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Prediabetes How long can a prediabetic (now in remission) be on diet and exercise alone?

I've had T2 since the end of Novermver 2013, and diabetic medication free since 2017. I was initially told to cut down on sugar, and I've been eating a low carb/ketogenic style diet since diagnosis. My glucose levels have been mainly at pre-diabetic/near normal levels since then, so maybe not "in remission" but my GP has always considered me "well controlled". I'm old and no longer very active, bur my diet works fine and I see no reason why I shouldn't continue eating this way indefinitely.
 
I'll just give my two cents worth. I have had a few close folks in my life who were diagnosed with prediabetes/started having high glucose and insulin levels in their blood, eight years ago when I was first diagnosed.

All three of these folks mentioned have developed full-blown type two in the intervening years. (And yes - they are loathe for me to find out, but such is friendship groups! Or gossip, or whatever you want to call it.) I feel for them, because they could not stand the fact that they were high-carb intolerant also, and desperately did not want what I was saying about food choices to be true. I do feel for them enormously. But there you are.

One of them lost a lot of belly fat weight, and kept up his strength in muscles via his work, but did not take up aerobic exercise, and did not cut his carbs to any noticeable degree. One of them cut down on the sugar, but not to a noticeable degree, and did not touch the amount of any other carbs she was consuming, and could not exercise due to physical disability. Another pal has put on a lot of weight, and I was there at their place at dinner time, when she and her husband had left-over pavlova for dinner (I of course did not/could not join them in that dinner! Boy did that hurt). So no carb-cutting. Alas on that one, she is very intelligent and a biology teacher to adults but wants very much that the governmental nutrition guidelines about saturated fat causing diabetes to be the case, so she has been keeping her diet low-fat, but yes - high carbs obviously.

You are on the right track with a prediabetes diagnosis if you ae lowering your carbs and upping physical movement. But the most important thing is the food - lowering sugar and carbs greatly, and avoiding heavily processed food, including those ultra-processed vege oils. That's what I said to my friends at any rate.
 
AloeSvea said:
I'll just give my two cents worth. I have had a few close folks in my life who were diagnosed with prediabetes/started having high glucose and insulin levels in their blood, eight years ago when I was first diagnosed.

All three of these folks mentioned have developed full-blown type two in the intervening years. (And yes - they are loathe for me to find out, but such is friendship groups! Or gossip, or whatever you want to call it.) I feel for them, because they could not stand the fact that they were high-carb intolerant also, and desperately did not want what I was saying about food choices to be true. I do feel for them enormously. But there you are.

One of them lost a lot of belly fat weight, and kept up his strength in muscles via his work, but did not take up aerobic exercise, and did not cut his carbs to any noticeable degree. One of them cut down on the sugar, but not to a noticeable degree, and did not touch the amount of any other carbs she was consuming, and could not exercise due to physical disability. Another pal has put on a lot of weight, and I was there at their place at dinner time, when she and her husband had left-over pavlova for dinner (I of course did not/could not join them in that dinner! Boy did that hurt). So no carb-cutting. Alas on that one, she is very intelligent and a biology teacher to adults but wants very much that the governmental nutrition guidelines about saturated fat causing diabetes to be the case, so she has been keeping her diet low-fat, but yes - high carbs obviously.

You are on the right track with a prediabetes diagnosis if you ae lowering your carbs and upping physical movement. But the most important thing is the food - lowering sugar and carbs greatly, and avoiding heavily processed food, including those ultra-processed vege oils. That's what I said to my friends at any rate.
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I’m prediabetic and I have recently posted about being thin outside fat inside giving me a terrible outlook for metabolic health! Yet I’m normal weight almost underweight. So I am a member of a few nhs groups and they are adamant we must not cut all carbs as the body’s preferred energy source is carbs and that we need the fibre in them. But what I’ve noticed myself included is that when I did try very low carb like 30 carbs a day my hba1c went down from 42 to 38 but that was with extremely low carb! I was so hungry all the time and I lose possibly abit too much weight but still had that awful belly fat hanging around. So I was sent to a dietician who advised to reintroduce healthy carbs like lentils and beans wholemeal pasta! So I did not too many of them and my hba1c jumped up to 40! Which was still normal but I just find this all so difficult how on the earth can we sustain this???? In all the groups I’m in the nhs ones most people are struggling to keep their hba1cs in the prediabetic level but they are still all eating a quarter of a plate of slow release carbs but hba1c stay the same or increase??? When people mention maybe lowering carbs more we all get told it’s not necessary as we need them! It’s hard trying to get this right
 
gowest12 said:
when I did try very low carb like 30 carbs a day my hba1c went down from 42 to 38 but that was with extremely low carb! I was so hungry all the time and I lose possibly abit too much weight
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Did you eat enough?
Being hungry sounds like you might have been reducing calories as well as carbs. Did you eat something when you felt hungry?
 
gowest12 said:
I’m prediabetic and I have recently posted about being thin outside fat inside giving me a terrible outlook for metabolic health! Yet I’m normal weight almost underweight. So I am a member of a few nhs groups and they are adamant we must not cut all carbs as the body’s preferred energy source is carbs and that we need the fibre in them. But what I’ve noticed myself included is that when I did try very low carb like 30 carbs a day my hba1c went down from 42 to 38 but that was with extremely low carb! I was so hungry all the time and I lose possibly abit too much weight but still had that awful belly fat hanging around. So I was sent to a dietician who advised to reintroduce healthy carbs like lentils and beans wholemeal pasta! So I did not too many of them and my hba1c jumped up to 40! Which was still normal but I just find this all so difficult how on the earth can we sustain this???? In all the groups I’m in the nhs ones most people are struggling to keep their hba1cs in the prediabetic level but they are still all eating a quarter of a plate of slow release carbs but hba1c stay the same or increase??? When people mention maybe lowering carbs more we all get told it’s not necessary as we need them! It’s hard trying to get this right
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Well - they can argue against biological facts for as long as they like - didn't doctors advise smoking for lung diseases at one time.
Low carb is perfectly sustainable - I am having steak and stir fry for dinner tonight, and then coffee with cream.
There is never any need to go hungry on low carb, though I find that on two meals a day I am simply not hungry at all and some days I get distracted and only eat once.
I suspect that 40 or even 50 gm of carbs would keep most type 2s in the normal range - as long as they are nothing more interesting and exotic than plain vanilla type 2.
If you are being pushed to eat carbs and it is a constant impediment to your being in the normal range for blood glucose, report your experience to the group and then leave - life is too short to try to deal with such stuff.
It may take some time, but consistent low carb over the last 5 years has reduced my wait measurement by over a foot and my belly button now sits several inches higher so I don't fold over any more.
 
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