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Newly diagnosed - at the beginning of a trip to the US!

L

LeonieM

Member
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10
I am a third generation type 2er, with my maternal grandfather, then my mum, then all three of my brothers all contracting it. I have just succumbed myself, at the age of 61, having been pre-diabetic for what must be 10 years!

Anyway, I had my blood test just before leaving for our 10-day holiday to the US but couldn't get my results before flying, so I was careful for the first couple of days (corn syrup is used in EVERYTHING there), and finally managed to get a 'yes' or 'no' answer from my doctor a couple of days in. I have come out at a level of 53 when I should be under 52. That suggests to me that I'm not as bad as I could be - but what do I know!

Anyway, I did eat carefully while out there, despite not having any proper advice before going as to what I should avoid at all costs or what was okay for me to eat. I had a verbal carb limit of 250g per day, but clearly you can't avoid all carbs. I had plain rice where I could, fries a couple of times, and 2 small jacket potatoes. I ate a lot of salads! I didn't have a single pastry, cake or other sweet treat other than hubby and me splitting a small pot of icecream between us one afternoon and half a cookie on our last day. If I'd known it was okay to eat Disney popcorn, I'd have bought a refillable pot at the beginning of our stay and snacked on that, but only got some on our penultimate day. :(

Anyway, I found this site while trying to find what I can eat to fill myself so I'm not going to end up hungry all the time. Yes, I am overweight and need to lose weight, but now I'm retired I was planning on cooking more now I have time to do so - only to discover that most of my favourite foods are now severely limited. I had a chat with my mum last night who gave me some very important info on the effect eating too many carbs will have on my sugar levels (I had no idea rice converts to sugars, for example).

We literally got home from holiday lunchtime yesterday, so I rang the doc this morning and I have my appointment with the nurse on Thursday for her to check my feet/circulation etc as well as hopefully give me some sort of 'personalised' plan to follow. But that's obviously still a week away, and I have to get through the next week not even knowing what grocery shopping I need to do.

So, would you lovely people please give me some tips on what I should absolutely avoid at all costs, but also let me know what sort of things I can eat to fill me up so I'm not hungry all the time. The trouble with veg and salad is that they're mostly water and won't fill me up for very long, sadly. Oh, very important: I can't eat anything in the onion family, mushroom family or peppers family (including chillis and stuff). I weighed my bread this morning - 2 slices of seeded wholemeal came to 92g - that's too big a proportion of my daily carbs to keep doing that! If I knew how much of the weight was the seeds then I could deduct that from the total, I guess. lol I have read that I can eat dairy, meats and fish - so in a way it's a bit like going Keto - but I also have to watch my cholestrol as they also think I have a fatty liver (I have an ultrasound for that in a couple of weeks), so I can't eat too many eggs or scoff too much cheese (which I love).

Many thanks in advance for any useful info you can let me have. ;)
 
A 53 you've only just fallen into the T2 spectrum.
Sounds like you've loads of wiggle room with your diet to improve.

School up on low carb & get a meter.

2 slices of whole meal bread might weigh 92g of but only have about 30gs of carbs.
Labels will tell you how many carbs per 100g.

Eat as many eggs & cheese as you want, natural fats don't make you fat.
 
Hi @LeonieM
A slight correction to the post above:
Although its difficult to eat enough chees or eggs to make you fat, it is possible if you are a real glutton for cheese (like me). However even averaging between 200gms and 400 gms per day of cheese (and 3 eggs per day) but keeping my carbs down I only added 8lbs in 1yr - most of which I actually wanted to gain because I had originally lost over 16% of my weight by going Low Carb in order to get my Type 2 Diabetes into remission without medication.
But it's a lot easier to gain weight by eating carbs because a Blood Glucose spike followed by a crash (as the insulin finally overcome the insulin resistance) makes you hungry again - so you eat more!
 
The diagnostic level is actually 48 not 52 as you’ve been led to believe. Not a huge amount of difference but lower.

250g carbs a day is a lot higher than almost any of us can cope with. In fact that’s typical for non diabetics (not necessarily good either). The vast majority are under 130g and many under 50g to control their type 2 without drugs. It seems daunting now but a steady elimination of carbs with minimal nutritional value and some experimenting with alternatives and it actually is a lot easier to replace them than it appears now.

the popcorn was wisely avoided. Corn as a grain is usually very problematic

low carb keto higher protein and fats does not raise cholesterol usually. Higher cholesterol is part of the same metabolic problem as type 2. Reducing carbs makes way way more beneficial difference than adding some natural fats and proteins to keep you fuelled will. We almost all have better HDL and triglycerides and ratios on this way of eating and a dr that only considers totals doesn’t know their stuff that well. Lots more info available on cholesterol and statins when your ready to research it for yourself. Just ask.

Can you see the links below in red? Loads of useful information in them
 
I was just reflecting that if you were eating that amount of carbs, you were eating in one day what I eat in a week in order to keep my numbers normal.
However - you need to know the percentage of the weight of various foods which is the actual amount of carbohydrate in it.
For instance, only 3 percent of a yellow sweet pepper is carbohydrate, turnip and leek are about 3.5 percent carbs - so by choosing carefully you can eat well and not push the carbs very high at all.
 
Thanks for the info so far, guys. So far I've had a lot of contradictory info from various sources, so I'm not really much more informed than before. The doctor was the one who told me I should stick to 250g of carbs a day, but obviously we'll see what the nurse tells me.

But I checked the labels of the carbs and some of the canned soups/beans in my cupboard, and 100g of easy cook rice is 85.5g, pasta is around 58g, and a can of Heinz chicken soup, for example is 20g. The seeded bread is 19g per slice, so that's okay. Today I have apparently eaten 130g of carbs plus whatever carbs there are in a portion of frozen peas. The cheese in my early lunch sandwich was 0g and the chicken I did for dinner was also 0g. What I don't know is how many carbs there are in a fresh potato - couldn't see a nutrient guide on the pack, but I shall check again.

My mum was telling me that she cooks only 1oz of rice for each of them, but that just wouldn't be enough for me. 100g of rice is a good portion size, but obviously if I'm running high on carbs in a particular day I can do less. But the Bisto instant cheese sauce that I buy has a tiny amount of carbs per serving, so I can make myself a small portion of macaroni cheese and even add grated cheese in it and on the top and toast it off and have a delicious lunch. I also add tuna sometimes, as that is amazing in the cheese sauce. Of course, cauliflower cheese will have a lot less carbs ...
 
LeonieM said:
I had a verbal carb limit of 250g per day, but clearly you can't avoid all carbs. I had plain rice where I could, fries a couple of times, and 2 small jacket potatoes. I ate a lot of salads
Click to expand...
Rice, potatoes which ever way they are cooked, pasta are all on the bad food list for T2's.

If you have seen or read the LOTR triologies, Smeagol and Sam had this conservation..

Smeagol: What's it doing?! Stupid, fat hobbit! You ruins it!
Sam: What's to ruin? There was hardly any meat on them. What we need is a few good taters.
Smeagol: What's "taters", precious? What's "taters", eh?
Sam: Po-tay-toes! Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew. Lovely big golden chips with a nice piece of fried fish.
[Sm?agol spits.]
Sam: Even you couldn't say no to that.
Smeagol: Oh yes, we could! Spoiling nice fish! Give it to us raw, and wriggling! You keep nasty chips!
Sam: ...You're hopeless.
Click to expand...

Smeagol is right, he did not like eating lembas bread either.
 
HSSS said:
The diagnostic level is actually 48 not 52 as you’ve been led to believe. Not a huge amount of difference but lower.

250g carbs a day is a lot higher than almost any of us can cope with. In fact that’s typical for non diabetics (not necessarily good either). The vast majority are under 130g and many under 50g to control their type 2 without drugs. It seems daunting now but a steady elimination of carbs with minimal nutritional value and some experimenting with alternatives and it actually is a lot easier to replace them than it appears now.

the popcorn was wisely avoided. Corn as a grain is usually very problematic

low carb keto higher protein and fats does not raise cholesterol usually. Higher cholesterol is part of the same metabolic problem as type 2. Reducing carbs makes way way more beneficial difference than adding some natural fats and proteins to keep you fuelled will. We almost all have better HDL and triglycerides and ratios on this way of eating and a dr that only considers totals doesn’t know their stuff that well. Lots more info available on cholesterol and statins when your ready to research it for yourself. Just ask.

Can you see the links below in red? Loads of useful information in them
Click to expand...
  • The doc told me that the level should be between 48 and 52. Her words ...
  • She was the one who told me 250g as well - perhaps it's all to do with the fact I'm only a little over. I do have very few of the normal symptoms though - I'm not excessively thirsty, I don't drink a lot (in fact, I should drink a lot more than I do), and I'm not weeing a lot. The only thing I've noticed is trouble with my eyes: I'm long sighted, but I've been finding that I've been having trouble focussing a bit with my varifocals. That said, I've not been as bad since we got home from holiday: maybe that 10 days on a restricted diet is already working ...
  • I read the thing about popcorn being a good snack for type 2 on a website when I was surfing earlier today.
  • My cholesterol level is apparently raised and I've also been told to take vitamin B supplements as my folic acid level is low. I've done that, as well. Plus I have high BP and now my 'scrips are free I will 'consent' to going onto medication. All this is why I took early retirement at the end of Feb, as I was feeling ill all the time and I needed to get away from all that stress of being office manager and a car-train-train commute both ways every day.
  • My mum started as diet controlled, but when she stopped being able to control her levels a few years later she went on medication, and she said it's actually better for her as she can eat more 'naughty' stuff than she could trying to control it by diet alone.
  • My older brother was diagnosed about 15 years ago (at around 45) and he's got to be very strict and is on higher medication than my younger brother, who was diagnosed a few years after him. He seems to be very mild in comparison. My youngest brother also developed type 2, but didn't get to live with it for very long as he tragically died suddenly of heart disease literally weeks before his 50th birthday.
  • So, even asking family for advice I'll get wildly different info from each of them. I'm the last one to get it of the four siblings, not succumbing until I was 61, but as I said I've apparently been pre-diabetic for well over a decade - and no, I wasn't watching my diet at all that entire time.
  • I apparently also have an enlarged heart, and am booked for an echocardiogram at the end of May. Don't know if all this stuff is connected.
  • I've got new bathroom scales. Just need to get them set up in a stable place (the tiled bathroom floor should do it), and then see how I get on. I haven't put on any weight in over 15 years. Trouble is, I'm maintaining it at too high a level. That will change.
 
Riva_Roxaban said:
Rice, potatoes which ever way they are cooked, pasta are all on the bad food list for T2's.

If you have seen or read the LOTR triologies, Smeagol and Sam had this conservation..



Smeagol is right, he did not like eating lembas bread either.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but we all know Hobbits had a second breakfast on top of everything else! ROFL
I rarely eat breakfast - but my mum says I must eat regularly now.
 
Never mind what those dozy Hobbits do breakfast wise o_O - If you rarely eat breakfast then you can definitely carry on rarely eating breakfast - it's often better for your pancreas to have a longer break between meals. It's "posh" name is 16/8 Intermittent Fasting and it's often used to help manage diabetes - check out forum posts or try Google for posts by Jason Fung. I've been a non-breakfast eater most of my life and it's now tending to make my current (very) low carb diabetic lifestyle much easier. Just make sure you are avoiding all high carbohydrate foods - both starchy and sugary - and try to replace them with enough normal full fat food to satisfy any hunger pangs.

We can use both carbohydrates and fats for energy, and since as T2s we tend to be "carbohydrate intolerant" the more we can swap the one for the other, the better/lower our glucose levels will tend to be. If you are overweight like I've been, you body will also be able to burn up some of that surplus fat, as well any dietary fats you eat, and the weight can hopefully fall off, as it has for me.
 
LeonieM said:
  • The doc told me that the level should be between 48 and 52. Her words ...
  • She was the one who told me 250g as well - perhaps it's all to do with the fact I'm only a little over. I do have very few of the normal symptoms though - I'm not excessively thirsty, I don't drink a lot (in fact, I should drink a lot more than I do), and I'm not weeing a lot. The only thing I've noticed is trouble with my eyes: I'm long sighted, but I've been finding that I've been having trouble focussing a bit with my varifocals. That said, I've not been as bad since we got home from holiday: maybe that 10 days on a restricted diet is already working ...
  • I read the thing about popcorn being a good snack for type 2 on a website when I was surfing earlier today.
  • My cholesterol level is apparently raised and I've also been told to take vitamin B supplements as my folic acid level is low. I've done that, as well. Plus I have high BP and now my 'scrips are free I will 'consent' to going onto medication. All this is why I took early retirement at the end of Feb, as I was feeling ill all the time and I needed to get away from all that stress of being office manager and a car-train-train commute both ways every day.
  • My mum started as diet controlled, but when she stopped being able to control her levels a few years later she went on medication, and she said it's actually better for her as she can eat more 'naughty' stuff than she could trying to control it by diet alone.
  • My older brother was diagnosed about 15 years ago (at around 45) and he's got to be very strict and is on higher medication than my younger brother, who was diagnosed a few years after him. He seems to be very mild in comparison. My youngest brother also developed type 2, but didn't get to live with it for very long as he tragically died suddenly of heart disease literally weeks before his 50th birthday.
  • So, even asking family for advice I'll get wildly different info from each of them. I'm the last one to get it of the four siblings, not succumbing until I was 61, but as I said I've apparently been pre-diabetic for well over a decade - and no, I wasn't watching my diet at all that entire time.
  • I apparently also have an enlarged heart, and am booked for an echocardiogram at the end of May. Don't know if all this stuff is connected.
  • I've got new bathroom scales. Just need to get them set up in a stable place (the tiled bathroom floor should do it), and then see how I get on. I haven't put on any weight in over 15 years. Trouble is, I'm maintaining it at too high a level. That will change.
Click to expand...
Your dr is being “generous” with levels. 48 is the diagnosis level officially. Normal is under 42. In between is classed as prediabetic. They are following traditional advice that a type 2 eats what anyone else does. That same traditional advice also means that type 2 treated this way invariably end up on more and more medication and with more and more complications. Ie it was seen as progressive. Medicating the symptoms of type 2 (blood glucose) whilst ignoring the underlying problem (insulin resistance caused and made worse by high insulin levels) is the name of the game there.

Addressing the root of it is what will prevent that progression from happening. Achieving remission (normal levels without drugs) is now accepted by the NHS even if your dr and possibly nurse haven’t caught up fully yet (some have, some just assume you won’t want to do what’s required and make the choice for you by not telling you about low carb). There are low carb programs endorsed by the nhs and there are nhs professional education units available to them too. There are also very low calorie options available to mimic bariatric surgery that have some success but really not perfect or my choice. Statistically and as a population achieving some unambitious level of control of glucose via medication might limit or slow complications but doesn’t stop them. Achieving control by removing the problem has far better odds.

Being only a little over is not a reason to make the problem worse. It’s an opportunity to turn it around a little easier. Lack of symptoms isn’t that unusual (I had none either at 55mmol) and doesn’t mean harm isn’t being done silently.

You mention free prescriptions. That is only true if age qualifies you or you have been put onto diabetic medication and issued a certificate stating so. If you are too young and diet managed only then it no freebies.

Taking medication (which masks not resolves the underlying issue) in order to eat more of the foods that are making you sick and will continue to make you sicker isn’t a choice I’d make.

High blood pressure and high cholesterol are often part of the same metabolic problem. Cut to the chase and deal with it all simultaneously, glucose, weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, insulin resistance and non alcoholic fatty liver ALL respond to lowering insulin levels by lowering carbs and the demand for insulin.

Whatever approach you choose do some research on all the options first and don’t just limit yourself to the one “traditional” approach being offered by this one particular dr. Ie make an educated and informed choice.
 
LeonieM said:
I rarely eat breakfast - but my mum says I must eat regularly now.
Click to expand...

only if you are on fixed doses of certain medication like insulin or gliclazide - to avoid hypos caused by medication designed to deal with food you are expected to eat. Or to prevent pigging out on unsuitable food if you’ve left it too long.

Otherwise it’s unfounded, unnecessary and outdated advice with science to show the opposite is actually more helpful.
 
My previous fatty liver improved on low carb and eating more good quality fats.
And I agree with others here that you've been given some out-dated advice by your nurse (in my case by their dietician as well). T2 diabetes is only a progressive disease if you carry on eating too many carbs. My mother, who preferred higher and higher doses of metformin so she could eat cake and sweets, ended up with serious nerve damage so she could barely walk and eye damage so she could no longer read.
If you have a sweet tooth (as I do) there are some great keto recipes that are low carb. And I'm happy having homemade cauliflower rice instead of grains and low carb 90 second bread occasionally if I want a sandwich. Otherwise full fat greek yogurt with a few berries, with chicken, fish, eggs and cheese and lots of green veg and green salad (with an oily dressing). Treat is bacon, either blt with 90s bread or with loads of mushrooms.
I do still have cereal in the morning but that is a mix of milled flaxseed with a little oatbran, chia seeds and nuts with cinnamon and a spoon of coconut milk in with water, cooked then served with double cream.
 
The last couple of days I've not gone above 150g carbs, and I've been fine hunger-wise - apart from feeling a bit clammy after humping washing around when I first got up and hadn't had anything to eat yet. So, as long as I keep this up then it's better, right? I have also dropped 4lb since returning from holiday - but a lot of that was diet Coke bloat from the holiday. All I could drink was diet Coke or bottled water (and tea, when I could make it). But, that's the US for you!

I had loads of salad stuff and veg delivered today (as well as some nice cheeses). I also ordered a 250g pack of grated mozerella so I can try the egg/cheese pizza base from a recipe I was led to by HSSS. My daughter is not pleased with me for not ordering any cakes, biscuits or breaded/battered frozen products. Shame ... lol
 
Reading your signature I have noted your health prolems. I, too, have osteoarthritis which means I can't walk or run for exercise. In fact, that coupled with an umbilical hernia means I can't walk around much at all.

I also have low-level asthma, but what screwed me up more than anything was getting C19 (Kent variant) in February 2021 which has left me with breathing problems, occasional loss of taste/smell, and my mum thinks she's read that C19 exacerbates the onset of diabetes. Whether that's true or not is difficult to prove, but I did have a chest xray as a precursor to possibly being referred to a Long Covid clinic. The doc said nothing showed up.

But at the end of the day, when you think what could have been the result of having Covid back in the days before the majority of us were vaccinated, I supppose I'm quite fortunate.
 
The surgery cancelled my appointment and I rescheduled for the first one they could fit me in - late Monday afternoon. So I'm subjected to a further 4 days of totalling working in the dark not knowing what I should and shouldn't be doing!

The good news, however, is that I have lost 6lbs since last Thursday jsut cutting right back on carbs and sugars, so clearly I'm doing something right!
 
LeonieM said:
Reading your signature I have noted your health prolems. I, too, have osteoarthritis which means I can't walk or run for exercise. In fact, that coupled with an umbilical hernia means I can't walk around much at all.

I also have low-level asthma, but what screwed me up more than anything was getting C19 (Kent variant) in February 2021 which has left me with breathing problems, occasional loss of taste/smell, and my mum thinks she's read that C19 exacerbates the onset of diabetes. Whether that's true or not is difficult to prove, but I did have a chest xray as a precursor to possibly being referred to a Long Covid clinic. The doc said nothing showed up.

But at the end of the day, when you think what could have been the result of having Covid back in the days before the majority of us were vaccinated, I supppose I'm quite fortunate.
Click to expand...

Leonie - is there no plan to repair your umbilical hernia?

One other thing I will say is that a chest x-ray isn't a very good way of gauging lung health. For a real good look for some of the micro damage sometimes caused by Covid, a high resolution CT scan is best practise. Hopefully, if you are referred to the Long Covid Clinic they will ask for an HR CT.
 
AndBreathe said:
Leonie - is there no plan to repair your umbilical hernia?

One other thing I will say is that a chest x-ray isn't a very good way of gauging lung health. For a real good look for some of the micro damage sometimes caused by Covid, a high resolution CT scan is best practise. Hopefully, if you are referred to the Long Covid Clinic they will ask for an HR CT.
Click to expand...

Yes, I am going to have it repaired (according to the ultrasound I had in January it's already quite big), but I needed to get our holiday out of the way before I could go onto a waiting list. That said, I have no idea how long I'm likely to be on a list, as the NHS is still so far behind due to Covid. They'd probably tell me to go away and lose weight to make it safer for general anaesthetic anyway.

Unfortunately they won't refer me to the LCC if my lung x-ray didn't show any damage. Yeah, I know it's ridiculous - Catch 22 and all that. But that said, since I gave up work I've felt so much better in myself with regard to wheeziness (or lack of).
 
LeonieM said:
Yes, I am going to have it repaired (according to the ultrasound I had in January it's already quite big), but I needed to get our holiday out of the way before I could go onto a waiting list. That said, I have no idea how long I'm likely to be on a list, as the NHS is still so far behind due to Covid. They'd probably tell me to go away and lose weight to make it safer for general anaesthetic anyway.

Unfortunately they won't refer me to the LCC if my lung x-ray didn't show any damage. Yeah, I know it's ridiculous - Catch 22 and all that. But that said, since I gave up work I've felt so much better in myself with regard to wheeziness (or lack of).
Click to expand...

Push for investigations into your wheezing.

A chest x-ray will show some lung changes, like a mass, such as the Big-C, and will also show up a pneumonia, but it will not show up the scarring, which some folks develop during Covid.

Glad your hernia is at least on the radar for repair.

Hopefully your new low carb way of eating will help you trim up. That might help if you have OA in your lower limbs too.
 
Well, sorry for being away for so long, but I had my 3-month review at the end of July - and I have REVERSED my diagnosis!! In 3 months!! The nurse wanted to know how I did it - I said that maybe I wasn't really diabetic in the first place!!

So I reduced my sugar level to 5.2. I asked about the other figure, and she didn't seem to know what I was talking about, but after throwing some figures around said it was actually between 40 and 42. So, not diabetic at all!

That said, I am still not noshing on cakes and biscuits and I have lowered portion levels generally (for the three of us) and am starting to lose weight again, albeit slowly. But, as at today my weight loss is 1 stone 3.5lbs and I am still eating under 150g of carbs a day. However, I am sneaking the odd icecream/ice lolly due to the heat.
 
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