Type 2 New here - raft of questions - sorry :-(

HSSS said:

And here in lies the paradox with current thinking. Weight loss comes with USING more energy that you take in. As type 2 we cannot USE the carbs we take in due to insulin resistance so they sit there til doing nothing useful they turn to body fat and harmful deposits. We can use the fat we take in however. And as it has more calories per gram than carbs we actually need less of it in comparison and it keeps use full for longer gram for gram.

keto is not so much about high fat once adapted and fat burning, but avoiding low fat replacements and benefiting from the natural fats that come with natural proteins. The last 50 yrs of low fat mantra simply makes a normal fat intake look high. Higher fats are useful whilst changing from being a glucose driven animal to a flexible or ketone burning mammal.

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That's a fantastic reply @HSSS, and really makes sense. Sorry for the delay in posting a thanks, by the way - I've been a bit under the weather :-(

VashtiB said:

Hello @Sir-Lancelot ,

First of all- I love the name- I like the double meaning it will have as a type 2 you should be lancing a lot.

Anyway- my ramblings- hopefully some will be helpful. First of all it is low carb for life- it is really the only thing that I think will work. I am a carboholicc- the dietary change was very hard for me. I wasn't really a meat eater I was a carb eater- I didn't know a carb I didn't love (exaggeration but not by much).

At first I had the hope that one day I could increase the carbs- well maybe I will be able to increase them from the less than 20 grams I have a day but I no longer believe I will be able to go up to say 100 grams a day. I keep very low carb but if I say eat 8 grams at dinner my fasting level the next day is higher than I would like. I'm in the normal range but still. I have lost over 30kg low carving not counting calories. If I increase my carb intake I put on weight- never for long because I feel a kick in the butt and lower my carbs again.

My first thought reading one of your posts was that maybe you could start a Keto restaurant. I'm not in the UK so wouldn't help me but I would really like one. One I could go to and order anything on the menu and it would give me the carb count. With all the type 2s around maybe a franchise? I'd happily give up the law to do it in Australia but don't have the knowledge to do it by myself.

Anyway- you are very welcome to this forum and I hope we will see more of you posting,

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Thank you Vashti !. Sorry for this delayed reply - I've been a bit under the weather lately. I've fallen fairly hard off my happy little Keto wagon, have put most of the weight back on, and have regained the tingly toes and morning sickly feelings. Bizarelly, certain other things have reversed, too - withouth any real changes from me - I was waking up stupidly late, at (eg) 11:00, and now I'm back to waking up at 05:00 :-(

Haha thanks for intercepting the comic intent to my username I know as a Type 2 I don't, strictly speaking, need to be testing my bloods 3 times a day... but I suppose it helps give me a sense of control and purpose. That and testing my blood pressure, for which I also have a little meter - it's interesting to see the correlation between that and the glucose levels and what I've been eating / drinking etc. In fact, my diabetes specialist (at my local medical centre) has given me a prescription glucose monitor, with test strips + lancets etc on a free monthly repeat prescription, so now I can indeed lance a lot without worrying on the cost. I've been out of work for nearly 3 years now so money is a bit tight :-(

Wow that's amazing work with your carb control !. You say you are managing LESS than 20g a day ? I really don't see how that can be done... so I am very impressed at your resolve. As I said, I have fallen off the Keto wagon, at present - what did it in the end for me was the lack of fruit. I love apples.. but a single apple is about 20g carbs, which is your whole day's worth right there. I'm not so bothered about sweet / sugary stuff - and I have good results with Keto baking and even jam-making with Xylitol and Erithritol... it's fruit, for me, but also pasta and noodles etc. And potatoes.

I have actually been quite inspired by your views on a Keto Restaurant. What led you to conclude I might do that ? I worked as a chef, many years ago and now with zero current qualifications, but I do have the ability, and the passion for it - and, most importantly of all - as you say yourself, there aren't any. So there's a niche, which is rare nowadays - most markets seem to be flooded. I agree, it would be a really interesting concept to have a restaurant menu on which EVERYTHING was OK. Although not in a kind of health-crazed obsessive way.... I once went to a Vegan Wholefood restaurant, and found it all a bit too preachy.

Anyway - I just went to the shops and bought a whole load of chicken thighs, cauliflower, kale and (as a treat) onions.... I had a (nice healthy keto) steak, with (gasp) chips and peas, last night - so time today to get back on my little Keto wagon lol

HSSS said:

Lots of us monitor our bloods as type 2. It’s a very effective way of working out which foods suit us best. Test before and 2hr after a meal rather than randomly. Most of us want no more than a 2mmol rise, less is even better. Otherwise it shows we didn’t cope with the carbs in the meal and it took us too high for too long.
You may have slid off the keto wagon for now but don’t let that stop you jogging alongside it and doing what you can low carb wise til you’re ready to hop back on it. It’s all too easy to fell that you’ve blown it and go mad on anything and every as a result. But every bit you do manage is better than not managing it.
Hope you feel better soon.

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I love your reply, in particular the "jogging alongside it" image . You're right - I should probably chill out a bit. I do have a tendency to, well, I suppose, over-compensate for life crises, which means I commit myself to high and absolute remedial actions (stubborn Yorkshireman LOL), and then the inevitable lapse/crash, after a short while, feels like much more of a setback than it probably is. I'm impatient, and I want to get on with fixing stuff.

When I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnoea I embraced that overnight (literally) and just got on with wearing an air mask in bed every night, whilst the SA forums are full of folk saying that, even after years, they can't tolerate the feel of the thing on their face in the dark. I hate mine, too, but I'm determined not to give up on it, not least because, if I do, some very bad things can happen, and I live alone, so it's "Team Chris" (and my cat) against the world now really And so with the T2 I have asked for and received a glucose meter from my doc (even though he said, in fact, they are not usually offered to T2s), plus a repeat prescription for test strips and lancets, and of course for Metformin, and dived into Keto as it seems universally recommended. The only life change I have not yet made, is to up my exercise regime - which I believe I should do - but being recently single, and cooped up at home in lockdown, with a new "hobby" called T2 / Keto, I seem to prefer pottering in the kitchen.

My "jogging alongside" seems to be going fairly well - but my big problem is that I have never taken regular meals. ie - breakfast at breakfast time, dinner at dinner time, tea at tea time, supper at supper time. I am a grazer, which means that, if I have a pan of left-over yumminess, I find it hard to leave it alone. Which makes it hard to do the "pre-prandial and then 2hrs post-prandial" thing. And also my Metformin is supposed to be taken with a meal, as I'm sure you know - but I only really have a "meal" (sit-down, with a knife and fork, and a plate of food LOL) in the evenings. I made a decent thing with chicken thighs (pan-fried, skin-side down, in butter) layered onto sliced fennel, sliced onion, chorizo and 30 (yes thirty) cloves of Garlic, last night - roasted in the oven (lid on, for the steam) for 35 minutes... I did 4 thighs, of which I ate 2 as the meal, leaving 2 left, in the pan, on my hob.... it's now 13:46 the next day and there is currently 1 thigh remaining, and none of the garlic, as every time I go into the kitchen, I sneak a forkful It really bugs me that one clove of garlic has 1g of net carbs... how can that be fair... but that meal was supposed to make 4 portions, and there's not many carbs in the rest of it. But there again, I can't resist picking at it, which kind of messes up the sums.

Breakfast is the biggie - I've never really eaten breakfast, although I know I should - for the first daily Metformin dose, really - but I cannot find any decent appealing Keto breakfasts ?!. You can only have so much mushroom omelette or bacon and eggs..... :-(

Resurgam said:

You could always have pancakes. I make them from half a blob of mozzarella, about 60 gm, and an egg, as a foundation, then I add a little of one of the flours I have, coconut, almond, soy, if I have my pot of cream on hand I might add a little of that, then cook small pancakes, gently, and flip them over with a fish slice as they are quite tender. I keep them warm and then eat them with lemon juice and a granular artificial sweetener. I buy mozzarella at Lidl. If your appetite is larger than mine then two eggs and the whole blob, other additions also doubled. I cook in butter and olive oil.

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Yes !! I've been meaning to try these. I'm a little sceptical / uninformed about the role of the Mozzarella in the recipes, though ? I'm in a new food landscape here, and I don't claim to be a food scientist. As far as I am concerned - coconut flour + Psyllium ought to give the texture and fibre that should be needed for a pancake, adding eggs and milk, of course... although not tried yet, as I said. I started out baking / cooking etc. with Almond flour - but it's not really "flour", is it ? And tastes - well - Almondy As I think you are saying - I now tend to use cream diluted with water, instead of milk, as it is lower GI overall. So what does the Mozz. add ? Just btw, what is your preferred granular sweetener ? I was initially impressed with Erithrytol, but then even more so with Xylitol, although that "cooling" aftertaste seems to apply to them both, and is weird in my morning coffee. Made some decent marmalade with Xylitol though... just wish I could find a decent bread recipe to have it on toast with