Hello first post so fingers crossed

Hello and a hearty welcome to the forum! I would love to see more people like you joining i.e. people who think they may be at risk and do not wait until that risk becomes a reality. Well done.
Have a wander around the forum and ask as many questions as you like.

Welcome

Hello, and welcome! You're not diabetic, but I still think you might benefit from @daisy1 's information pack for newbees. She'll post it on this thread when she's on line again.

@banshee71

Hello Banshee and welcome to the Forum Here is the Basic Information we give to new members and I hope you will find it useful and interesting. Ask as many questions as you like and someone will 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 235,000 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

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.

Over 145,000 people have taken part in the Low Carb Program - a 10 week structured education course that is helping people lose weight and reduce medication dependency by explaining the science behind carbs, insulin and GI.

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 blood glucose 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.
Take part in Diabetes.co.uk digital education programs and improve your understanding. Most of these are free.

• Low Carb Program - it's made front-page news of the New Scientist and The Times. Developed with 20,000 people with type 2 diabetes; 96% of people who take part recommend it... find out why
  
  
• Hypo Program - improve your understanding of hypos. There's a version for people with diabetes, parents/guardians of children with type 1, children with type 1 diabetes, teachers and HCPs.
  

Hi Banshee and welcome, well done on taking this on to improve your health..
I started low carb eating just over a year ago to control my newly diagnosed type 2. Aside from doing just that, I have derived huge benefits. I have lost 5 stone 10 1/2lbs, my arthritis has benefitted, not just weight bearing joints but neck and hands too, due I think to the anti inflammatory effect of the diet. My asthma is much better too. Keep at it and come back here if you need more info and support. You might find this thread helpful, if you haven’t seen it already, loads of us post what we’ve eaten and swap low carb recipes:
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/what-have-you-eaten-today.75781/page-736

Good morning Banshee

I Think, in the UK, that this is possibly the best place to be to get some support for your dietary changes. From my personal experience, I have eliminated GERD, High BP, severe joint pains and pre-diabetes on a strict low carb high fat diet and have lost 30kg on the way. I am a member of many, many assorted LCHF groups and forums and this one is very supportive and kind.

The good news is that on a strict LCHF diet, you won’t have to exercise a lot (or at all) to see the weight loss you need. You need to get some good solid guidance on where to start, an Atkins diet book is as good as anything, but if you get the most recent one (New Atkins for a New You) ignore the advice to use Atkins bars and shakes. With an auto-immune condition, you need to just eat real food, with no inflammatory vegetable oils and no grains. Or you could get hold of an older Atkins book, you often see them in charity shops, the basic diet has remained largely unchanged. It was New Atkins New You (with all the good quality science clearly explained of why the diet works and why it is healthy) that finally convinced me that the diet was good for me, for life.

Or you could get Tim Noakes Real Meal Revolution, a lovely recipe book that also contains all the science and his easy to follow ‘lists’, or, to keep things simple you could just download the green list from his website and just eat the foods on that.

http://www.thenoakesfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Green-List.pdf

Or you could join ‘Diet Doctor’. The free version is fine, but you can subscribe if you want a more personalised support.

https://www.dietdoctor.com/

These fine resources are all you need to get started and the weight will melt away. When you are a little lighter, and hopefully your pain levels will reduce, you will be able to incorporate some movement into your regime, of course movement is good for all aspects of health and fitness, but when you are too heavy and in too much pain, it can be put on hold until your pain levels subside and your weight reduces.

Get started, start today, it’s easy. Have some eggs for breakfast, some meat or fish and a salad for lunch and meat or fish and any above ground vegetables for dinner and you’re off! Drink plenty of fluids and take extra salt, the diet is a natural diuretic.

Good luck.

Morning @banshee71 welcome to the forum. Echo what has been said, great that you are looking to seek help and advice. You say your boyfriend has done well on LCHF so that could be the inspiration you need. I know you have other health problems and its a little harder but try and stick with it. The fact that you and your boyfriend are on the same programme will help. Also he can do most of the cooking as he has the experience of LCHF, winner or what!! You are in the right place for help, advice and support. Any questions just ask. Good luck on your journey.

Welcome to the forum. You will find a lot of support & guidance here

Excellent, I look forward to hearing regular updates and good progress, well done you.

I was so disappointed to miss meeting Prof Noakes in the flesh at the PHCUK conference, I bought my ticket as soon as he was announced as a speaker, but then a dear friend of ours who is terminally ill in Spain announced that he was having a big birthday party there, then getting married the following weekend in Gibraltar, the same week as the conference, and we had to go, of course, so I missed it. (PHCUK very generously refunded my ticket price). I cannot wait for the videos to be released from that, it sounded wonderful. I find all these things so inspirational and Tim Noakes is my hero! The powers that be certainly picked on the wrong man to attempt to discredit and undermine.

Anyway, good to hear from you, good to hear of your excellent progress and keep on keeping on! This time you will lose the weight, reduce or eliminate your ill health issues, reduce your risk of following family footsteps to T2 diabetes and regain your health and your life! Well done you!

Welcome and I wish you all the luck in the world.

Tony

Welcome, great to see someone preventing T2, I wish I had done the same.

I have been severely obese, now my BMI is around 40, and I think once I've got over the latest health hurdle it will be around 28, which will be great. So I know what some of the implications of obesity are.

GERD and sleep problems could be caused by the obesity but it wouldn't hurt to get a sleep study all the same. I think you are probably at risk for sleep apnoea and if you have it, getting it under control with CPAP (which is way more comfortable to use at night than most people think) would help you feel better as you continue to lose weight.

Once you are at your goal weight if a sleep study shows you no longer need it, you can stop and you've lost nothing. there's no downside to this approach.

Sleep apnoea makes everything harder, including weight loss and chronic conditions like fibromyalgia. Untreated sleep apnoea can lead to car crashes (which can kill you and others), or stroke, heart problems etc. Most GPs don't pay enough attention to it.

banshee71 said:

AtkinsMo- Sorry to hear your friend is so ill, of course you had to go, Hope they had a wonderful birthday/wedding, bittersweet I imagine

Maybe next year you'll get a chance, i hope to catch a conference one day.

Jenny15- i've had a sleep study, its common for fibro so being obese and having fibro the rheumatologist referred me, Suprisingly i don't have sleep apnoea. It's one of the things that brought it home to me that i needed to seriously make changes, great advice though, i'd never really heard of it.

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So glad to hear you didn't have sleep apnoea. Was it a full sleep study in a clinic? Because that's the only type of study capable of picking up some of the other disorders that can cause problems akin to sleep apnoea. Those disorders are even less well known than OSA. Also, the study need to be repeated in a few years if things change. They tend not to bother treating you if your result (AHI) was lowish, ie under 15 events per hour. But even that few can still cause major issues esp with fibromyalgia, and would benefit from treatment.