• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Lowering cholesterol

douglas99

douglas99

Well-Known Member
Messages
4,572
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Other
.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Welcome Douglas.

I think that only you can work out what the best diet for you is.

Firstly it's easy to get stuck on labels. On these forums "low-carb" means everything from <30g up to somewhere near the recommended daily allowance.

This is my personal opinion (others may disagree):
1) High Carb (>> RDA): you're diabetic, if you want to control your BG levels, this is probably out of the question for you (maybe some insulin users manage this, but it’s still probably a very bad idea). As a bog standard T2 on oral meds, this approach is going to make you ill.

2) Regular Carb (=RDA, about 230g): this is probably also out of the question if you are a diabetic. If you start looking at what 230g actually is, it's quite a lot of carb. I think all of us who successfully control our BG cut out at least some carbs. The question is how much.

3) Reduced Carb (anything less than 230g)

4) Very Low Carb as suggested by Bernstein is about 30g a day.

Your job is to work out where you fit between 3 & 4. How much carbs you need to cut out of your diet to get to the sort of blood levels that you are happy with.

Getting down anywhere near to (4) is going to involve cutting out almost all bread, pasta, rice, flour based stuff and anything with sugar in it. A very low carb diet is the easiest one to work out (you just cut out almost anything with carbs in it) but probably the hardest to sustain, although lots of people here have clever and elegant recipes for replacing carbs with equally tasty things. If you can get near (4), it will almost certainly help your diabetes, but some people have concerns on the long-term effects of a very low carb diet.

GI is a more elegant solution, where you get to eat more total carbs (so you get to get nearer to 3 than to 4), by choosing mainly slower burning carbs that have less of an influence on your BG. Some people here do it very successfully, but it takes a little more planning, because you are not only worried about the amount of carbs, but the type of carbs too.

For a new T2, I (personally) think that the easiest thing to do is start by cutting out as much carb as you can manage until you get your BG under control, and then start adding them back, bit by bit until you find a level you are comfortable with. That could include experimenting with low GI carbs.

Again, all of this is based on my own limited experience, and is not universally true. Other people will disagree. Only you can work out the best approach for you.

Hope I haven't confused you more!

Good luck

Stephen
 
borofergie said:
For a new T2, I (personally) think that the easiest thing to do is start by cutting out as much carb as you can manage until you get your BG under control, and then start adding them back, bit by bit until you find a level you are comfortable with. That could include experimenting with low GI carbs.
Click to expand...

Hi Douglas,

I'm a fairly new T2 myself and that is pretty much how I'm addressing it, having said that I've no cholesterol issue.

Welcome to the forum.
 
Hi Douglas,

I'm a confirmed low-carber and the diet I use is a Sticky Thread at the top of the Low-carb Diabetes Diet forum - Viv's Modified Atkins Diet. It might be worth you having a look at it - it's a good basic diet with quite varied foods, and if you want to increase the carb content (from about 30g per day as the diet stands), buy yourself a carb counter book and add in low-gi carbs, as per Borofergie's advice, to the level you want to eat every day. The diet doesn't suit everyone, but it suits me. The main thing is, it's easy, and you can eat as much as you like of the allowed foods. No calorie counting!

There are varied views about the amount of fat that we should be consuming. I eat fat without any problems of conscience - apparently about 80% of our blood cholesterol is made by our liver regardless of the amount our diet contains. I don't go out of my way to eat fat (apart from mayonnaise :lol: ), but I certainly don't avoid it.

I've been on this diet twice now, with a four-year break in between. The first time I lost 5 stone in 18 months; this time it's 4 stone (possibly the insulin resistance). Both times my cholesterol levels have improved right across the board; to my satisfaction and my GPs. I prefer my total cholesterol around 5.5 or a bit less, and my doctor has no problems with this, particularly as all the rest of my lipid profile is well on target. I won't take statins 'cos I get side-effects; other people can take them with no problems at all.

All the above is my personal opinion and experience, and not everyone who posts on here will agree with me, I know, so please don't anyone start shouting! Douglas, have a good read round, here and on the internet, and make up your own mind. But I hope this helps a bit. :D

Viv 8)
 
I keep things simple, I just realised bread was a weakness of mine so I cut out as much as I could. And even a little change like a wholemeal wrap instead of sandwiches has made a big change to me (after all you have one wrap but how many slices to make sandwiches?) The other weakness I guess was pies! Which I've replaced with chicken tikka on crispbread. So many would say wraps and crispbread are still carbs (they're right) but it's a whole lot lower than I was on before, my levels are good and my waist line is getting better too-nicest woman at badminton says I'm looking good so it must work!
 
Have you not been told about self testing by your GP? Imagine my surprise! :roll:

You need a blood glucose meter and some testing strips to go with it. The test is just a tiny finger-prick, a small drop of blood onto the test strip which you have previously inserted into the meter - and in a matter of seconds you have your current blood glucose reading.

You test on getting up and at bed-time, and immediately before and two hours after each meal. The idea is that the after-meal test should be at about the same level as the before. If it's higher, something you've eaten has pushed up your blood glucose, and it's always a carbohydrate, eg potato, pasta, rice, bread, cereal. Then you can decide whether to avoid that food or try a smaller portion.

Buying a carb counter book is a good idea - Collins do a pocket-size one in their 'Gem' series - and then you can look up the amount of carbs in each food and work out how much you've taken in.

Keep a diary of what you eat and your test levels, and you'll soon see an improvement - and have some evidence to show your GP that you're really taking control.

Some of us get a meter from our GP and get the strips on prescription - I'm one of those lucky ones. It's worth asking if you can have them - you might test quite a lot at the beginning, while you're finding out what foods you can eat, but later on you don't need to test so often.

If you try my diet (see my first post) you won't be eating many carbs. I should add, though, that if you do decide to up your carbs a bit on that diet, you should correspondingly lower the fat intake a little.

You sound as if you're doing pretty well already, with your symptoms going, but do get a meter - they're such a useful tool.

Viv 8)

Edited once to add something.
 
douglas99 said:
I've been told meters are no longer prescribed, and to wait until my next blood test to see how I'm doing. About a month or so.
I was thinking of buying my own though, to see how I'm getting on.
Click to expand...

I got mine no problem Douglas, 50 test strips a week on repeat covering my on average 7 tests a day. It'll slacken of in time but at the onset I see a Blood Glucose Meter as an essential.

You cant address your Diabetes blind, you need the tools to manage and assist in manipulating the figures to an acceptable tolerance. I'm no thicko and I couldn't work it out from reading the ingredients from a food packet/jar, there are a few surprises out there and its the BG Meter that flags them up.

If you cant get one Doug buy your own or get a freebie from 'Abbot' (Freedom Lite) its on their website, eBay has a few up for sale, I actually bought my Aviva Nano from there.
 
Important thing to look at is your sat fats. RDA is 20g for a normal person. If you really want to make a difference to your choilesterol without statins (personal reccomendation), then you should look to reduce your daily sat fat intake to lessthan 3g. Sounds drastic, buts really easily acheivable.

Also, try and have 2g sterols a day. You can get these from drinking cholesterol-lowering drinks (normally just one is fine, and will only contain ~15g carbs, same as a slice of thin white bread). Dont go OTT though, as you're not meant to have over 2.5g sterols a day. Doing that and watching your blood sugars, should sort you out. NOTE, unused carbohydrates turns in to sat fat :thumbdown:

Final thing, keep it sustainable. Crash diets and extreme changes almost never keep, and you end up (at best) in the same spot you started in.
 
Back
Top