Newbie a few weeks in - what I wish I’d known at the start!

Dandelade said:

Gardening was amazing for levels way more than extra walking

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Alexandra100 said:

@HurricaneHippo Yes, I think you're right, baked beans aren't the best for low carb. Even though versions with less sugar do exist, even plain beans are more than most of us can manage. It's worthwhile also checking the label on the sausages. Often they are packed with carby fillers, because of course flour etc come cheaper than meat. The great thing is, we have brilliant labelling on almost everything edible so you can check. Someone posting on here recently discovered some amazingly low carb sausages. If you don't want to stand in the shop peering at labels, most supermarkets post all this info. on their websites for us to check at our leisure.

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Dandelade said:

Hi all,

Firstly there are loads of really experienced and helpful people here to give advise - that’s not me! I just thought it might be nice to share a few things I’ve found out that have been helpful as I’m only about a month in of my journey.

I fiddled around with diet and exercise with blood glucose monitoring before and 2 hours after food to work out what causes spikes and what doesn’t. For me very very small portions of carbs actually helped and stopped my liver pumping out glucose and I replaced it with veg and protein. Likewise fasting was a big no no. I’m down to fasting glucose of 5.5 on average and return to this after food - once I’d worked out the magic formula it took a couple of weeks. There’s lots and lots of contradictory advice but the blood glucose monitor helped me work out what works for me.

I’m not a huge meat eater so seeds, cheese and avocado (for fibre and appetite depressant) have been great. I refuse to give up cups of tea with milk but just calculate the milk in the the carb count.

There are lots and lots of recipes for high carb favourites that can be replaced - it’s not a case of never being able to eat treats or bread ever again. Check out the food thread here there loads!

Another source of despair was the thought or never eating out or having takeaway again. I’ve done both, it’s just taken a shift in no set about what to order. Again see the threads for suggestions!

Vigorous exercise raised my blood sugar, gentle lowered it. Exercising before eating raised glucose, after eating lowered it. Gardening was amazing for levels way more than extra walking - I presume that’s the same as low resistance in gym.

I’m very far from an expert and everybody’s body seems different. The answer seems to be test, test, test and fiddle with diet and exercise until you find something that works for you.

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