New diagnosis, new diet

Hello all,

I'm newly diagnosed. Was feeling really thirsty and drinking water by the pint over Xmas. Went to docs end of Dec and had a fasting blood test which came back with a reading of 18.1.

Was called in to see the Diabetic nurse and she put me on metformin and gave me a HBA1C test which was 109. Don't really know what it means other than its bad. I'm not sure how bad?

Also, I understand the test looks at how much glucose the blood cells have picked up in the last 3 or so months. As xmas was during that period and i pigged out on chocs, roast dinners and rum and cokes would this give a higher reading than i might usually have on a more sensible diet?

I came across this Newcastle study with the 80 cal diet, read up on it in detail, and it all seemed to make sense so decided to try it.

I'm doing ok so far other than finding it a struggle to get through the 3 litres of water which is odd as previously I was drinking like a fish.

Today is my 5th day on the diet. I'm 6'2 and weighed a hefty 18st 13 at the start but I weighed myself this morning and i've lost nearly half a stone already.

i'm wondering if I should be doing any exercise, light or otherwise?

Has anyone had much success with this diet?

Also, does anyone have any creative ideas of tasty ways to consume low starch veg and precious little else? A Stir fry with 1 cal spray is not bad, but steamed veg can be pretty bland, and any sauces i look for seem to include all the wrong things.

Any help/advice much appreciated.

Thanks, Raspin

Hi Mo, thanks for the reply and the reassurance about the BS, its been worrying me a fair bit that it sounds so high but hopefully, as you say, it will improve.

Thanks for your reply to Cara

I've been doing the newcastle diet religiously for 6 days now and i've not deviated from what i'm allowed yet but its early days.

Like you, i'm not really getting hungry, bit tired, bit sick of veg and little else although stir fry is ok. Incidentally, i think you allowed tomatoes on the diet. I cook some chopped tomatoes in a pan to reduce them a bit, add some chopped onions and then stir fry some bean sprouts, radishes, peppers, chillies and mushrooms etc. Its not too bad but I can see myself getting quite tired of it quite quickly as its pretty much my only recipe bar steamed veg.

I'm using asda's meal replacement shakes. They are mixed with skimmed milk, and technically on this diet its no dairy, but they used optifast which is only available in the UK by prescription and costs a fortune to buy on amazon or such. At least it has the same total calories as optifast when mixed (200) meaning it all still ads up to the 800.

I'm having 2 shakes a day (morning and evening), 200 cals of weight watchers soup for lunch and veg in the evening. I'm also sticking to only drinking water but 3 litres is tough to get through in a day, though apparently its also important as it stops the body retaining water.

Sounds like you did well with your diet. Congrats!

Below is the diet they used for the study which i'm trying to follow in case anyone else is interested. Apparently, 11 people who followed it to completion sent their diabetes into remission and 3 months later most of them had kept the weight off and the BS down (presumably by continuing to eat very carefully).

really appreciate the support, Raspin



Low Calorie Diet Programme (800 calories per day)

•  Meal replacement with Optifast (3 sachets each day) – this provides a total of 600 calories and the necessary daily vitamins and mineral requirements
  
  
•  Eat up to 3 portions of non-starchy vegetables each day (total of 250g each day) (for fibre content) – this will provide another 200 calories
  
  
•  Drink - 3 litre of water or calorie-free beverages each day During the 8 weeks of the diet;
  

•  No poultry or fish or meat
  
  
•  No bread or pasta
  
  
•  No dairy products (even full skimmed milk!)
  
  
•  No root vegetables like potato, sweet potato, turnip
  
  
•  No pulses
  
  
•  No fruits
  
  
•  No alcohol
  
  During the first few days of the diet, you may experience some symptoms like - headache
  
  - dizziness - tiredness - hunger- cold
  
  These are expected as your body adjust to using your fat store as energy source.
  The symptoms will improve after 2-4 days. It is important to keep up your fluid intake and remember to wrap up warmly!
  

Telephone: 0191 248 1150 Fax: 0191 248 1151 www.ncl.ac.uk/crp www.ncl.ac.uk/magres

Magnetic Resonance Centre

Newcastle University Campus for Ageing and Vitality Newcastle upon Tyne NE4 5PL



Breakfast: Lunch: Evening meal: Snacks/super:

Day Plan and Ideas

Optifast milkshake
Optifast soup or milkshake/salad
Optifast soup or milkshake
Salad/roasted veg/ home made soup/ vegetable snacks

Vegetables allowed (at least 240g per day ~ i.e. 3 portions per day)

Cabbage Celery
Carrots Peppers Brussel sprouts

Tomatoes Cauliflower Broccoli Cucumber Onions Bean Sprouts Lettuce Leeks Mushrooms Artichoke Radish Water chestnuts Mung bean sprouts

You can have all these vegetables (and some others as well – see below). Boiled, grilled, dry fry, stir fry, wrap in tin foil and roast in the oven.

Herbs and Spices

You will need to use some flavouring to prevent your dishes tasting so bland. Try to find some you like e.g.


Basil Oregano Tarragon Rosemary Thyme Chillies Ginger Black pepper

Lemon juice Vinegar Chilli powder Curry powder Dried chillies Coriander Cumin

Sage

Parsley Tumeric Cinnamon Vanilla essence Rum essence


http://www.ncl.ac.uk/magres/research/diabetes/reversal.htm

Hi 2chirstine,

Thanks for the reply. Where did you get the cambridge diet shakes from and avidite shake? Be interested in looking into those.

Other than the milk in the shakes i'm following the diet to the letter, no meat, no butter, no sauce, no fish, no taste! and just water, not even tea. Maybe i'm being a mug, or naive, but i'm really hoping I can turn around my post xmas diagnosis altogether. It won't be for want of trying.

It sounds like you have done incredibly well. I'd be very interested to hear how you get on come the 29th. Best of luck and hopefully you reap the rewards of your handwork

Thanks for the replies guys,

Lesci, 2 stone is great, especially as you kept it off.. You must be chuffed. 1 week in to the diet I can defo understand why after 5 weeks i might be dreaming of roast chicken, or curry! How did the diet effect your BS levels? The recipes suggestions sound interesting and i'll defo look into them and try some.

Daibell, the reason i'm following the diet used on the newcastle study is because of the results they got with it.

Having read the research paper they were careful to state that they believe that the results could be achieved with a variety of very low cal/ow carb diets.

They suggest you drink lots of water.to fill you up and suppress appetite. Also, apparently, when dieting heavily your body starts to retain water. If you drink plenty of water it reduces the bodies tendency to retain water. Dunno the science but it seems to work. I'm not hungry hardly at all.

Regarding pulses and such, i think the diet is so restricted because they were dealing with a test group so wanted to reduce the variables as much as possible while including fibre that was low-cal and low carb (non-starchy veg).

It might sound silly, but the reason i'm following the diet as religiously as possible is due to the results they achieved. I don't want to incorporate something different into the diet myself, get to the end, not get the same results, and be left wondering if what i changed made a difference somehow..

I'm not a dietician or a researcher but I suppose the research offers a bit of hope, and it also makes me feel like i have a bit more control over how things go from here.

Hi,

Popped into the father-in-laws on the way home today (who is also type 2) and he tested my blood sugar. 8.9 this time which i was well chuffed with as 2 days ago at exactly the same time of day, having eaten exactly the same calories and even same food, it was 13.4. It might still be high but its lower so i'm happier. I'm going to not have anything after 7 pm on thursday and stop by his on the way to work around 7.30 am to see what it is then.

Also, weighed myself and another couple of pounds have come off. Today is a good day.

One thing I was concerned about on this diet was using the asda shakes with milk. With skimmed milk each shake adds up to 200 cals with 26 grams of carb. I was thinking i could sub the milk for water to avoid the 12g of carb from the milk but then the skae would be around half the calories. So to make up the difference i'd have to add double the shake mix (and then prob more water) but then the shake will have almost the identical amount of carbs as with skimmed milk anyway..

With this in mind I looked at the optifast they used in the study and that has 20g of carb per serving, only a few grams less. Slimfast made with milk has 35 g of carb per serving so even made with water would have around the same grams of carb as the asda meal replacement i am using with milk. So it seems like asda meal replacement shakes aren;t bad at all but my question is this. The newcastle diet says no dairy, so baring in mind using milk keeps my carb intake kind of similar to the shakes they use, is there any other reason i shouldn't be using skimmed milk?

Also, with the shakes and the 2 soups i'm having each day i'm taking in about 76 grams of carb plus however much carb is in the 200 cals of non starchy veg I have in the evening. Does that seem low enough for a low carb diet? I realise the diet works based primarily on low calori eintake but I want to keep my carbs as low as pos for my BS.

Any help/advice appreciated. Thanks, Raspin
.

6.4 fasting blood sugar this morning., down from 18,1 10 days ago.

I think that'd good, so i'm chuffed.

Hi Cara,

Weight loss has stopped for the last 2 days at just over half a stone but that's ok; that'll happen i guess. Feel ok, bit tired but also not bloated in the way i would maybe be in the past when i'd eat far too much.

I'm not finding it too hard to maintain for the most part. The shake in the morning, soup for lunch, shake in the evening is easy cos i don;t have to think about it so i donlt have to think about food. Bit more tricky trying to decide on appetising ways to have the 200 cals of vegetables though.

It going well all in all. How are you doing?