Newly diagnosed and confused

[dbr10]

Hi,
I was confirmed this week as having type 2 diabetes. I'm on the borderline of having to take tablets so have been told to change my diet to begin with.
I'm 6 foot 3 but have always been skinny so am worried about losing too much weight.
I was told to talk to the diabetic nurse at my local hospital but she is not available until September 12th so was wondering please if you good people on here could help me with my confusion over something please?

I've read the healthy balanced diet pages on here but they seem to contradict the advice I've read elsewhere?
Basically my diet until now has consisted of a lot of starchy foods such as pasta rice and potatoes. I've read forums elsewhere on the web that advise to avoid them totally if you have diabetes, or at least make the portions tiny.
However the pages on here say to try to include some starchy foods every day? And further they say it's fine to eat rice, pasta or noodles.....
Can you advise please on what the correct advice is because if I can continue to eat these foods I wont have to worry about losing too much weight?
Many thanks,
Simon

When you do get to see the DN be wary of advice to eat lots of carbs; or "we recommend carbs at every meal"; or "you can eat porridge" (60% carbs); or you should eat low fat yoghurt (higher carbs than full fat).
When you test before meals and two hours afterwards you will know if the advice was right - it isn't.

 

[dbr10]

Hi,
Thankyou very much for your replies and for your welcome. Yes It's all a bit daunting but to have you guys to ask for advice is very heartening.

All I could make out from the hospital receptionist when she called was that anyone scoring over 48 in a particular test has diabetes, and I scored 59 in that test. This was my 3rd blood test which she said confirmed the diagnosis.

I was about to go grocery shopping now but I think I'll take my time and look into the low carb diet you recommend.

The area I got the info about on eating starchy food at least once a day by the way was here about half way down the page

Thanks again,
Simon

Read the nutrition labels on food packets too. Aim for 5g carbs/100g or less.

 

[dbr10]

Hi,
I got fed up with having to wait until 12th September to see the diabetic nurse so I went to see my doctor.
She refused to give me a testing meter as she thinks I can control my type 2 by eating normally and just cutting out biscuits, cake and chocolate. When I questioned this she said she'd been a doctor for 30 years so I should just heed her advice.
To be honest I think I'll heed the advice of you guys on here who actually have type 2 rather than listen to her

Just as an aside I have a question on Carbohydrates if I may please?
This morning in Asda I tried to find a cereal with low carbs, but couldn't. The lowest count I could find was Kellogs all bran, which has 48g of carbs per 100g of which 18g is sugar.
My question is which reading matters, carbs or sugar? or both?

Thanks,
Simon

Carbs - and both those cereals are too high.

 

[Alison Campbell]

If you go back to post 4 of this thread @AM1874 has suggested the popular meters on the forum and how to purchase.

 

[Mr_Pot]

I'll let the debate start on this, BUT, I'd say its the sugars you want to look out for on packaging... Carbs get turned into sugar in the body, but sugar are already sugar so it goes straight in...

The sugar noted on the packaging is not normally glucose but a combination of more complex sugars which need to be processed by the body to obtain the glucose in the blood. As an example, table sugar is sucrose which is a combination of glucose and fructose. Glucose has a GI of 100 but fructose only has a GI of 19 which slows down the absorption of sucrose and gives it a GI of 65. Note that mashed potato has a GI of about 85 so it can affect blood glucose more quickly than table sugar.
Most of us on here ignore the "of which sugar" and just go by the total carbs.

 

[pleinster]

Hi,
I got fed up with having to wait until 12th September to see the diabetic nurse so I went to see my doctor.
She refused to give me a testing meter as she thinks I can control my type 2 by eating normally and just cutting out biscuits, cake and chocolate. When I questioned this she said she'd been a doctor for 30 years so I should just heed her advice.
To be honest I think I'll heed the advice of you guys on here who actually have type 2 rather than listen to her

Just as an aside I have a question on Carbohydrates if I may please?
This morning in Asda I tried to find a cereal with low carbs, but couldn't. The lowest count I could find was Kellogs all bran, which has 48g of carbs per 100g of which 18g is sugar.
My question is which reading matters, carbs or sugar? or both?

Thanks,
Simon

Bottom line - I never look at sugar content on labels now; I only look at carbohydrates - they amount to the same thing as far as my body is concerned. I found it difficult to give up cereal as I used to have it every day. I searched in vain for anything with a lower carb count than certain makers' bran flakes. I hate porridge (and its hardly low in carbs anyway...and some can cope with it and some can't). I managed to abandon it on realising that the average bowl of cereal has the same nutritional value as a cardboard but the sugar makes it taste better! My breakfast solution was Lidl protein rolls (which care low carb, tasty, cheap and freezable).