Hi Sueper, I remeber your other post! Here's a section of my reply which is relevant now ....."In many cases people find a reduced carbohydrate diet helps both in weight loss and their control of blood sugars, as it's carbohydrates that raise our blood sugar levels. Some people go on very low carb diets, others like me on more moderate ones - i eat about 50 to 60% of the guideline daily amount of carbs. It depends on what your diabetes can tolerate, the amount of weight you need to lose, the type of diabetes you have and so on. So get your results first, make a careful note of ALL the numbers you're given, and their labels (for example, is a reading a fasting blood sugar, or a thing called an HbA1C), and let us know your results. Then you'll get some good specific advice, bearing in mind we're not doctors and can only tell you the sort of things we do - mainly succesfully mind you!"
So you may want to start doing some carb counting as you'll be on diet only, and do a bit of a reduction. Look under "nutritional info" on everything you but to see the amount of carbs - remeber. it's not the sugar content, although that's not good, it's the total carbs. Watch out for the starchy carbs that give fast sugar rises. White flour products like white bread, pastry etc are some of the worst. White rice and pasta is not too good, I eat a bit of basmati rice and wholewheat pasta. New potatos are o'k, but mashed or boiled "old" potatos send my sugar levels high. Remember also that even fruit has carbs! Apples about 15 according to size, satsumas the same. Most people find bananas bad and don't eat them.
Daisy will be along with some general guidance and diet tips, and you'll get lots of help and suggestions on here with diet.
Have you been given testing strips and a meter? Lots of practices don't give them to people on diet only, but they're pretty essential. You need to test before a meal then 2 hours after to see how you've reacted to your food. If it's a big rise, you know you need to leave out some of the stuff you ate the next time! You don't need to test all the time - I did it loads when first diagnosed to see how I re-acted to different foods, but now i know and just test now and again when i try something different.
When you see the nurse, tell her you "WANT to test to manage your diabetes properly as you are on diet only - how else will i know what to adjust?" If she really refuses, buy your own. The meters are cheap, but strips a bit pricey. Worth it though. You perhaps don't need to start testing immediately. Give it a few weeks on your new diet and let your blood sugars settle, then start.
All sounds complicated but it's not. You'll soon get the hang of it.
Good luck!
I'm afraid diabetes doesn't go away once it has been diagnosed, but you can help yourself enormously by keeping it under control. Losing weight is certainly a very good thing to do especially if you are very overweight. You will also have to be careful with your diet. Have a good read of the information I posted for you on your first thread and ask as many questions as you need to. You may be able to avoid the pills if you make good progress but your doctor may decide to give you the pills anyway as they do have benefits.
