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Hi, I'm new and confused..

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beetroot

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Hello everyone, i have just been diagnosed with type 2, after being told i was borderline a few months ago, my last bloodfast result was 7.6 and i need educating.

I have started the tablets given and reducing my sugar levels but at times i feel lousy so i was wondering could i maybe be reducing my sugar too much? How do we know and what is the average sugar intake per day we should be looking for?
 
Hi Beetroot and welcome to the forum. Do you test your blood sugar levels at all? This is the only way to find out how the foods that you are eating are affecting your daily blood sugar levels.
When you use the word, 'sugar' are you checking the amount of carbohydrate in your food? Carbohydrate is what puts your blood sugar levels up by turning into glucose in the body.Sugar is just one part of the carbohydrate family.You should be looking to reduce your carbohydrate level ,initially , done to below 100gm per day and then,once you get used to that maybe even lower depending on what suits you and how well you are controlling your blood sugar levels.
 
Thank you so much for the reply and the information Sue. I only started with this last week and feel very overwhelmed by it all but i am waiting for a hospital referral appointment and hopefully will be able to get a lot more infomation and education from them.

I dont have a meter to test levels just yet but i have been trying to read labels on food and such to cut down where possible. I didnt know about the 100g carbs but now i do i will try to keep them around that level. It doesnt help that my GP has reduced my anti-depressants in readyness to start a different one at a later date?

I have been feeling a bit anxious about it all really and am glad to have found this forum.
 
Hi beetroot,

I'm a Type 2 who has reversed my situation simply by changing what I eat.

After cutting out the obvious sweet stuff, I suggest that you cut back on the carbohydrate and I expect that you will soon find a very big improvement. In particular, be very careful about eating cereals and bread - especially in the morning.

Starting to test will help you to see what is happening.

Best Wishes - John
 
Hi John, thanks for the reply and well done for reversing your situation, you must have worked hard..

I appreciate your input and do have a weakness for cereal in the mornings but i have reduced the amount and i am starting to be aware of carbs a lot more now. I agree about the readings, i think they will definitely give me more of an idea where i am going wrong and can change things for the better.

Take care
Beetroot
 
Hi again Beetroot,

What I found when I started testing is that almost any amount of cereal for breakfast (porridge, All Bran, Weetabix, Shredded Wheat etc) all took my blood glucose levels to 10+. I tried eating amounts as small as 30g but that didn't seem to help in any way. Toast does the same. However, I can eat quite a lot of carbohydrate in the evenings. I've changed my breakfast to variations on tomatoes fried in a small amount of olive oil, grilled lean bacon, low-fat sausages, mushrooms, baked beans etc. If I have toast I have no more than half a slice of Burgen bread (lower carbohydrate than most other breads). If I do have cereal now I eat Lizi's granola (Low GI nut based) cereal.

I reckon that change has been the biggest factor in my improvement.

For lunch I have a mixed salad including chopped up fruit with smallish amounts of ham, chicken or fish (tuna or mackerel).

In the evenings I am more adventurous but tend to still be careful about the carbohydrate and only eat things such as brown rice, spelt pasta etc keeping well clear of white refined carbohydrate products.

I eat lots of fruit and vegetables, also small amounts of mixed nuts, also yoghurt at some time in the day. In addition, these days I drink very little alcohol and when I do it tends to be red wine.

It hasn't been difficult at all for me and when I could see the constant improvements that kept me well motivated.

Best Wishes - John
 
John,

I am getting close to where I want to be and am contemplating "trying out" Granola. Problem is, I guess you would need approx 200mils of milk which would be about 10g of carb.
In my current regime, my entire breakfast allowance is 6-8g of carbs.
Do you use milk, if so how much?.
Do we know of any milk substitutes which are lower carb (soya?)

Steve.
 
Yes Steve - We use skimmed milk "The One" from Tesco which has 4.6 g of carbohydrate per 100mls (can't tell the difference in taste and looks between that and semi-skimmed milk. I've never measured out my milk but would have thought that 100mls is a lot to have with a small bowl of cereal.

When I was eating cereals I used to use soya milk has got a different taste and difficult to use in hot drinks but I found it OK to use with the cereals. Since I stopped eating cereals on a regular basis I've not been buying it because I wasn't using enough milk to justify buying it.

However here is the data you were asking for:

Soya milk (20 cals & 0.2g carb per 100 ml)
Skimmed (33 cals & 5g carb per 100 ml)
Semi-skimmed (46 cals & 5g carb per 100 ml)
Whole milk (66 cals & 5g carb per 100 ml)

John
 
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