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How to move from Keto back to normal carb foods

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PePi51

Newbie
Hi, I started December 2023 with Keto, reduced my wight from 108 kg to now 86 kg eating Keto/low-carb. I reduced my HBA1C level through this to 5.2 %. I could stop my Insulin injection, but continued with 2 tablets Xigduo 5mg/1000mg.
My problem when I eat even few grams (potato or rice) my sugar level spices up to 180 and my HBAC1C level is now back to 6.1 %, still taking 1 Xigduo in the morning and 1 in the evening.

Any advice or shared experience?

Best
Peter
 
I agree with @Rachox why do you want to change something that has worked so well for you? Is it because you miss the carby foods or maybe you’ve got a bit in a rut with your meals?

Congratulations on the weight loss and more importantly the reduction in your HbA1c and getting off the insulin :), I’ve been low carb & then keto for 14 years and can’t see that changing as it’s a lifestyle change not a diet.
 
I think it is important to recognise that a low-carb diet does not cure your T2 diabetes, just allows you to manage it effectively through a lifestyle intervention, and often with added benefit of reducing or stopping your diabetes medication. If you want to reverse your lifestyle intervention, you will probably need to look at going back onto your medications. As others have suggested, you might be able to allow for more carbs into your diet through experimentation to see which carbs spike your blood glucose the least or optimising how you eat your carbs.
 
I found keto unsustainable in the long-term. I just felt unwell on it (I have other health conditions). I tried to reintroduce a small amount of carbs but it was hard going as my glucose spiked even at small amounts. It's taken about two years for my body to recover from the keto/fasting diet. I wish I had never done it. We are all different, keto works really well for a lot of people, but we have to understand that it will not be right for everyone.
 
@mariavontrapp , it didn’t work for me either. When I first did the zero carb Atkins diet back in 2010, not because I was diabetic (I wasn’t back then ) it’s because the entire office went on it. Peer pressure. I got quite sick on it and I had to start eating carbs. I the keto diet last year for 9 months, my blood sugars hardly moved, but I did lose weight.

Whilst the low carb diet works amazingly well for a lot of people and they are able to fly well below the prediabetic blood sugar levels, for some it simply doesn’t work for one reason or another. I very gradually increased my carbs to see what amount by body would tolerate. I used a CGM to ace I’ve this.

Keto can feel harsh and whilst some love the keto recipes others feel depressed on it. So @PePi51, like others have said, find out how many carbs your body can take. By that I mean, your pancreas‘ insulin secretion tops out at a certain level of carbs, once you reach that pancreas limit your sugars go up, your body starts converting it to fat because it’s got to get rid of all that excess sugar in the blood somehow, so it shoves it around your gut, organs and where ever it wants to put it. D2 in the main means your pancreas is not able to secrete enough insulin for your carb intake. For none diabetics their pancreas’ can keep churning out insulin, even if they ate nothing but pasta. Yes it sucks. Ed spelling
 
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Zero carb is only fats and protein, no veges - which are mother nature's carbs, definitely no fruit, ditto. Did you mean a very-low-carb diet @Melgar? Not a zero carb one.
 
Interestingly - the fundamental aspect of what makes the Atkins diet what it is, - is that question of re-introducing carbs to the point just below where you tip into the insulin response... but it was really a detail that got drowned in the flood of opprobrium..

I knew nothing about the Atkins diet at all prior to this year - and was generally clueless...

But there can be no doubt that we are all different, and what works for one may be no good for another. For a whole bunch of reasons..
Personally, I don't like to do anything prescribed (you can just diagnose me as congenitally an awkward ******...) and prefer to feel like I understand why I'm doing a thing, as it's more likely to work compared to being told what to do.

That makes me a pain in the proverbial, but so far I'm still on speaking terms with my GP...

I'm still searching for a kind of explanation of everything, but my sense is that most "starting points" tend to be too focussed on the one thing.. so low (or near zero) carb tends to focus on that, when you cannot consider how you metabolise Carbs without understanding the balance of hormones that affect and are affected by putting carbs in your mouth, and with what else..

For me, I'm not thinking in terms of "Keto until I can't stand it any more" - it's more a question of introducing fat (with a corresponding drop in sugar, starches and seed oils) - some intermittent fasting (not for everyone, sure, but it's about a balance between eating and not eating, and again, understanding the hormonal systems that are affected by being out of that balance) - and monitoring blood glucose and Ketones, so that I can see something I understand to be an improving picture of Insulin Sensitivity.

That seems to be happening - and I feel well, and not hungry - and mentally great (I mean, better than I have in years) - but I'm also mindful of good sleep, and ...er... mindfulness; learning to practice better awareness through meditation.

It's all one incredibly complex system, and yours is unique, so learning what works can be a voyage of discovery; and a really positive thing... I genuinely feel blessed to have been diagnosed, because of all the things I've been forced to learn - I can't now imagine treating my body so carelessly (and I can see how that sounds even as I write it, but it's true)

... though, only days ago, I went through what I now realise was a form of Keto-flu... so, you know, experimentation has it's ups and downs....
 
Yes - I get all sorts of flack for advocating Atkins from people without a clue about it - I had an appointment with a dietician who was telling me how bad Atkins was and I asked if she'd read the book two dozen times - and never got an answer, other than the one being made all too obvious by her comments.
I also ask those who claim to have done Atkins what their CCLL and CCLM are.

As for the OP - if some foods raise your blood glucose then not eating them is the best option. We do not need carbs, particularly if they are foods we can't cope with.
 
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