Newish.

Hi and welcome,
I find that grains are the worst so I have cut out bread, pasta, porridge and rice and almost all potatoes.

I follow the Dietdoctor´s advice: http://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf and it works very well indeed for me. Not only is my bg normal, my cholesterol is the best ever.

Loosing a bit of weight seems to improve bg.

Hi autopian, welcome

Avoiding sweet and sugary foods is not enough as you probably realise, you have to reduce the carbs as well. Carbohydrates metabolise quickly to sugar in the system (some take a little longer than others) and so for diabetics they act basically as if they were sugar. So you need to cut out starchy carbs as much as possible – bread, potatoes, pasta and rice. This may be contrary to medical profession guidance you have received to eat carbs with every meal – this is fundamentally flawed advice rejected by most well-controlled T2s on here.

Test your blood glucose (BG) levels before and after meals (2 hours after starting to eat) and see what ‘spikes’ you.

For low carb foods try and go for those that have less than 10g total carbohydrate per 100g, less than 5g if you can. Ignore the ‘of which sugar’ bit, that’s irrelevant to us. You will become an avid reader of food labels! As well as carbs avoid tropical fruits including bananas which are full of sugar – for us berry fruits are best. Avoid most ‘low fat’ products as these usually have added sugar – go for full fat milk, cream, butter, Greek yoghurt etc.

Many people find that losing weight and good blood sugar control go hand in hand. Reduce the carbs!

Have a good read around and ask any more questions!

Hi and welcome to the forum.

You might actually be glad you didn't end up seeing the dietician/nutricianist, most would end up pushing the balanced plate approach and advise eating carbs with every meal. You will find the advise here very different, but you will also find plenty of people who will tell you it works.

Most of us are on restricted carbs, how restricted depends on the person. For myself I have about 100g of carbs a day, less than half the recommended daily amount, but it is keeping my BS low and hopefully I will be able to reduce my medication when I have my next review later this year. That comes after years of slowly increasing the Metformin while following the standard advise (and ignoring the condition on my part). Following the advise found here helped me.

As others have said, you need to start checking the total carbs and then keep a record of your blood sugar before and 2 hours after, it will soon tell you what you can and can't eat. Your meter is your friend, never be scared by what it says, if you think it is wrong do a second reading to check, and learn from what it tells you.

Have a look around the site, there are plenty of ideas for low carb food and menus. I used to love baking, didn't do any for years and then in the last few months have really started again, first of all because I can't eat shop bought cakes etc. any more, but now because I have remembered how much I enjoy doing it and I am able to experiment with various low carb options.

Good luck with your journey, remember it is a marathon not a sprint, so if it takes a few trials to find out what works for you that is fine, it doesn't need to happen overnight.