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TonyHBS

Member
Messages
11
Type of diabetes
Type 2
I have just joined and it seems that compared to everyone else I am a very poor diabetic. Many of the postee's have blood sugar levels that I can only dream of (fasting levels between 4-6) mine are between 9-10. Others say they have been on low carb for a month or 2 and they have lost stones and BS levels now down to 5 . I have been on low carb for the last year.. weight loss 2 lbs, BS much the same. My last Hba1c 65. I am now walking half an hour each day as per TV program, as yet no improvement. where am I going wrong. this forum is very depressing.
 
Hi and welcome.
How low carb do you think you are?.. give us some examples of what you eat. Are you on any meds either for diabetes or other conditions? What do you weight/BMI etc. Give us some info and we can try to help.
 
Hi and welcome,

Please don't compare yourself with others. Everyone has different starting points, different medications, different degrees of pancreas damage, different liver functions, different metabolisms, different exercise regimes, different everything. No two of us are alike. All we can do is our very best, set our own targets, and celebrate when we reach them.

Try to read some of the success stories and maybe you will see that this forum is inspirational, and also full of people wanting to help and support.

Meanwhile, maybe you could tell us what sort of food you typically eat in a day, and maybe we can spot something that could be causing the problem.
 
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Welcome to the forums, could I just ask how low is your carb intake for the day .. I had great success with 20g of carbs a day and just changing all my low fat foods for high fat ones .. We are all different .. so with a little more information we can help you more
 
It might be that what you think is low carb is just not low enough to push you into fat burning. I found it really difficult to switch back to low carb now that I am diabetic, after just a couple of years after being persuaded that I had to stop. It has taken almost exactly two weeks to get back the energy and happiness - Dr Atkins was a clever fellow, his Induction period is two weeks or more.
I tend to push copies of Dr Atkins New Diet Revolution into the hands of almost perfect strangers, as his low carb way of eating seems to be regarded as a distant fad, but it is the best thing ever as far as I am concerned, and the more I think about the last 40 years the more I realise that I have probably been prediabetic for a long time, but with low carbing the symptoms were not obvious.
Perhaps if you can tell us just how many carbs you are eating - and when - I eat bacon and egg type meals early in the day - it is not called Dr Atkins' revenge for nothing. Starting with a low carb meal - I do have tomato or mushrooms with it normally, just these last few weeks have not been normal at all, seems to put the metabolism into ketosis (not ketoacidosis.) so that according to my reckoning you begin to get negative calories when compared to a high carb diet. As Dr Atkins also discovered, you can eat more calories and lose weight if you also eat low carb.
 
I am one of those doing " quite well" however even though I have seen some very good readings,n which are better than I dreamed possible, it is all too easy to find that what you are doing is not good enough. In the last few days I have had a few meals out and despite trying hard to stick to low carb is all too easy to find there were carbs hidden in the food, with the result that Ive slipped out of ketosis and whereas I had got the the point where my morning liver dump was rising to about 9, its suddenly gone back to 12 even without food. The differences between the food that keeps me under 8 most of the the time and the stuff that give me quite big spikes is not a lot so I can see how easy it might be to be "nearly there" but not quite enough to make the difference you need. You may find it easier to see what is going on if you buy a blood ketone monitor which will tell you how successfully you have actually cut down on carbs from your diet based on your state of ketosis.
 
Hi and Welcome,
As others have already stated were all very different. I've been on many different diets over the years and they don't all work the same for everyone. At one time I tried Slimming World and stuck to it religiously, for the first two weeks I lost, then I started to gain weight no matter what I did, in the end rather than offering help to see where I was going wrong, I was accused of cheating. I walked out very upset because I knew I hadn't. Consequently, I've not been back since. Their loss! So don't be despondent, everyone here are keen to help, so write us a typical day of your diet, it could be simply your eating something that dose not suit, for example some can get a way with eating fruit but others can't.
Keep positive
 
bulkbiker said:
Hi and welcome.
How low carb do you think you are?.. give us some examples of what you eat. Are you on any meds either for diabetes or other conditions? What do you weight/BMI etc. Give us some info and we can try to help.
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Hi Bulkbiker
I usually have a boiled egg, toms and cucumber or egg & bacon for breakfast. A piece of cheese for lunch. Fish, meat for dinner often with salad or with 1 small potato. I do have some salad cream with the salad. I eat some bread. perhaps 5 slices a week. Meds Metformin 1500mg, sitagliptin 100mg, gliclazide30mg, I weigh around 97kg BMI 33 I hope this helps. Sorry for the delay in answering I'm very new to Forum.
 
No worries about delay in replying we all have lives to lead as well..
Bread obviously not good although it depends on the type and maybe cut the potato. I would check the label on the salad cream to see how many carbs it has and maybe swap for a lower carb dressing or mayo instead. Don't see much fat there though - do you feel hungry all the time? You are taking a lot of meds and still getting high bloods which is a bit odd although I am far from being an expert on meds. Have you tried something like not eating breakfast? You will then have a longer fast period from dinner the previous night until lunch. I found this helped me a lot both with weight loss and bringing bloods down faster although I only realised this recently.
 
Thank you for your comments. I have never heard of a blood Ketone monitor! I will look into getting one. Although I have been diabetic2 for 10 years I obviously -have not gained the expertise that most of you seem to have achieved.
 

Thank you for that I may well cut out breakfast and I will check the carbs on labels more carefully.
 
TonyHBS said:
Thank you for your comments. I have never heard of a blood Ketone monitor! I will look into getting one. Although I have been diabetic2 for 10 years I obviously -have not gained the expertise that most of you seem to have achieved.
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I bought the on call GK dual function blood glucose and ketone monitor. I don't use the blood glucose part because the strips for the codefree are so much cheaper. The ketone strips are quite expensive , but once you are actually in ketosis its not necessary to test it every day unless you have changed your diet a lot. Looking at my blood sugar results today now I am back in ketosis, it seems that I should be able to see if the ketosis has changed from the increase in my blood sugar readings in the morning so the blood ketone monitor can then confirm my suspicions.
 
Hey don't worry about it - I have been managing my diabetes for over 50 years now and I still screw up and make mistakes but you just say oops and move on - case in point - my BGs were 21 this morning. I knew they were high as soon as I woke up - I ate something deliciously sweet last night knowing the implications but sometimes (not often) I do that - you gotta live a little. I was diagnosed in 1966 and for the fist 30 years of my diabetes I was only on one shot, never tested, ate what I wanted and continued living a very physically active life. The last 20 years I've been a little more cognizant of managing my condition and I try to keep my BG levels within the normal range as much as possible but I still screw up. So I guess that makes me a poor diabetic too - but I'm happy, I'm physically active (more so than most 55 yr old males) and have no regrets - no complications. So my advice to you - don;t worry about it too much.
 
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