Help - just diagnosed!!

Hi Becky welcome to the forum,we've all been there,confused ,unsure wondering what is going to happen.Then we all found this forum and it's great help and support.You are not alone here and can ask any question you like ,someone will answer it.
First your question about bread,potatoes ,pasta and rice.These are the starchy carbohydrates,these convert 100% into glucose in the body therefore affect your blood sugar levels.To start with just cut down your portion sizes of these,this will help reduce your blood sugars.If you can get a blood testing monitor from your nurse ,test before a meal and there 2 hours after to see what effect that meal has had on your blood sugars.We are all different so some foods affect some people and some don't.The aim is to get your blood sugar level below 7 and preferably lower to get good control.
Please read some of the things in the forum and don't hesitate to ask questions,it will all make sense in a while!!

What you need to do is take a step back and have a look at some books and read some advice on here. Yes cut sugar out. As for bread pasta potatoes rice, they affect differant people differant ways. Rice and pasta have little effect on me but bread and tats do :roll: Anything processed sends my blood sky high.

The thing is we're all differant and you need to find what suits you. You can do this by purchasing an inexpensive test meter, test before meals and about 2 hours after. Cut out the food that sends your blood high.

You will no doubt have loads of very detailed replies from some very informed and experianced diabetics, so I'll try and keep it simple and brief.

Try the book - The GI Diet by Rick Gallop and a collins little gem Carb counting. I stick mainly to a GI Diet and have reduced my carb intake somewhat.

Also try to take a little more exercise, a combination of all these have cintinued to keep my blood at normal (non diabetic) levels.

Good luck to you

Ahh, Sue, we must have been repling at the same time :wink:

Great minds C .

It's an average of blood glucose over the last 3 months. You can't directly compare HbA1c and blood glucose though, ie if your blood glucose is always 6 your HbA1c won't be 6.

Hiya Becky,
I'm new to all this too - but I think its something you learn to manage and get better as time goes on. I've found this forum a great help already - first thing I learned from here was to take each day as it comes!

Hayley

One of my favourite starter sites

http://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com/2006/10/d-day.html

useful technical stuff

http://www.bloodsugar101.com/

I tend to push testing at your post-meal peak which is more likely to be around 1 hour and modify your diet accordingly. We all find things we can eat that spike others and vice versa but the general pattern is the same, reduce starches and increase non-starchy vegetables, non-trans fats and eat plenty of fish and white meat gives you a pretty good jumping off point