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Hello and questions

M

Margarettt

Well-Known Member
Messages
367
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Hi there,
I was diagnosed as type 2 on Friday via a phone call with the GP ( You're at 53 and I would rather you were under 52 so not too bad. Lose weight, avoid sugar and we'll see you in three months) That was it so I am now in full on research mode and am very glad to have found this forum.
Both my parents were diabetic by my age(mid fifties) and I'm overweight so it is not really a surprise.
My strips and monitor arrived today so as you might imagine I've been playing with it all day long.
Readings thus far. Lunch at 12.30pm then at 3.30pm read as 7.1. Then two hours after dinner it was 6.1 and 2 hours later 7.3
I had nothing else to eat or drink after dinner but at 11pm it was 9.1 and then at midnighr 6.3 Is that strange?
Could nicotine lozengers cause a spike? I've sucked nicotine lozengers all day long, right up till falling asleep for 20 years. its only the 1mg and I always thought they were ok because they are sugar free but i do use far too many.Could they be the reason the numbers went up?. I'd find it far more difficult to stop them than change my diet.
I've read lots of posts about low carbs, For now I've been trying to keep the "of which sugar" in carbs to less than 25g a day (I read that somewhere) and about 1200 calories but I'm open to any advice on what works best.
I'm looking foeward to lots of reading and learning.
M
 
Unfortunately you had some rather odd advice as all carbohydrate becomes simple sugars in the blood - so they all need to be counted.
The good news is that, being in the lower part of the diabetes range, a few cutbacks should take you back into normal levels.
You can chose to reduce either starch or sugar - maybe swapping potato and bread for less carb heavy options is all that would be required.
I didn't do multiple testing so can't really tell you anything about your results.
The usual reqime is to test just before starting to eat, then two hours after that as that gives a good indication of how good a match you and the meal was
 
Hi @Margarett and welcome to the forums.

I'm going to give you this intro to low carb and T2 from one of our T2 members @JoKalsbeek

The Nutritional Thingy

There’s a few things you should know. 1. Practically all carbs turn to glucose once ingested , so not just straight sugars, but starches...
josekalsbeek.blogspot.com

In short, weight gain is a common symptom (not cause) of T2 and most T2s have issues with carbs, so the "of which sugars" isn't that relevant,

It's fantastic that you have a meter though, as you'll be able to test before and 2 hours after a meal to see whether the food in that meal agreed with your blood sugar levels.

The nicotine gum is an interesting question. I guess you could do some experimentation on that one (you have a meter).
I do know that nicotine and diabetes are a bad combination, and google tells me that nicotine gum can raise blood sugar (sorry).

Smoking and Diabetes

If you have diabetes, your body starts using insulin better after you quit smoking! Find out other surprising health benefits of being a former smoker.
www.cdc.gov
Products with nicotine raise your blood sugar, so be sure to talk to your doctor about using them if you have diabetes.

In your position, I'd let my meter be my guide though.

Good luck
 
the gum doesn't stop you smoking as it's a waste of time and money using it the one I found that helps is vaping it's got nothing in it to interfere with your blood sugars and that I know because I do it and I just add the nicotine in it and as you vape you don't get any of the mess from cigarettes in your lungs which would have been good in my earlier years but I found it easy to use and it lets you have the same amount of nicotine as a cigarette but more importantly it's healthier and more importantly it's not a problem with the lungs and heart and you don't get any side effects just wanting the nicotine and you get that as you vape and you don't smell of cigarettes and the other things that come with them
 
Hi and welcome.

The purpose of testing with a meter is to find out how well your system copes with whatever you ate. So as well as recording your readings, you also should find an advantage in keeping a food diary. Blood glucose levels vary naturally in response to many things all the time, and your liver will top up blood glucose if it thinks you need it. Our livers aren't always right.

Without knowing what you ate and what else you did it's nigh impossible to interpret your readings.

The normal testing pattern is to establish a baseline by testing directly before you eat, and then testing again two hours after finishing. In the meantime carbs in the food you ate will have been digested to glucose, and that will have been shifted into your bloodstream. Your blood glucose levels rise accordingly (everyone's does).

At the same time your insulin system starts (or should start) working on the glucose, and moving it into muscle cells. Those of us with insulin resistance (T2) will find that the glucose isn't being managed efficiently and accordingly glucose gets stored as fat or hangs around in the blood. The test at +2 hours tells you how well your system coped by measuring the level of glucose in the blood.

If your second reading is not more than 2mmol/l higher than the first, and not above 7.8mmol/l, that shows that you can cope with the level of carb in that meal.

Don't be fooled by the "of which sugars" which is a manufacturer's trick - ALL carbohydrate is digested to glucose and you really need to be counting eveything. I have never bothered with calories as they are pretty much irrelevant. I went on to around 20g carb/day and it really worked for me (results in my signature below). For me that meant no potatoes, pasta, rice, bread, fruit, pastry, or sugar. Other people find they can do well on slightly higher levels of carb.
 
My point was that chewing the gum is healthier than smoking, I don’t know anything about vaping other than when I tried it it for a very short time it gave me a terrible cough and made me a bit breathless .

My understanding is that the dangers of vaping are still being explored, especially in the light of deaths of some younger people who’s death was attributed to vaping, it’s a well documented fact that vaping can be bad for your lungs

What Are the Early Warning Signs of Vaping Illness?

Many people have been hospitalized, and some have died from vaping illness. But how do you know if you have it? Here’s what to look out for.
www.webmd.com
Do you have a link to the claims that vaping is healthier than chewing nicotine gum?
 
On the lozenges - out of interest I had a look at the ingredienets. There seems (on the two or three I looked at) to be a liberal use of things like xanthan gum and mannitol, which crop up in many other places. I avoid ultra-processed food with these sorts of things in them, so (if I wanted the nicotine) I wouldn't be all that keen on these lozenges.
 
Thank you all for the thoughtful responses.
I've read lots and lots and watched videos and downloaded the Freshwell app and absolutely am going to have a go at the low carb lifestyle
Yesterday I went through all the food cupboards and threw out or gave away lots of tins and pastas etc. and then did a big food shop so we are all set.
I'm still testing lots and lots on top of immediately before eating and two hours after and actually beginning to see what might be reasons. For example on Monday I had my usual lunch time tin of soup and two slices of whole meal. Its a staple for me because its only about 300 calories(I have a 20 year history of losing and gaining lots of weight) but when I checked it was about 36 grams of carbs. My monitor was 8.2 before eating and 12.1 two hours later. After another two hours it was 6.6.
Counting carbs is new to me I can add calories (and weight watchers points and slimming world syns) without trying but it feels bizarre that fried eggs with cheese is a better fit than a peach and a mango. I'm sure I'll get used to it.
I moved to low carb at lunch time yesterday and my numbers haven't been over 7.7 since . I know its not even 24hrs but I've tested 8 times in that window and its all been between 6.1 and 7.7 rather than the 9s 10s and 12s of the preceding days so I'm hopeful.
Goodness this turned into a novel, sorry.
Actual questions:- Is there a tinned or easy to make low carb soup that could go to work in a flask?
I know some people say not to count and just eat low carb but counting gives me security so how do I make a target? 20g? 30g? etc.
Do the carbs you do eat have to be spread out evenly across the day or can you save and splurge?
Is it okay to eat something low carb at night if your up late and hungry and how would you test two hours after?
I'll have to stop testing 12 times a day soon because the strips are expensive so before eating and two hours after- does testing when you wake count as before breakfast even if breakfast is a couple of hours away?
So pleased to have found you. I hope all my posts arent this long and annoying.
M
 
You're not annoying and you're asking good questions. So there.

Is there a tinned or easy to make low carb soup that could go to work in a flask?
Usually if it's tinned it's sugary/salty. I've taken to powdered broth or watered down tomato/veg juice, and heating that up with a pinch of salt and pepper.

I know some people say not to count and just eat low carb but counting gives me security so how do I make a target? 20g? 30g? etc.
20 grams a day is the "usual" keto advice, though some people get into ketosis at 40 grams a day. This is where your meter comes in. That will tell you how many carbs you can handle. It's different for everyone, levels of insulin resistance/sensitivity, over all metabolism, actvity etc... So there's no real one size fits all, and I can't give you definitive numbers. I just kept halving. Went from 80 to 40 to 20 grams a day. See what suits you.

Do the carbs you do eat have to be spread out evenly across the day or can you save and splurge?
Hello, weight watchers point system. No, it doesn't quite work like that. If you eat a few no carb meals and then splurge on a 100 gram meal, you'll spike. Better to just take it easy on all meals relatively evenly, and not "save up".

Is it okay to eat something low carb at night if your up late and hungry and how would you test two hours after?
Don't. If you know it's low carb, you already know it'll not spike you. If you've tested a certain food two or three times and have seen no spikes, no need to keep testing that food. So if you snack on a bit of cheese for instance, hard cheeses being low to no carbs, or a boiled egg for instance... Don't bother testing. You're going through strips fast enough as it is.

I'll have to stop testing 12 times a day soon because the strips are expensive so before eating and two hours after- does testing when you wake count as before breakfast even if breakfast is a couple of hours away?
The morning numbers aren't that interesting, you can skip those. It's affected by the liver dump, not by what you eat, so it's the last number to come down eventually... Not worth testing more than once every two weeks or so, if at all. And no, the idea is testing right before you tuck in, and 2 hours after. With the liver dumping glucose in the morning, you test.... And it's a certain number. If you eat a few hours later, but have been awake and active, your liver will have continued to dump glucose to keep you going. It'll be a different starting point, if you want to measure how your body responds to a food. The two hours after the first bite test would be meaningless, because you might've been two points lower of higher, of three, of four... Can't measure if you don't have a trustworthy baseline, you need to be consistent or it's a waste of strips. I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well though, but... Test right before you eat and 2 hours after the first bite. That'll give you numbers that mean something.

And again, if you've tried a meal a few times and it's all good, save your strips for meals you haven't tried yet. By the way, how do you get through 12 strips a day? Are you having 3 meals and 3 snacks? Because if you feel you need snacks, then your main meals just aren't big enough to sustain you and need rethinking. (If you have three eggs, make it four, for instance). The fewer the times your pancreas has to come into action per day, the better it is. Your body's been flooded with insulin for so long it has become insensitive to it. So... Flood it less and hopefully, regain some insulin sensitivity. That's the idea anyway.

Hope this helps!
Jo
 
Thank you again for all the great advice

M
 
Margarettt said:
easy to make low carb soup that could go to work in a flask?
Click to expand...
I'd go for the Cabbage soup that was the basis of the Cabbage soup diet a few years ago. Basically Cabbage of any colour with any other veg that grow above the ground (green beans, cauliflower, courgette, broccoli etc) add an onion or 2. Bouillon stock for flavour (I like Marigold powder). Add water, a tin of chopped tomatoes and cook. Makes loads and freezes well.
Then eat it with a chunk of cheese or a piece of chicken...No bread
I used to make it on Sunday while cooking the roast amd it did 3 of us right through the week.
 
MrsA2 said:
'd go for the Cabbage soup
Click to expand...
Yes.... I remember cabbage soup in the 80s and all the windy jokes that went with it! Definitely an option for Autumn. Can I ask (I understand it will vary on amount of veg etc) If I make it by your great instructions, how many carbs would I count for a small flask?
Thanks again
M
 
Depends on what you put in. You might not have to be all that precise, in my experience. If you're aiming for around 20g/day, you can accidentally exceed it easily so you need to be a bit more careful, If 50g/day works for you, there's a bit more scope.

The issue with a lot of prepared soups is the thickening agents they use, which all seem to be carb. Before keto, I would have used potato or flour: that has had to go. So my soups are a bit thinner than they used to be. I made a fish chowder recently and did add a bit of potato - as the rest of the soup was almost entirely fish and cream I thought it might work. 300g potato is around 60g carb, roughly 80g carb in total with another 20g added for onion etc. Made eight pints of soup, therefore somewhere around 10g a pint.

The other thing is that as well as the carbs per 100g, you also need to factor in how much of the food you're going to eat. So I will happily have a 10g teaspoon of pickle (carb 35g/100g) as in total it's 3.5g. A lower carb food - say onions, at 8g/100g seem "better", but if you eat 500g onions that's taking in 40g carbs.


I found the Diet doctor website very useful for a quick and visual guide:

Keto Vegetables – The Visual Guide to the Best and Worst – Diet Doctor

What vegetables should you eat on a keto diet? Above ground vegetables are lower in carbs and a great option. Below ground vegetables (root vegetables) aren't as good. Avocado, tomatoes, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, and olives are good for a keto diet.
www.dietdoctor.com
 
One of the food tracking apps would work for you, choose the option of adding a custom recipe, then add the ingredients, obvs including weight, one by one. I use Cronometer on my laptop ( it's less confusing for me than on my smart phone) where I can configure the recipe to calculate through per gram or per serving. I love the sort of soup @MrsA2 mentioned, I often have it liquidised and thickened with double cream.
 
Google “I breathe I’m hungry turbo Atkins diet soup” it’s part of a 5 day meal plan that I’ve used a couple of times and the soup is absolutely amazing! It’s chicken & vegetables and it’s 4 net carb per serving, it’s extremely filling and satisfying. The recipe is for a great big pan (10 portions) but it freezes very well.

It’s also a bit low in calories but you can up the fats and calories by adding butter. It goes in a flask great I have a wide mouth flask which I’ve used for it as it’s a chunky soup but I’ve also blended single portions as well and added cream. I have it with a low carb roll if I’m not on the 5 day reset plan

Everyone in our house loves it when I make it and ask for it a lot in the winter
 
KennyA said:
found the Diet doctor website very useful for a quick and visual guide:
Click to expand...
This link is a great start for me . I fell away from cooking from scratch years ago and have never ever made soup so some of the stuff i google is a bit overwhelming but this is great.
Thank you
 
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