robust (rotund maybe) and dont sit around all day
as I like to try and remain active as I can, I did start swimming but found
a problem that whilst swimming you don't feel your weight but as soon
as I got out the weight would distribute back to the base of my spine and
I quite literally found myself crawling out of the pool until things had settled
down ...

I bought a True Metrix monitor and started taking readings daily, before meal
and post meal 2hours later, I could kind of see what foods gave the most
increase and which didn't ...as an example if I enjoyed white bread with
butter and beans on toast stylee as breakfast my readings would go up by
about 3 mmol? from say 9.2 to 12.2..? If i swapped to brown bread and
tomatoes on toast with no spead it might go up 1mmol? ...and so it went
on....

Now for the head/buried/sand... I was prescribed Metformin and Atvast?
but have been reluctant to take it as I simly take wayyyy too much medication
as it is an Morphine plays havoc with my stomach at times.
Did have a meet with diabetes nurse at my gp's who gave a small amount
of advice (it was they who put me on to the goodness from the likes of tomatoes
on toast) and they promised a follow up call but it never came...

I still struggle making head ot tail of my meter as i dont know if the readings
are typical or are the norm or what is bad/rally bad?
What i have noticed is that over time my readings on average have gone up
a little...as in when I first started taking them in April 22, they would work out
on average between 7.0mmol/l & 10.0mmol/l and now I'm getting highs of
11.9mmol/l and lows of 8.0mmol/l the highest ever has been 11.9mmol/l and
the lowest in the last month has been 6.4mmol/l but averaging between 8 & 9
Over the last year I've swapped out milk for semi-skimmed, I've cut out most
but not all sweet stuff, so choc almost non existent even the occasional kit
kat is no more, I've cut down on biscuits to pretty much nothing, I've gone
from butter to lurpak unsalted and my biggest weakneesses are cake, i love
almost all forms of cake but now have it occasionally, I don't smoke, I don't
drink and I do eat veg and fruit and only recently have I stopped sugar in any
drinks, I was on sweetners in coffee but can now drink it without but Tea I have
found hard with sweetners, yuk but I happened last week by chance to try a canderel
sachet and actually enjoyed my tea so now its granule form canderel in tea only and if
I can i'll try the tablet form next. I'm not a fan of fatty foods and have found food
cooked in air-fryer much more enoyable?

I actually eat less than my partner and our teenage children.

I can if I need to lose weight and this is where i'm at as of today, I want to
get to 16st 6 in a month...I'm quite capable of getting to 17st in less than
a week, I've found the 17st to 16st 6 tough, I've gotten close but then had
an accident and was laid up ... I feel that with a stone less in weight my
first benefit will be my spine/weight carrying and then obviously my bp
will lower further ...but as to diet/diabetes...i'm not sure


So my 'journey is kind of not a journey but as per title, head/buried/sand

 

[Deleted member 475901]

For a Type 2 it isn't how much we eat but what we eat.
I, as have many others, both got into remission and lost loads of weight by carb counting instead of calories. That would mean sticking with the butter instead of the more processed spreads, back to full fat milk and yogurt, but cut down or cut out bread, rice, pasta, wheat flour, and most root veg.

There is plenty of advice, and even recipes for low carb cake.

Here are the ranges for BS:

Normal and Diabetic Blood Sugar Level Ranges

Normal blood sugar ranges and blood sugar ranges for adults and children with type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes and blood sugar ranges to determine diabetes.

www.diabetes.co.uk

 

[catinahat]

The secret to using your meter is not to focus too much on the actual numbers, our blood sugar levels are on the move all day long depending on what we are doing. It not just food that causes a change in our levels, any activities, stress, illness, poor sleep, pain, the list is endless. If you throw the less than desirable accuracy of the meters in to the mix, trying to figure out why you got a 10 one day and a 8 another is pointless.
Our meters give us a rough idea of where our levels are, they are useful for spotting trends as you have already realised, your levels on average are rising.
The main benefits of testing for us though is to see how we can alter our diet to improve our control.
Your breakfast for example, your meter has shown you that tomatoes on toast have less impact than beans on toast.
The colour of the bread will have made little difference to your sugar levels, our bodies can't see if bread is brown or white, it can only see the carbs.
Now if you had not bothered with bread, had some bacon, eggs and mushrooms to go with the tomatoes, it would have had no impact at all on your levels, you could easily have found that your 2hr reading was lower than your pre breakfast one.
For us it's all about the carbs, you will have lower blood sugar and probably loose weight by counting carbs not calories.