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Carole Lesley

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Hello, I am 61 one years young female. Fatigue and concentration is being quite problematic for me at the moment. I have been self monitoring my blood glucose over the last few weeks and my morning measurements have been above 9.5mml despite not eating for 12-14 hours. My HBA1C is 59. I am overweight, and have been actively trying with diet and exercise to reduce . I have instigated a very low carb diet , could this be the cause of my fatigue?
My doctor has diagnosed me as diabetic, I have to wait 5 weeks to be seen in the practice diabetic clinic.
Any advice would be gratefully received
 
Hi Carole Lesley i am also recently diagnosed oh about 5 months ago now. I was also Fatigued and concentration was not good and sometimes still isn't but i am battling on. Maybe someone can help you in here. Good luck.
 
Hi and welcome. Tagging @daisy1 for the welcome pack.

Don't worry about the early morning highs. These are probably down to the dawn phenomenon, the liver dumps glucose to help us get going. It is usually the last number to come down. You can't do anything about it. Concentrate on your readings before and after meals.
 
Hello and welcome to the forum.

When you say you have started a very low carb way of eating could you tell us what a typical day's menu is as sometimes we can spot things that may be problematic.

Well done on your decision to tackle this condition head on, have a wander around the forum and ask as many questions as you like.
 
Carole Lesley said:
Hello, I am 61 one years young female. Fatigue and concentration is being quite problematic for me at the moment. I have been self monitoring my blood glucose over the last few weeks and my morning measurements have been above 9.5mml despite not eating for 12-14 hours. My HBA1C is 59. I am overweight, and have been actively trying with diet and exercise to reduce . I have instigated a very low carb diet , could this be the cause of my fatigue?
My doctor has diagnosed me as diabetic, I have to wait 5 weeks to be seen in the practice diabetic clinic.
Any advice would be gratefully received
Click to expand...
Advice from a well respected writer on diabetes who is herself T2 and has survived to be over 70 in reasonable nick:

https://www.bloodsugar101.com/home/how-to-lower-your-blood-sugar

You will find lots of good sense on her site, or you might like to get hold of one of her books: :Your Diabetes Questions Answered" or "Blood Sugar 101"

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=sr_a...ch-Books-Submit.x=0&Adv-Srch-Books-Submit.y=0
 
Hi, thank you for your replies, which I find helpful. Yesterday I had for breakfast 2 slices of turkey bacon ,2 eggs, 2 mushrooms made into an omelette, for lunch Greek yoghurt, and a couple of slices of cheese, dinner Grilled steak, mushrooms, salad. Is this what I should be eating? I desperately want to loose weight, I am rather scared of eating too much fat
 
Carole Lesley said:
Is this what I should be eating?
Click to expand...
Sounds great to me - what time's dinner tonight? Seriously, that looks fine. Have a look round at other threads so see what other people are eating. When I first started low carb, I needed to lose weight and it fell off even though I was eating fat. Now my weight has stabilised, and I think I will need to cut the dietary fat in order to lose more weight - but I'm not ready to do that yet! I lost 3.5 stone fairly painlessly and quickly by following low carb and exercise.
 
I too was scared of eating fat, I find that as long as I don't eat many carbs with it I don't put on weight. Have a look at an old thread of mine which I am posting just as an illustration to you to show you not to be scared of having the odd coffee with cream etc if you are hungry. I am not advising you to go to these extremes, just showing you what happened to me when I ate lots of fat for 5 days.

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/my-5-day-dairy-fat-fast.81433/

If you are hungry, then add some fat - this makes the low carb diet much more sustainable long term as you don't have to have willpower to fight the hunger pangs when they come.
 
Carole Lesley said:
Hi, thank you for your replies, which I find helpful. Yesterday I had for breakfast 2 slices of turkey bacon ,2 eggs, 2 mushrooms made into an omelette, for lunch Greek yoghurt, and a couple of slices of cheese, dinner Grilled steak, mushrooms, salad. Is this what I should be eating? I desperately want to loose weight, I am rather scared of eating too much fat
Click to expand...
As archersuz has said, that sounds impeccably low carb. I suggest you try testing before and after meals, as outlined by Jenny Ruhl. If you are getting much lower readings after meals then your fasting high may well be the dawn phenomenon. In that case you might like to try eating a little something just before bed. Quite a few people on here find that fasting too long causes their livers "helpfully" to dump carbs into their blood.
 
Welcome to the forum @Carole Lesley. Your gp should have picked it up from your HbA1c test if you had a thyroid problem, but possibly might have missed it.
I had problems with fatigue and walking a few years ago, it felt like I was wearing lead boots. After tests it was found to be hypothyroidism, where my thyroid gland wasn't producing enough thyroxene. Your thyroid gland controls a lot of bodily functions. I was prescribed synthetic thyroxene which has largely dealt with the problems.
Your Hba1c test should show your thyroid levels. Your gp surgery is supposed to allow you online access to your test results, though some still don't. You need to ask them for online access. If they don't allow online access, ask for a printout of your test results, which you are entitled to.
 
Hi. Sounds like you are doing all the right tings so just keep going the way you are and hopefully the weight and BS will slowly reduce. A sudden change to low-carb can cause some people to have a reaction and will fade. Have enough fat and protein to keep you feeling full.
 
I think the diet looks ok. You’ve shown one day, of course, but just based on that personally i would think about where you can add a little bit more fibre. I see you are having salad which is great but if you can some fibre to another meal as well it will improve it.
Nuts, avocado, green veg, beans and pulses are all good sources that won’t send the carb needle too high. Even very dark chocolate helps.
 
HI @Carole Lesley I live in an area known for low iodine in water, about a year ago I was getting fatigued during the day, I now take a multi vitamin tablet which includes iodine,once a day. I also upped my fat intake, not tremendously but probably more than Joe Average, my weight is stable at about 64kg, perhaps don't be afraid of fat, just don't mix with carbs!
 
Hello and welcome,
I can see that you have had lots of helpful replies and advice, I don’t need to add any more for you to digest.
I will suggest a thread here that several of us post to, we record our daily menus and you might find it helpful to see what types of food you can eat,
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/posts/1852819/

A little bit of inspiration for you, my diagnosis was October last year, I didn’t immediately go low carb high fat as I wasn’t aware of this eating plan. I then discovered it via this forum and started to follow it in Jan this year, my first check up showed blood glucose levels in the pre diabetic range and I’d lost over 2 stone, my most recent check up, May, returned normal levels and more weight lost, to date I’m 3lb off of 5 stone.
I appreciate I’m lucky in that I didn’t have any other health conditions and my cholesterol and blood pressure were within accepted levels at diagnosis and have both reduced since.
 
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