Making sense of my readings

You are getting some hefty spikes there, mostly your lunches, so I suggest you have a good think about them. Try to keep all your rises less than 2mmol/l.

Pastry is not a wise choice at all, but you had pies twice on Tuesday, and the tomato soup if tinned will be full of carbs, not to mention the chips and gravy. I would forget the soup unless it is homemade. If you must have fruit, avoid bananas and other tropical fruits. Stick to berries or half an apple.

You will get there because you are using your meter to learn. It is all trial and error, especially to begin with, because you are learning. You did have some very good readings, too, so well done for those.

I personally aim for under 6 fasting (preferably lower), under 5.5 pre-meal, no more than a 1.5mmol/l spike at 2 hours, and around 5.3 at bedtime.. You may find it useful to set your own targets at an achievable level. Then when you hit them regularly, lower them a little.

Bluetit1802 said:

You will get there because you are using your meter to learn. It is all trial and error, especially to begin with, because you are learning. You did have some very good readings, too, so well done for those.

I personally aim for under 6 fasting (preferably lower), under 5.5 pre-meal, no more than a 1.5mmol/l spike at 2 hours, and around 5.3 at bedtime.. You may find it useful to set your own targets at an achievable level. Then when you hit them regularly, lower them a little.

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Like to know how the juiced greens (and resultant numbers) differed between WED and THU. That is odd.

studio95 said:

This is the first time since diagnosis that I have a, come to accept my condition and b, taken proactive action to deal with it. Clearly I needed to do a before I could think about b.

Should I be concerned about such a drop in my afternoon results at 4.1 & 4.6 ?

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Well, if you are insulin resistant and you eat lots of carbs your beta cells will pump out lots of insulin, assuming they still work fairly well. Since the insulin will still do it's job, elbeit slowly due to the insulin resistance, eventually it will drop your blood sugar lower than normal. If you reduce the carbs you may not have lower readings like that. But I could be wrong.

studio95 said:

This is the first time since diagnosis that I have a, come to accept my condition and b, taken proactive action to deal with it. Clearly I needed to do a before I could think about b.

Should I be concerned about such a drop in my afternoon results at 4.1 & 4.6 ?

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Not unless you felt ill. They are normal readings for a non-diabetic. It is possibly your cycle ride home that is helping with this drop, and also our insulin resistance improves as the day progresses, so our pre-dinner readings are usually the lowest we see. I frequently see 4's before dinner, but never at any other time.

blood testing numbers to aim for

http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14045524.php

I only found this forum several years after diagnosis and like you the advise I had received from the DN was to continue to eat carbs but go onto wholemeal alternatives (which I have never really liked). Finding the forum earlier would not have helped me as at the time I didn't want to admit to having diabetes and no matter what I was told wouldn't have changed what I ate. Then something changed, I didn't want to keep on the slow decline and made my mind up to do something, that was when I ended up here.

Take it one day at a time and you will see an improvement, I think you are already well on the way to understanding how to tackle the situation.

To reiterate what others have said, things that stand out are pies, sponge, roll, and chips, maybe more surprisingly, watch the tinned soup and the gravy, Bread may also be a problem to you it seems to be a bit of a various one for us, I am lucky a couple of thin slices of bread doesn't sent me too high, particularly if packed with plenty of filling and is my only carbs for the meal, bread rolls are off the menu as that is too much bread compared to the amount of filling.

On a good note it looks like you might be alright with a small portion of rice just watch that the quantity doesn't creep up.

We are all different, and the only way to be sure what effects us is to vary the meals by one item and re-test to find out what was causing the spike, and what quantities we can manage.

Contrary to what we have often been told, you might find you do better with the full fat Philli not the light unless you prefer the taste. The extra fat helps you feel full longer and it is now thought that fat intake isn't as closely related to cholesterol level as previously.

I've started to include butter and cream in my diet and increased the amount of cheese I eat and my cholesterol had dropped last review (I am due another late Dec or Jan so I will know more then) my weight has also dropped from cutting down on the carbs even though I am eating more fat.

Congratulations, its a nice feeling to be able to see the results straight away isn't it.