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How Many Carbs Should I Be Eating?

L

LadyOG

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Hi all,

Was just diagnosed as Prediabetic a few days ago and after a bit of shock and despair I'm now treating this as an opportunity to transform my life!
I'm quite familiar with low carb diets as when i was younger i used to live by the Atkins for years. I was at my thinnest at this time but it got quite difficult emotionally and I began to feel as if the diet was controlling every aspect of my life and it became unhealthy living on 20g of carbs for so long and found it difficult to re-introduce carbs as the diet recommended. So eventually i stopped the diet and ballooned almost instantly to what i am now which is 14stones (i'm 5'3) and its the largest i've ever been. My metabolism was really out of whack and It was hard to do any other other diet successfully for a long time after i stopped Atkins.

So fast forward to today and after alot of research It's quite apparent that to keep my blood sugars low I will need to resume a low carb diet and the idea is kinda scaring me. I have already started restricing my carbs to 80-100g which is considerably low compared to what ive been eating over recent years but im unsure if this will be enough to make any serious changes to reverse the prediabetes figure of 43.

What carb intake should a prediabetic be eating? I'm really hoping i dont have to go below 50g.
Thanks for your help!
 
Reducing carbs to what you are doing now is a good start. If you have a meter it is a good idea to take measurements before and after to see how various foods affect your glucose level. This will indicate what carbs are doing to your blood glucose.

It is only half the picture though and it sounds like you know this. Weighing around 90kg means you would likely be consuming over 9500 kJ per day. Going by your height I suspect you need to lose about 25kg. Keep the carbs low and drop down to a reasonable weight and you will most likely find that you stand a good crack at keeping this at bay. Not only do you need to moderate the carbs but also reduce kJ intake. Try chopping about 3000 kJ off. 6500kJ should be plenty for a 160 cm body. Hard work I know and it will take about two years and a lot of discipline. Balancing the correct nutrition as well is a steep learning curve. At least you've made a good start. Might be a good idea to consult your healthcare professionals as well, just in case there may be an underlying metabolic issue to deal with.
Have fun,
Glenn
 
How many or how little carbs you should take in a day is a very individual thing, it varies for all of us. I started moderately low carb at 85 grams per day, and that kickstarted weightloss for me, though reducing HbA1c was the goal (I went from 75+ to 42 in those first 3 months, gradually dropped 45 pounds over 2 years.) I've since decided to go keto, once I plateaued and wanted to tackle my non alcoholic fatty liver disease, but that was a personal choice. I didn't have to go that far, I guess, but I wanted to, as it turns put I just feel better/more energetic when in ketosis.

Get a meter so you know what's going on, and you'll be able to tell what amount of carbs your body, and you, are okay with. (Test before and after a meal. If it goes up more than 2 mmol/l it was more than your body could handle. After a while you'll know what's okay and what isn't, so you can reduce testing). Just don't get too hung up on the carb-numbers again; they're a tool, not a torturedevice. I guesstimate a lot of my meals, but when I put them into a keto-app at the end of the day, I often haven't even hit 20 grams of carbs yet. And if I go a little over, no harm done either. Sometimes it can't be helped; when elsewhere I get served a carbier brand when the one I counted on and didn't know, or someone might accidentally serve me my husband's coke instead of my zero. Sh*t happens. But a little mistake or indulgance won't destroy your total efforts! So try and make this a healthy endeavor, not just physically, but mentally too. This isn't just a diet, it's a permanent lifestyle change, which means it has to be sustainable for you in the long run. Or it won't work. And it won't be sustainable if it makes you feel miserable and ruins your relationship with food. So the key is finding what works for you. What makes *you* feel well. Good luck!
 

LadyOG - Sounds like you've had a bit of a chequered relationship with food in the past, which undoubtedly makes embracing a new, restrictive eating regime a bit of a challenge. I can say this as someone who had an eating disorder many moons ago, so do identify with it.

To be clear, I'm not suggesting you had an eating disorder, but talking about your previous feelings where your diet was impacting on many areas of your life.

With a Pre-diabetes score of 43 (42 being the diagnostic threashold), you probably don't need to do a massive amount to reduce your blood scrore to 41 or less. If that is absolutely what you want to do, and weight lodd or anyting else is potential bonus, then my suggestion would be that you simply cut back on the portion sizes of your carbs.

If you would really like to trim up and get as far as you can from that threashold of 42, then maybe a bit more might be required.

It's entirely up to you. I know when I trimmed back on the carbs (I was full-blown T2 when I did this), my blood sugar numbers moderated quite quickly and I trimmed up along the way. The trimming up had never been a goal for me.

Home testing your blood sugars is an excellent way of garnering personalised, reali time feedback on how things are going, rather than wating weeks or months for the next lab blood test. I'd recommend that, but please do think carefully about your objectives before making drastic changes to your lifestyle.

Whatever you choose to do has to be sustainable, as nobody needs that yo-yo effect - loss/gain/loss/gain in their lives. It's very dispiriting and not too healthy either.

Good luck with it all and very well done for embracing change.
 
I had a friend once who was a heavy smoker. She had tried to stop many times until one day she announced that she was now a non-smoker. Many years on she is still a non-smoker. It's the same with dieting. We tell ourselves we need to diet to lose a bit of weight, but we have no intention of dieting forever and that is why our weight yo-yos. My advice is don't go on a diet, decide instead on a revised eating pattern that you like and can stick to. It may be that you only lose a pound a month, but over time it will make all the difference. Try to do more exercise too. Even a couple of 10 minute walks each day will tone you up, reduce your weight and make you feel better. Some folks on this forum are driven and they lose vast amounts of weight and keep it off. Most of us aren't like that, but we can make a long-term difference by making small and sustainable changes to our lifestyle.
 
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