And the rest f the post, because it was longer than allowed...
...Ah, yes... Regular eating... When my mom passed earlier this year, and in the preceding 6 weeks, I ate a lot of food I shouldn't. Part ease, part grief, part a severely botched rootcanal. It was a fraction of the carbs my husband ate, but still about three to four times more than I usually would have. While my blood sugars weren't as bad as they would've been on the same diet 7 years ago, I still went up, and I regained some of the weight I'd shed 7 years back. Being a 44 year old perimenopausal woman with thyroid issues means I can't shift the weight as easily as I could've done maybe even 4 years ago. But yeah.... The way I ate for a bit there, in my grief and emotional and physical pain, was what others might've considered moderately low carb. And my blood sugars, which didn't hit 22's or anything, went no higher than nines in spite of me having a raging infection in my jaw, well... That food did have an impact. I'm seven years into low carb eating, save for that glitch. My wounds heal, I have energy I didn't have for a long time, I am stronger, my eyesight makes sense for someone my age, my (present since birth) heart murmur is still nothing to worry about, I am emotionally as stable as a rather messed up woman can be... I also know if I get back to eating like my non-diabetic husband does, I will be back to where I started within a year. I'll be 15 or 20 kilo's heavier than I am now, I'll be ill all the time, with infections, wounds and fungii running rampant, and too weak to leave the bed. My life'd just grind to a halt again, and not be worth living. So... If you decide to tackle your (pre)diabetes through diet, and only diet... Then this is for life. Maybe you'll ditch the diet for a christmas dinner, maybe for a wedding, but the rest of the time... It's a long term thing. It's not something that'll be a permanent fix, because for T2, there isn't one. You can start medication, but as time goes by you'll need more of it, and maybe a few different kinds. Some'll eventually progress to insulin. Some do a combo, especially if there's a reason for high blood sugars that can't be avoided, like needing steroids to control rheumatism or asthma. Then diet and meds can keep things from getting worse. But if you do nothing, then it will progress. So you'll need to make a choice. Moderate to low carb eating, or medication, or a smidge of both.
When you went keto, did you just ditch all carbs, and not up the fats and protein to compensate? Because than you're not doing keto, then you're on a crash/starvation diet and that'll just waste away your muscles within no time flat. Just wondering. People sometimes make small mistakes that have big impacts, and that way lies scurvy, rickets etc... You really do need to know what you're doing before following any extreme diet if it's supposed to be doable long term, because it's remarcable how fast we'll be deficit in rather vital things if we get it even a little bit wrong. (I personally have to keep an eye on fatty fish, because I don't absorb vitamin D well, for instance: I had rickets for most of my life. I get my b*tt kicked if I don't have fish once or twice a week, at minimum.). I don't know what you ate, mind you, but that'd be my guess. Not enough fats and protein, from your description.
Like I said, our bodies are lazy. They like carbs because they can turn those sugars into energy the fastest, it has to work more to turn fats into energy, and even harder to do the same with protein. Also, carbs tickle our pleasure centre, same as cocaine would. (It makes a brain scan light up like a christmas tree in the exact same way). The thing is, it's a quick fix...
And a quick crash afterwards. Carbs demand carbs. You feel better for a moment, then a few hours later you crash again and need more. Exactly like an addiction to hard drugs works. It's temporary, and it's fleeting. And it's a cycle. Breaking the cycle is hard and unpleasant, it truly is going cold turkey with the phsyical drawbacks that come with it. But it does have its perks. Like no diabetic complications.
Keep this in mind: There are no healthy carbs for a type 2 diabetic. A carb is a carb is a carb. You can't metabolise them as others can. Thanks, genes. A friend of mine is allergic to peanuts, her little girl can't kiss her if she's had some, for fear of killing her. I'm fine with a few peanuts... She's not, because her body can't handle them. Diabetes is not an allergy, so there the analogy goes wonky, but... The main point is that you have to realise that your body just doesn't work the way other people's does. So you can't do everything they do.
On more thing.
@Antje77 'll know this, I keep forgetting which it is, but there's a type of diabetes (Mody? Lada?) that runs very strongly in families. Usually slim ones. It might be worth it to get the potential type checked if things keep progressing, with the blood sugars. Because for those types, low carb, moderate or extreme, isn't going to cut it. In any case... You're asking all the right questions. I don't know if my answers are in any way useful, but I'm hoping they are. When it comes down to it though, diabetes isn't a death sentence, you can get help in various ways, you have a say in how you tackle this and you're not going to die any time soon. Unless you get hit by a car or something.
Better get dinner started, husband's almost home and I have to get out there for my flu-jab right after the noms.
Later!
Jo