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Just diagnosed & a little bit overwhelmed!

A

Andrew_VP

Member
Messages
16
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
So, I've just been diagnosed Type 2 and had my first appointment with the diabetic nurse at my GP practice. There is so much to get your head around and I'm a little bit freaked out!! I'm early with the diagnosis as blood test last year was ok but now I'm scoring 52 (?). I've been advised to loose weight (BMI 35) and do more exercise and be retested again in 3 months time. I eat healthily already but need to use my gym membership which I haven't used for over 1 year. I know my big nemesis is alcohol which crept up during lockdown but has stayed high so that will be a challenge!

I've read that reducing carbs and upping the fibre is good for weight loss and glucose control but is it worth investing in a Libre 2 or similar so that I can learn what influences my BS most etc?

What type of exercise is best? Running, spinning? Walking? etc

For those who've tried it how realistic is reversing T2 and going into remission?

Many thanks in advance
 
What do you call eat healthy, as i'm prepared to bet as insulin intolerant it isn't.
At an Hba1c of 52 you should have no problems dropping that number, likely within 3 months.
Dropping altogether or cutting down Potatoes, rice, bread, cakes, most fruits except a few berries, pasta and especially breakfast cereals.
Base your meals on meat with the fat, Bacon (excellent), eggs (even more so), cheese, cream and butter.
Avoid anything LOW FAT, switch milk to cream or at least full fat milk, or better still ditch it altogether, only have full fat greek yoghurt.
Avoid processed foods and any kind of cooking oils except PROPER olive oil.
Eating this way you should never feel hungry, experiment with portion sizes to feel no hunger, and not feel like snacking, but don't get hung up on calories.
If you can afford to use a Libre then yes it will help, but whatever you decide buy a glucose meter to finger prick, preferably one with less expensive test strips. Your health care professionals will tell you not to test it's unnecessary, (they lie) test before your first mouthful and 2 hours after, if the rise is more that 2 mmol, there was TOO MUCH carbohydrate, reduce or even cut out what carbs were in the meal, and replace with more of the protein or fat to compensate.
Remember CARBOHYDRATE is your new enemy.
Walking or swimming is excellent exercise.
When googling foods add Keto to your search, this will bring up low or no carb recipes.
a few days into this kind of eating you may experience Keto flu to some degree, don't worry it will be your body switching to burning fat for fuel, instead of sugar. It's basically your body throwing a tantrum because it wants sugar.
After this stage the weight should rapidly fall off you, but don't panic if it doesn't go quickly, we're all different. I lost 5 stone in 4 months, others lost more, more quickly, still more had modest rates. BUT it will work.
If they tell you it's bad, it's a pretty much cert' that as a type 2 diabetic THEY'RE WRONG!
 
Many thanks for taking the time to reply so thoroughly. Eating high fat seems counter intuitive but makes sense if it satiates hunger for longer etc. I'll have to work through all those fat free things I've just bought first!!! I did loose 3 stone a few years ago doing the 4:3 diet and versions of intermittent fasting so willing to give Keto a go this time round. I see that you can get the Libre2 on a free 30 day trial so have registered for that and see how it goes. If anything it should open my eyes as I've never really given blood glucose levels a thought before now. What would you say about brown rice and whole-wheat bread/ pasta? Should these ne omitted too? re Glucose meter, can these be bought at chemists or on line via Amazon etc? any recommendations re make etc? Many thanks again!
 
The best type of exercise is one you enjoy, that your body can tolerate, that you can keep up. Walking is great as you may be able to do it from your front door and the only thing you might need to buy is a decent pair of shoes. If you have a cycle, try cycling. Swimming is good exercise. And consider a Pilates or Yoga class. Pilates has done wonders for my bad back. I also play badminton, though currently on hold as I have shoulder problems.

I was 56, now 46, and 12kg lighter after just over a year of fairly low carb eating. It can be done.

PS this website is excellent on low carb eating: https://lowcarbfreshwell.co.uk/
 
Andrew_VP said:
Glucose meter, can these be bought at chemists or on line via Amazon etc? any recommendations re make etc?
Click to expand...
@Rachox has a very useful list of glucose meters with affordable test strips, she'll share it once she sees my tag.
Andrew_VP said:
willing to give Keto a go
Click to expand...
While keto is perfectly fine, you may find that your blood glucose does well on a somewhat less restricted diet.
You're only just over the diabetes threshold, so simply reducing carbs may be enough for you.
The diet isn't primarily aimed at losing weight (although that is a welcome effect as well!) but at normalising BG.
It's a long time thing so it has to be something you can keep up indefinitely.

Some of our members have plunged right into the deep end with keto and it suit them perfectly, others have reduced carbs based on what their meter tells them, finding their personal sweet spot. What works best for anyone is very individual.

On the Libre, it's a very useful device but it does have its limitations.
It's not as accurate as a fingerprick, and for some, Libre is always of by a bit. For me, Libre consistently reads 1 to 2 mmol/l lower than blood. I wouldn't completely trust it without the occasional fingerprick for verification.

If it were me, I'd start with lots of fingerpricking first to get the basics, and use that one free trial (14 days, not 30) for more finetuning after I'd layed a base with fingerpricking.
Andrew_VP said:
What would you say about brown rice and whole-wheat bread/ pasta? Should these ne omitted too?
Click to expand...
Use your meter to find out!
They are carbs, much the same as their white counterparts, and will turn to glucose in the body. The whole wheat stuff dends to spike a bit slower and lower, but for a somewhat longer time (which makes sense, it's the same amount of carbs).
But there is a lot of room between eating a full plate of pasta and a dessert, and completely cutting them out.

If you want to go keto, yes, cut them out completely. But if you prefer eating to your meter you can experiment with portion sizes.

Good luck!
 
I dropped cereals as well as bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, etc. Basically any high carbohydrate foods.
I bought a meter for fingerpricks, tested before then 2 hours after every meal.
No exercise (I'm disabled), no calorie counting, but I still lost lots of weight just by restricting carbs and without any need to feel hungry.

A meter will show which foods spike your blood glucose too much and how many carbs you may eat without spikes.

If you struggle to give up any foods think about substitutes and about foods you can eat, eg butter, cheese, oily salad dressings.
 
 
Hey Andrew - greetings ( I say this but I am new here myself!) - I know the feeling of dread/anxiety/worry when I first got diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. There is hope, you can put it into remission, I done it myself previously to the point I came off the Metformin and was on no meds. This will be controversial but the way I did it was with Ketogenic eating with Intermittent fasting combined. I also lost over 5 stone in 6 months. You need to talk to your diabetic nurse and doctor before embarking on these but the problem I had was that I found my diabetic nurse was giving me incorrect advice to eat @Slow digesting carbs as the main part of my diet" which simply makes me ill.
You can beat this and stay on top of it, lots of people do.
Exercise does help always but the food is number one to deal with. You need to make sure you are eating and consuming low carb, low/no sugar foods and drinks.
I know what you're saying about lockdown, I worked for the Ambulance Service during lockdown and even I fell off the wagon too. it has been incredibly hard on all of us in the world, a lot of people use food as a comfort or just because they are bored and I was one of them.

you got this buddy, its something you can do something about.

PS - I not used the Libra 2 but had a look at it - looks good for monitoring. You can also buy "diastix" which will show glucose (sugar) in your urine.

Stephen
 
Thanks for the tag @Antje77 and hi @Andrew_VP
Here’s some info on UK meters, and to be clear I have no commercial connections with any of the companies mentioned.

HOME HEALTH have the Gluco Navii, which is a fairly new model and seems to be getting good reviews if you use this link and select the meter plus 5 packs of strips, and then add the code dcuk (all lower case) at check out you may get money off, I’m not sure if this code is still valid.

https://homehealth-uk.com/all-produ...ose-meter-test-strips-choose-mmol-l-or-mg-dl/

Links to the strips for future orders:

https://homehealth-uk.com/all-products/glucose-navii-blood-glucose-test-strips-50-strip-pack/

There are also discount codes for when you come to buy more strips - "navii5" and "navii10" will give you 20% off purchases of 5 packs of strips and 25% off 10 packs of strips respectively. Again I’m not sure if these codes are still valid.

Then they sell the older SD Code Free, details to be found here!

https://homehealth-uk.com/all-products/codefree-blood-glucose-monitoring-system-mmoll-or-mgdl/

Discount codes for the Code Free strips, again I haven’t used them in a while.

5 packs 264086

10 packs 975833



SPIRIT HEALTHCARE have a meter called the Tee2 + which is quite popular:

https://shop.spirit-health.co.uk/co...e2-blood-glucose-meter?variant=19264017268793

The strips are to be found here:

https://shop.spirit-health.co.uk/co...py-of-tee2-test-strips?variant=19264017367097

Some members have got a free Tee2+ by phoning up to order, with a large order of strips they often throw the meter in for free:

Phone number 0800 8815423

If there is a choice of units of measurement then ‘mmol/L’ are the standard units in the UK, ‘mg/dl’ in the US, other countries may vary.



Here’s the link to the Freestyle Libre site, this is what I use these days, https://www.freestylelibre.co.uk/libre/products.html


Don’t forget to check the box if you have pre diabetes or diabetes so you can buy VAT free. (for all meters and strips)
 
Andrew_VP said:
What would you say about brown rice and whole-wheat bread/ pasta?
Click to expand...

I would say that brown rice is disgusting, brown pasta bearable especially with a strongly flavoured sauce. I've weighed the portion for years before T2, so I reduced it to 50g dry.

How about cauliflower rice? I brought some at first but it's easy and much cheaper to make, as long as you have a food processor.
 
Things I didn't notice being mentioned are Fruit juice (its all high in sugar - so don't drink it! ) and alcohol - there are 2 things to consider with this: 1. Carbs - Spirits with low carb mixers don't directly hurt your BG, the sane goes for dry white wine and for most red wines. 2. However although alcohol delays the body processing carbs and turning them into glucose the total carb content still turns into glucose , just slower. The big problem with alcohol is that it contains a lot of calories - so that can be a problem for those who still need to lose weight!

I can only speak for myself, but I took well to eating Low Carb, high protein and traditional moderate fat (which is now considered High Fat by current standards). So had no problems with that way of eating and found T2D remission quite easy to achieve and to maintain.
 
Andrew_VP said:
. I'll have to work through all those fat free things I've just bought first!!!
Click to expand...
Why put things in your body that should be in the bin? Psychologically it's important that you realise your body is worth putting good things in to, not bad ones!
Or you could use these for testing with finger pricks to see what those foods really do to your body, then ditch them
 

Thanks
I went for an fingerprint meter to start with and my what a variation of readings I’m getting! Yesterday daytime pre meal 7.5 then stir fry chicken with quinoa raised to 10 post meal then had an alcofree evening. Woke up this morning at 2.2 which rose to 9 after 2 coffees and morning routine!!! What’s going on?
 

Fair point!
 
I think, in the beginning, getting into a routine with the testing regime is useful. Testing before, then 2 hours after, noting what you've eaten. If you're reducing your carbs, you will see the pre-meal numbers coming down and the after-meal numbers. The last number to improve is often the fasting reading when you wake up: it's common for our livers to release glucose into the blood to fuel the start of the day.

My HbA1c at diagnosis was 74, which I brought down to 41 when retested three months later. I also lost 15kg but wasn't counting calories or doing new exercises. Most importantly, I wasn't starving myself; if I was hungry, I ate. I just made sure the meals and snacks were all low-carb.

Over Christmas, I allowed myself a few treats (a box of mince pies spread over a couple of weeks, a small packet of chocolate digestives given as a present by my daughter, and tagliatelle in a restaurant with family). My HbA1c did rise: to 42!! So the good news is once you get things under control, a once-in-a-blue-moon treat won't put you back to where you were. There are a few apps that can help track your carb intake and your glucose readings, showing how your numbers are progressing, whether the trend is up or down
 
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