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Keto macros

R

Rhianne

Newbie
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1
Morning all, my partner has recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. His father also has it but at 39 years old this was a shock! A reading of 28 was petrifying! We have recently recovered from covid and are convinced this was the trigger. My hubby is adament he is not going to start meds following docs prescription of metfornin so we have gone onto the keto diet. We are keeping to 17-20g carbs. We are doing really well but my concern is we are also exercising and looking at our macros this is massively reducing our fat and protein intake for the day. My question to any nutrition experts out there is, is this OK? On carb manager our end of day chart is showing mostly carbs which can't be right if we're so low on out carb intake???
 
Are you counting NET carbs? In the US I believe they count total carbs, but in the UK net carbs are counted. The difference is the indigestible fibre.
 
Rhianne said:
my concern is we are also exercising and looking at our macros this is massively reducing our fat and protein intake for the day.
Click to expand...
?.. how do you think that exercise is reducing your fat and protein intake?
 
JenniferM55 said:
Are you counting NET carbs? In the US I believe they count total carbs, but in the UK net carbs are counted. The difference is the indigestible fibre.
Click to expand...
In the US, they work on net carbs, the UK look at total carbs I believe
 
I looked up the carb manager app online to try and understand what the poster was asking about, especially @Rhianne 's question and issues with exercise and keto, and the 'end of the day chart'.

I am such a naive novice! I had no idea there were such slick tools out there. Silly me - of course there are.

But that slick tool uses calorie counting as well, which really surprised me, especially with regards to low carb and keto. They even talk about eating at a calorie deficit in order to lose weight, which really surprised me, not in a good way.

And it seems, from the original post - carb manager has some kind of ongoing counting system where you track what percentage of your diet is made up of the different macronutrients. How the exercise/activity component fits in with this I have no idea. I couldn't find a reference to this on the website. I wonder if it is the olde fashioned outdated I thought cos it's flawed - 'move more eat less' idea cropping up in a keto program? Hmmm. Where some kind of 'burning calories' (and macros? - hmmm) with exercise thing is part of the management?

I'm not surprised @Rhianne and her partner were confused by the end of it. I guess they realised they had to get support from that actual program? And went ahead and did?
 
28 must have been quite a shock. Was it a reading of fasting blood glucose, just a random reading or a deliberate attempt to measure blood glucose when it is at the top of a spike?
I recently got an HbA1c of 53 when expecting about 45. That was a shock too (and a severe disappointment).
I expect since you posted, you have worked out how Carb Manager was misleading you. If not, P1, below, is my understanding, i.e. only your food intake determines your macronutrient ratios and calorie count.
P1)
Your total food intake and its macronutrient proportions are determined by what you eat and drink. What exercise you take does not affect them directly. Of course, if you exercise a lot during the day and eat extra food afterward, your total calories go up and your macronutrient ratios will be determined by your resulting total food intake. To illustrate the point with an odd example: suppose you ate all your food from breakfast through your final evening meal/snack and only then took any exercise: no matter how strenuous the exercise, your macronutrient ratios would be exactly the same before and after the exercise. The same would apply if you took that exercise before breakfast or exercised during the day, and so on. At least, that's what I understand. (Of course, the exercise affects your calorie deficit).
P2)
Covid. Can you quote or refer me to any more evidence, observations and/or opinions about Covid and deteriorating T2 diabetes? I am grasping at straws for reasons my blood glucose control deteriorated so badly between June and November, this year. So far as I know, I did not have Covid.
TIA John
 

Hey John,

There's quite a few people here who were 100% diet controlled with absolutely perfect blood sugars, until covid hit them and left them with absolutely bonkers blood sugars for months since, requiring medication. So if there is a chance you might've had it, that could explain it. On top of that, a lot of people've been locked up at home so getting less movement in a day, which means burning off less as well. And when people are home all day, some might eat more than they realise, out of boredom (carb creep). Not to mention stress adding to numbers too. If I were you I'd make a separate post rather than adding to a relatively old thread, as you might get more (and more useful) answers.

Hope you feel better soon,
Jo
 
Thanks, Jo. Definitely not carbs creep and, after quitting Keto, I have carried on with a diet that was/is lower in carbs and protein than before (both in gram amounts and in proportions) and substantially higher in fats.
Maybe I am not so daft considering Covid damage as a potential cause.
Thx, John
 
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