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Long term low carb diet

J

jo.mundy

Newbie
Messages
3
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
I have been on low carb diet for 3 years since diagnosis of type2 diabetes. I lost about 20lbs and reversed my diabetes with hba1c =37.. my weight is drifting up and also my hba1c last test =41. I can't seem to shift this weight and also tired and not as much energy as I would like.
Can I be on low carb for too long (I aim for 75g carbs or less /day. Should I have a blood test for other causes
 
Many here have been on low carb diets for many years, myself for 16 years the last 6 or so on keto less than 20g carb a day. Do you count your carbs or just use a guesstimate? it may be you have what we call carb creep and are eating more than you realise. If you don’t count & record maybe give that a try to see if you are eating more than you think, you could also try dropping your carbs a little bit more to see if that helps.

Even though I’m keto and I don’t count calories I have to be aware of having too many, especially from dairy. I find getting my fats from dairy stalks my weight loss or I gain so I do limit cheese, cream, butter and get my fats from good oils, oily fish, mayo, a few nuts avocados etc
 
I agree with @lovinglife , I always count my carbs as it’s all too easy for portion sizes to creep up, then weight gain and increasing HbA1c will follow. Monitoring your blood sugars before and after eating will also help to see why your blood sugars are creeping up too, which foods are the culprits. Maybe have a go with the free trials available for CGMs. The Freestyle Libre trial is to be found here:
Sampling | Diabetes Care | Abbott
And the Dexcom trial is here:
https://www.dexcom.com/en-GB/dexcom-one-plus-cgm-system

Edit to add, I’ve been low carb for eight years, I eat less than 40g per day.
 
Last edited:
I've already used up my free trial with cgm.
I've started in the last week to weigh food again.
I have 0. Carb savoury breakfast and lunch.
Only significant dairy is greek yoghurt and 20g of grated mozzarella. I don't like cheese much but thanks for the tips
 
If you have a zero carb breakfast & lunch and you say you are eating around 75g carb a day when are you eating those carbs? is that in your evening meal? If so it may be too many carbs all at once & you could reduce those? I can’t have more than about 10g per meal. So if I have a no carb breakfast & lunch I couldn’t have all my 20g carb allowance for my dinner, I would still have to stick to the less than 10, hope that makes sense
 
I found that eating at around 12 hourly intervals, and having some carbs at breakfast in order to stop my glucose levels continuing to rise after getting out of bed.
I keep to a very low carb diet in order to have a fairly normal HbA1c and mostly under 8mmol/l glucose levels.
To do that I eat a lot of different things, but avoid foods with over 10% carbs other than a bit of chocolate, but that is only a single square and not every day.
 
Different types of carb may affect you differently too - I seem to cope with 75g carbs in one go if it's rice or potatoes, but just 60g carbs in pastry sends my BG into the stratosphere for 4+ hours. Time of day matters too as insulin resistance can vary throughout the day.
 
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