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I wonder if people might be able to help

Fayefaye1429

Fayefaye1429

Well-Known Member
Messages
809
Location
Durham
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
I wanted to reduce my hbac. I want to do this because of lots of reasons. Anyone who has seen my posts will see I have done basal rates and bolus checks and my consultant says there is nothing to do now because I need a continuous blood glucose monitor to find more ways to cope with sport etc which again I've done extensive explorations and experiments with. The only thing I haven't tried is a low carb diet and I am considering it. What I worry about it sudden drops. For example when reducing carb I know I'll have too much insulin in me so my natural response would be to set a reduction in my pump until I can see a pattern and then alter my basal. I guess what I am asking is are there any type ones who have tried low car b diet? And if so I'm wondering what you saw the first few days? I know our bodies are all different but I thought I'd ask as I'm going to try and start New Year's Eve.
 
I've been low-carbing for a few years now, but I worked my way down to it over a few months, so there was no sudden drop and I was able to adjust basal and ratios as I went.
 
Hi to Robert thanks for information. Do you know anywhere for good references? I was thinking to do it over a few days before work starts up
 
I would be a little wary as a T1 of going so low-carb so quickly. You will probably need to increase your water and salt intake for a few weeks to avoid the 'low-carb flu' symptoms. Have a look at http://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf to see what sorts of foods you could eat. It would be worth using myfitnesspal to work out how much carb/protein/fat you are eating. Most importantly keep a very close eye on your BGs and do basal testing. There are several T1s here that low-carb if you have any questions.
 
I've recently reduced my carb intake by about half, and also cut my insulin and watched my blood tests more often. I've lost 10lb in 5 weeks with slimming world. Carbs are not banned, in fact potatoes and pasta are not counted, it's just the bread, biscuits and crisps etc that I've cut out.
 
"Volatility" is the important factor here and a low carb diet can/may directly address the issues of volatility we experience in our daily management.

Think about it this way:
-What if your carb ratio was 11:1 rather than 10:1?
-What if your insulin pen gave you 1.1 units for each click instead of 1.0?
-What if you over-calculated the carbs you just ate by 10%?

If you actually ate 500g of carbs per day:
-your carb ratio would have caused you to over-calculate your bolus insulin by 4.5 units
-your insulin pen would have over administered an additional 5 units
-you would have counted an extra 50g of carbs yielding an additional 5.5 units (corrected using the variables above).

Answer: you would have given yourself 60.5 units of insulin when you really only needed 45.5 units: a difference of 15 units. It's early here so forgive me if my math is wrong (which only further proves my point).

Using the same variables, but assuming you only ate 50g of carbs......you would have only over corrected 1.5 units.

Bottom line: would you rather over correct with 15 units/day or 1.5?

Obviously, these are magnified errors, but in some cases they might not be that far-fetched.

Bottom line, mistakes and miscalculations are still possible (and realistically going to happen) even on a low-carb diet, but these errors become less magnified when the calculations are numerically smaller.
 
TorqPenderloin said:
Bottom line, mistakes and miscalculations are still possible (and realistically going to happen) even on a low-carb diet, but these errors become less magnified when the calculations are numerically smaller.
Click to expand...
I think this is the key point in @TorqPenderloin's post. You will also need to be aware of the impact of protein on your bg levels, as with reduced carbs, it does play a part, however, as @robert72 says, it's achievable and effective, and many of us have found it does give much greater stability than the traditional carb fuelled diets.

It's worth noting that if your fasting basal is correct, you may not need to adjust your basal level that significantly. I don't know about others, but I started to eat low carb at the same time as undertaking a large amount of weight training, so I gained insulin sensitivity as a result of the weight training. If you just go low carb, you may not see that much difference.
 
Thanks everyone it's really good insight here. When first diagnosed I was put on a diet that my next consultant laughed at me about. It was a low fat diet very restricting but kept my weight and b m I good. However the diet was so limiting and the thing that got me through it was the belief of what would happen if I cheated (mixed insulin). Now I can eat whatever and a low carb diet scares me as I get violent shakes from low g I releasing food but I'm desperate to get my h b down from7.9 to around 5 for my eyes but even my consultant and dieting have said there is nothing they can do for me medically without appealing to the c g m which they are doing for a continuous monitor and also to enable sport so I'm stuck so I'm thinking of anything else from the mountains I have done
 
Done low carb all but a few months of my 30 year T1D.
Used to go to gym and was a female gardener and had a pump.
Low carbing is great, due to other reasons I added in heavier fat such as cheese n cream and it really did not suit me. Instead I went for adding in oily fish, avocado, olives and pourings of olive oil dressings on my salads.
Now I am having fantastic salmon curries orchicken curries all home made. I was lean and mean for a female... Peanuts pre gym workouts gave huge rises in levels later. Always have walnuts or cashews or pistachios everyday.

Had a fantastic referral from GP to gym which gave me 1to1 personal trainer 2 or 3 hours each week.

Unfortunately other health matters have temporarily stopped gym and working as a gardener. Gardening will always be off limits now but at some point I will get back to the gym. Our gym referral scheme thru GP was/is superb. Instructor always made and recorded bloods before, during, after and also one hour after personal sessions and also watched BP and advised brilliantly to my needs.

Only ever once been over a size 10 in 30 years and that was die to being advised to eat carbs and three meals a day....

I have a totally unrelated illness that currently restricts life plus an additional atypical haemangioma in T7 of my spine to contend with.

However from all of this low carbing Has kept me diabetes complication free.

The additional probs regarding my stomach (that occurred after introducing carbs on advice) I do think occured due to having foods that weren't good for me. I am also intolerant to sweeteners/aspartame and preservatives which I dodn't know at the time..... So adding in things like bread and cereals effectively were killing me even more!! I believe this had something to do with my stomach becoming less effective but will never get proof.

However, being active and gym and on pump or MDI is possible... I'm proof of that...
 
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