Newbie - confused?!?

Jane14400 said:

I feel like I’ll never have any nice food again

Click to expand...

Oh you will for sure.. nice juicy steaks or fish poached in butter..

Not sure I'd go for 800 cals but if it works for you,,

Most of us have the best success with limiting carbs quite drastically.


Cut out breads, pasta, spuds, rice and stodge (obviously anything with sugar)

Limit sweet fruit

Enjoy meat, fish, dairy, green veg, bacon, eggs and butter instead.

Most of us end up getting our own meters and checking and recording blood sugar levels to get an insight into what the food we eat is doing to our blood sugars and adjusting what we eat accordingly. I'd heartily recommend doing the same if you can. One of the cheapest to run is the Tee2+ which you can get from here

https://shop.spirit-health.co.uk/collections/tee2

If you order by phone they often throw in the meter for free and don;t forgtet to tell them you have been recently diagnosed to save the VAT.

Oops forgot to say hi and welcome..

We've all been where you are now and many are out the other side with T2 in remission so.. never give up we've got your back!

Hi and welcome to the forum.
As Said above, there are thousands of people and many in this forum who have drastically improved their diabetes (and also lost weight, reduced Blood Pressure) by just following a Low Carb way of eating.
No need to cut calories. In fact since I substituted traditional proteins and fats for the carbs I cut, I almost certainly ate more calories for the first 2 or 3 weeks until my stomach got used to the more nutrient dense (so smaller volume) food.

Since beating Type 2 diabetes ia a lifetime thing, many find that a gentle approach is better than the masochistic yo-yo calorie restricted diet, much less willpower is required. And willpower does runout - nobody has infinite willpower!

Hi and welcome. Yes, it's worth trying the best diet approach to start with to get your BMI in the right region. The 800 Cal diet may well help but it's best to think Carbs rather than Cals. Cals are not a food group and can encourage you to reduce Fat rather rather than Carb which would be wrong. So, most of us would suggest setting yourself a daily Carb limit - perhaps 150gm/day to start with but find what works for you. Have as much Fat & Protein as you need to keep you feeling full. Veg and non-tropical fruit are fine. Nothing is prohibited but just be sensible. Have Cake without sugary icing, have 85% Dark Chocolate and so on. A meter is essential. You will need to obtain your own together with strips. The 'Codefree' is popular as it has low-cost strips.

HI Jane
I so remember feeling exactly the same, and if anyone told me that a year later I'd be very happy eating what I'm eating, and enjoying, now I wouldn't have believed them!

By all means start with the 800, but when that palls and you start to feel hungry all the time, switch to low carb and forget everything you've ever been told about calories.
Healthy fats are satiating and I rarely feel hungry. When I'd do its time to eat! I've lost over 3 stone and have never been slimmer, and my bg is brilliant.

Yes, get a meter and test regulary at first. Its the only way to see what suits your body

Jane14400 said:

They gave me some numbers of 91 and 12.6 but I have no idea what these are, how bad are they? Is that the top end of the scale and I’m going to keel over

Thank you.

Click to expand...

hi and welcome

the 91 is probably your average blood glucose reading over the last 2-3 months. It is pretty high, but is not off the chart, so don’t get stressed about it. You are already taking big steps to bring that number down, and you’ve found this forum which will stand you in very good stead.

the 12.6 is probably your snapshot blood glucose reading, in mmol/l. This figure varies throughout the day.

Hello and welcome,

It is totally normal to feel upset and distressed at the diagnosis. I felt exactly the same. I am a carboholic and the thought of a life without carbs felt totally horrible and barely worth living. Luckily- like you I found this site. I have had all the help, advice and support I needed from this great group of people.

So I went very low carb straight away. I did it for a couple of reasons- first I wanted to get my levels down as quickly as I could- probably also I wanted to prove that it didn't work so I could go back to eating carbs- well that didn't work as very low carbs did work. I also wanted to try to lower my insulin resistence- again I was hoping that I could get rid of it and go back to carbs- again that is not what I think now. BUT what I found is that by going very low arb the physical craving for them has lessened dramatically. This together with my hunger reducing significantly because of the lack of carbs makes it sustainable for me. There are times it does still get me down but I am actually healthier in my mid 50s than for at least 10 years and probably more. I have lost weight and lost my lifelong asthma.

This site literally saved my life- you will meet the best people if you stick around and I reckon you will improve your health generally too.

To do this you will need a meter so great that you have ordered one.

By the way- I've lost over 30 kg going low carb not low calorie and not been hungry.

Good luck and welcome.

Hi & Welcome

I felt the same as you - extremely lost, upset and confused and wondered what on earth I was going to eat as everything I had previously eaten had been high carb. Firstly I ditched the obvious ones potatoes, pasta, rice, bread, milk chocolate and porridge. But really when you think about it what we eat each week is quite repetitive week in week out and a habit so I got in to a new habit of eating which you will too and this way is now my new normal. I think me being diagnosed was probably a blessing in disguise as I am now a lot healthier, eat a lot better, walk everywhere if I can (before I used to park the car as near as I could) and the bonus is I have lost over 3 stones and the lightest weight I have been in over 30 years. For me it has been the best thing although I certainly didn't think it at the time.

Initially I just did probably lower carbs with lower calories also (not sure how many but I don't think it was as low as 800) but was certainly a lot lower that I had been eating before - I do like my food. I also cut portion size as well and there are alternatives for a lot of things such as dark chocolate (which at first I didn't like but I do now and don't miss milk chocolate - your body stops craving sugar when you stop having it). There is cauliflower rice for rice which is fine too and a few others you will get in to the way of it honestly.

I also agree that the only way to know how our blood reacts to any food is to keep testing.

You are going to be ok - you will be just fine - it does take time just like doing anything new at first.

I also asked/told my DN that I didn't want medication and she agreed to give me 12 weeks to see how I got on.

Have a look at my signature to see my own personal journey

I have attached some info below - it may be of interest to you

Low carb info
Intro to T2 and low carb. https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog-entry/the-nutritional-thingy.2330/
All the things I wish I’d been told earlier https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/th...ish-i’d-been-told-at-type-2-diagnosis.173817/

Good Luck and keep asking questions - that's how we all learn - they are a very friendly, helpful, knowledgeable bunch here.

Take care of yourself

Jane14400 said:

There seems to be one resounding suggestion, to stick to a low carb diet. Is this the same as Keto? Is there a “plan” for low carb? A website or a cook book that you recommend? Apart from the obvious unfortunately I don’t know the carb content of food so am a bit lost. Thank you.

Click to expand...

www.dietdoctor.com has some great recipes and huge amounts of info about low carb and keto.

Keto is more carb restricted (and in my view better) than cutting carbs as most people have a tolerance threshold for the amount of carbs they can eat without spiking their bloods.. almost everyone following a ketogenic plan will be below this threshold.. by simply restricting carbs to a "lower level" say sub 130g per day which is considered "low carb" you could well be above your personal threshold.

Testing your blood glucose before and 2 hours after meals will soon show you where you are on the carb intolerance spectrum.

Keto is just a shorthand for eating sufficiently low carbs that your body automatically goes into nutritional ketosis, whereby it uses fat for fuel rather than glucose. This is why it as beast for weight loss with not much effort from the owner of the body, other than not eating carbs! There are lots of other benefits too, in my opinion.

Having said that, I never set out to be keto, and ‘proper’ keto involves working out daily percentages for fat, protein and carbs and weighing food to stick to that. I am lazy keto - I end up in ketosis much of the time because my carb consumption is low, but it is guided by my meter and not nutritional macros. I don’t worry about whether I am in ketosis or not (and my body seems to switch in and out quite happily these days, after just over a year), I only worry about my BG levels. So you can be hard-core or lazy keto according to preference, or not keto at all if you don’t reduce your carbs that low - that is a personal decision.

It’s worth reading about keto, because you may well find yourself in ketosis depending on how low you take the carbs, and there is a short ‘keto flu’ phase where you feel a bit rough so maybe be aware of that. Googling ‘keto’ before anything you fancy eating is a good way of finding low-carb recipes.

I would just say, there is no need to pay for special ‘keto’ foods, everything can be achieved with stuff from the supermarket- except that I do buy almond flour and stevia/erithrytol sweetener online because I like baking cakes now and then. So yes, you can still have birthday cake. I made a choc-orange cake last weekend with chocolate ganache topping and it was delicious!

Hi 'Carbs & Cals' both the book and mobile App show pictures of typical carbs and portion sizes. For packaged foods look at the back of the package and 'Total Carbs'. Ignore Traffic Light labelling which is rubbish.

Jane14400 said:

There seems to be one resounding suggestion, to stick to a low carb diet. Is this the same as Keto? Is there a “plan” for low carb? A website or a cook book that you recommend? Apart from the obvious unfortunately I don’t know the carb content of food so am a bit lost. Thank you.

Click to expand...

I have lost 60 pounds and have had non diabetic numbers for three years with out counting carbs.
I eat any meat I like. Full fat dairy, eggs, butter, and above ground vegetables.
If I try something new, I test before I eat and two hours after to see what it does to my BG.
I found the idea of counting exact carbs overwhelming so this method worked for me.

Jane14400 said:

There seems to be one resounding suggestion, to stick to a low carb diet. Is this the same as Keto? Is there a “plan” for low carb? A website or a cook book that you recommend? Apart from the obvious unfortunately I don’t know the carb content of food so am a bit lost. Thank you.

Click to expand...

KETO is a term taken from the term ketosis, the process of burning fats for energy.
Many diets are laid out as a set of rules, and then they stop dead in their tracks and expect you to obey - if you want something to read try Dr Atkins New Diet Revolution - I got a copy around 2003 and it agreed with everything I knew about how I ought to eat. Add in a glucose meter to check levels after eating and you should soon sort out what you can eat without getting high numbers.
I have a little notebook with the carb content of lower carb salad and veges, with the values in UK terms - they do not include the fibre.
It is not difficult to find information online, but if the results do not tally then it is probably due to the USA including the fibre, which isn't all that useful for our purposes. We need net carb counts, as that is what is digested.