my mind is swimming

What are you aiming to achieve?

are you diabetic and what type and what meds. we cant say without that info as it could be very bad advice.

bridiesmum said:

how many carbs, if any, you should restrict yourself to a day or each meal.

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Depends on what you're trying to do. Have you been diagnosed as diabetic? Type I or type II? What meds are you on? Even with all the answers, there is really no hard and fast answer. I can tell you that all the type II diabetics on this forum who use low carb diets as a way of helping to control their BG, they will all be able to do so consuming different amounts of carb. I for example stopped eating anything containing what I call obvious carbs so rice, pasta, potato, bread, baked beans, carriots and got my carb intake down to 40 gms per day. In my case I was able to throw away gliclazide, januvia and atorvastatin because my BG and total cholesterol dropped significantly. Some people can eat more carbs than that and achieve the same results.

bridiesmum said:

Hope some kind person will let me know. Cheers, Jill

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Don't think me a bad person but a kind person can not let you know how many carbs you should eat. If you are type II diabetic and decide low carb is the way to go it could be best to cut down gradually. We tend to eat about 250 gms per day (rough estimate) so perhaps try 150 first then possibly lower if hoped for result not achieved. In view of your bariatric surgery (hope I've got that right) seek advice from your medical team first.

I'm interested in the answers for this too. I'm preD + I need to lose A LOT of weight. I want to start carb counting, is 60gm a day a good figure to start with? with the inclusion that if I don't hv a result in weight loss, to then drop down to 40gm a day?

When I was first diagnosed (& put on meds) my sugars were fine on 35-40g carbs per meal, 21 years on Ive had to gradually over the years reduce that to 35-50g per day in order not to have to increase meds. That change has been informed by tests - my own bg testing results plus Hba1c results
The only way to know what will work for your body is to pick a level under 120g a day and either 1) test the impact of foods / meals using a blood glucose meter and tweak what you eat according to the results or 2) wait and see what impact the overall reduction has had on your next hba1c.
1) is much more active and will give much more specific & accurate info. It will also have some attached costs ( not very high)
2) will give you a good indication and is potentially less stressful and cost neutral. It is also slower and does not give clear feedback on either what in particular spikes your sugars or what impact specific changes have made.

cocobee.2017 said:

I'm interested in the answers for this too. I'm preD + I need to lose A LOT of weight. I want to start carb counting, is 60gm a day a good figure to start with? with the inclusion that if I don't hv a result in weight loss, to then drop down to 40gm a day?

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Bear in mind that the reference intake for a non-diabetic is around 250/260g per day, do you know what your current intake is?

I'd like to recommend that you keep a food diary, look at how much you're eating now and reduce gradually by cutting down on portion sizes. You might find that you're eating a lot more (or less) than the reference intake but know where you're starting from.

cocobee.2017 said:

I'm interested in the answers for this too. I'm preD + I need to lose A LOT of weight. I want to start carb counting, is 60gm a day a good figure to start with? with the inclusion that if I don't hv a result in weight loss, to then drop down to 40gm a day?

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I'll give you a slightly different viewpoint.
If (as I do) you subscribe to the "insulin as a fat storage hormone leads to excess weight" hypothesis then you want to try to avoid triggering an insulin response to food. As the greatest insulin response is to ingested carbohydrate then I found that by cutting carbs to a minimum at the start and intermittent fasting I lost quite a bit of weight pretty quickly. This gave me a huge confidence boost and allowed me to carry on. I had intended once the weight had come off to increase carb intake but have in fact found that I now don't want to eat carbs any more so have only incidentals and a few "treats".
I think it can depend on your own personality. Because I'm a bit of an all or nothing person I found cutting out as many carbs as I could helped me get through the cravings. For me slowly cutting down would not have worked as I would have given in to the carb cravings more often than not and ended up eating more than intended. So it depends on you..

Its not complicated. ..just educate yourself what the main culprits are and reuce them gradually...make small adjustments as you go along...its not just good for diabetics as many non diabetics go with low carb diets

bridiesmum said:

I have been reading so many posts on here that my mind is swimming now but I want to know how many carbs, if any, you should restrict yourself to a day or each meal. Hope some kind person will let me know. Cheers, Jill

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I'm a "know your enemy" kinda guy. So first identify your targets, then eliminate them!

That involves a glucometer, scales and looking closely at the lables on food. Don't go "Aha, fiend!" when you find high carb/sugar quantities, because other shoppers will give you funny looks.

So there's the common ones, ie rice, pasta, bread, spuds, fruits and I think the biggest challenge is they're typically a common part of a 'normal' diet. So find alternatives you can use to make tasty meals. Because if you don't, then there'll be more temptation to switch back to eating the high carb stuff. For me, that's meant eating a lot more greens, peppers, tomatoes instead because they're low carb, low calorie, tasty and colorful. There's a lot of suggestions here to look through and find stuff to try.

A glucose meter will let you see how your body reacts to different foods/meals though, and the goal is to have a normal reading 2hrs after your meal. Once you've done that a few times and figured out what foods you tolerate, then use your scales to monitor your weight loss. Don't overdo testing or weighing, and set yourself achievable targets.

For me, it took a while to work out meals and lose bread cravings. I aimed for <50g carbs a day, and eat a mostly Mediterranean/Eastern European diet. So tried sauerkraut with peppers, onions, garlic, toms, chopped sausage and mebbe a bit of juniper berry? But experiment to find low carb meals you enjoy, because if you don't, you may find yourself slipping back to the bad foods. For me, I lost around 10kg over 3 months and cut my HbA1c a lot without really adding exercise or trying much. Again the secret for me was finding nice meals. And as a bonus, I'm a lot less tempted by 'bad' foods now. I love bread and used to happily turn a 400g multigrain bloomer into a sandwich. Now, when I got one as a treat, I couldn't manage a whole one.

Which I guess is another diet tip, ie portion control. So for food lables and meal planning, get some kitchen scales and work off the 'per 100g' number because a) it's easier, and b) for 'bad' foods, the suggested portion servings are often tiny, and waaay smaller than we'd probably find ourselves eating.

Good luck!