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Newly diagnosed.

C

CatrinJ

Well-Known Member
Messages
48
Location
Surrey
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Cheese and Tories,
Hello,
I had a routine blood test then my GP asked for them to be redone and then she told me I have type 2 diabetes. Apparently my hba1c is 50. That was 30 days ago and I have changed my eating habits drastically and lost 10.1kg. I limit myself to 600 cals mon/weds/fri and try not to exceed 1200 on the other days. I had a few wobbly days where my blood pressure went weirdly low and also an episode where I had abdominal pains, hot/cold sweating and (for about 30 mins) quite badly blurred vision. I checked my fasting blood glucose a few days ago and it was 4.8 which I gather is pretty good.

I had bacon in the fridge and rather than throw it out I had a sandwich around 5pm today. I had looked for the lowest carb bread I could find but 1hr after eating my blood glucose was 7.8 and after 2hrs it was 10.2. Is bread basically a no-no now? What about pasta salad? Shredded wheat?

I’m struggling a little with what I can and can’t eat. My staples are salads and roasted vegetables with spinach omelettes, lean steaks, skinless chicken or baked fish. I made a red pepper and lentil soup that seemed ok. I’m in the middle of preparing a chicken and veg soup now though I know not to put potato in it not sure about carrots, swede, butternut squash etc. Are pulses like lentils, pearl barley etc ok?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Catrin
 
Hello, and welcome @CatrinJ .
First of all, a bit of reassurance. HbA1c is only just into the range for diabetes, so you could turn this round very quickly. Also, weight loss may help, and you have made a good start.
With regards to food, it looks like you have discovered that bread is high in carb, and it is the carbs people with T2 need to be wary of. The good news is that although reducing carbs in your diet is the key, healthy fats can replace the carbs.

You seem to have got the blood glucose meter use sorted. Are you testing on waking, before food then two hours after you have eaten? If you keep accurate records of llevels, and foods consumed you will soon see how various foods affect your blood glucose levels. We T2s find there are some differences in our tolerance to the amounts and types of carb foods we can eat, but generally avoid, or limit, bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, root vegetables, breakfast cereals. Even the so called healthy brown and wholemeal versions. Pulses tend to cause BG spikes too. Also sugar, which is sometimes hidden, particularly in marketed , processed low fat foods. This is a simple guide that I hope you find helpful….
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/60-seconds
There are also some links in my signature below the post. Have a read, and come back and ask questions. Members are generally helpful, and pleased to help.
Best wishes, Pipp.
 
Welcome @CatrinJ
Please don't throw out the bacon! :arghh:
Bread, pasta, rice, shredded wheat and any other cereals you may have lurking about, would be better for your health if they were thrown out.
Base your meals on meat, fish, eggs, cheese, dairy, and above ground vegetables and salads. Try to avoid starchy veg like potatoes, and most fruits. Don't be frightened of natural healthy fats like butter, cream, olive oil or the fat that comes with your meat.
This might seem difficult to believe but fat probably hasn't caused your weight gain. The culprit is the carbohydrates in your diet. All carbs turn to glucose when digested, because we have T2, our bodies can't deal with that glucose, so instead of it being used as energy it get stored as fat
Have a look at the link for the nutritional thingy below my post
 
CatrinJ said:
Hello,
I had a routine blood test then my GP asked for them to be redone and then she told me I have type 2 diabetes. Apparently my hba1c is 50. That was 30 days ago and I have changed my eating habits drastically and lost 10.1kg. I limit myself to 600 cals mon/we
ds/fri and try not to exceed 1200 on the other days. I had a few wobbly days where my blood pressure went weirdly low and also an episode where I had abdominal pains, hot/cold sweating and (for about 30 mins) quite badly blurred vision. I checked my fasting blood glucose a few days ago and it was 4.8 which I gather is pretty good.

I had bacon in the fridge and rather than throw it out I had a sandwich around 5pm today. I had looked for the lowest carb bread I could find but 1hr after eating my blood glucose was 7.8 and after 2hrs it was 10.2. Is bread basically a no-no now? What about pasta salad? Shredded wheat?

I’m struggling a little with what I can and can’t eat. My staples are salads and roasted vegetables with spinach omelettes, lean steaks, skinless chicken or baked fish. I made a red pepper and lentil soup that seemed ok. I’m in the middle of preparing a chicken and veg soup now though I know not to put potato in it not sure about carrots, swede, butternut squash etc. Are pulses like lentils, pearl barley etc ok?
Thanks in advance for any advice.
Catrin
Click to expand...

Hi Catrin and welcome to the forum.

You are only just in the diabetic range (anything over 47 - see attached). A few small but significant changes and you could very well pull this back.

You've already made a fantastic start. Well done. Your fasting blood sugar of 4.8 is very good indeed.

The important thing I feel to help understand type 2 is that all carbohydrates turn to sugar and we are basically sugar intollerent. Some foods have a significant impact on blood sugars, others don't. We are all different and that's why using a blood glucose monitor really helps us to understand the foods that suit us.

As for throwing out bacon, bacon Is almost zero carb. It doesn't put my blood sugars up at all.

Bread on the other hand ....... when I was monitoring how different foods effected me I kept a food diary and popped my blood glucose readings in an app called Mysugr. Then using the results I made a swaps sheet (attached). I realised bread did spike me (constant spikes can cause diabetic complications). I swapped my usual 19 gram per slice prior to my diagnosis for something much lower. This resulted in a significantly smaller rise. I always have a loaf of bread (hi-lo) in the freezer and take a slice out as and when i fancy a piece. Homemade i find has even less of an impact. Favourite recipe is on Diet Doctor.

https://www.dietdoctor.com/recipes/the-keto-bread

Pasta - I avoid because although it doesn't give me a significant rise, my blood sugars take ages to come back down. Same with rice. I did lots of experiments with food using a continuous glucose monitor (more details in the 45 minute video in my signature panel below).

Cereals are very high carb. I find the supermarket websites are great for nutritional info. Pop in what you are looking for. I've linked details re Shredded Wheat for info. For 2 it amounts to around 30 grams of carbs which will give most a significant rise. That's before you add milk which is even more added sugar.

You can check out the different bread options on supermarket websites very easily.

You will find lots more carb info here:

https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/visual-guides

As you will see from the infographs, above ground veg turns to a lot less sugar than below ground.

You're honestly doing great. Keep firing the questions out there. Always someone here to help.
 

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Thanks for the replies all. Very useful info. My testing so far has been ad-hoc so I think I need a more systematic approach to see what does and doesn’t give me spikes. I checked the supermarket website to see how much carbs I ate and it was 52.4g so in future I have to keep well below that.
I’ve checked the freezer and thrown out all potato products. Throwing a few frozen chips into the air fryer used to be so convenient after getting home from work but I guess that’s what got me into this mess.
When I had my blood tests my ldl and total cholesterol were a little high. Some of that will be my idiotic cake and pastry habit but I should probably lay off the bacon just in case.
If I can get my diabetes into remission will I be ok to have maybe one cake a month or will it take a while for my insulin response to normalise?
 
I should also confess to a typo in my original post. It is 8.1kg that I’ve lost so far, not 10.1kg. I’ve always struggled with my weight but knowing most of my favourite foods will contribute to an early and unpleasant death has made it a bit easier.
Thanks again for all the advice.
 
Another hello and welcome @CatrinJ

You are doing so well already by testing regularly. That really for me is the best first step anyone can make.

I'm another who has gone very low carb with success. My tip for the early days is to make it as easy for yourself as possible. I felt overwhelmed by all the information I found. What worked for me was rather than counting carbs starting with limiting myself to foods that have very low or no carbs. Things like meat, fish, eggs, hard cheeses, cream, spinach, cauliflower, broccoli etc. That gave my brain time to come to terms with it without getting too mired in counting carbs for every meal. I also made sure I ate enough not to be hungry. So bacon and eggs for breakfast for example, meat/fish and cauliflower and broccoli for dinner and maybe some tinned tuna with some spinach salad for lunch. The diet doctor site referred to by Debandez is very helpful.

I love carbs- my body does not. I found the transition to very low carb difficult but with the help and support I received here I am in a much better place than before my diagnosis. I wouldn't have believed that possible.
 
CatrinJ said:
Thanks for the replies all. Very useful info. My testing so far has been ad-hoc so I think I need a more systematic approach to see what does and doesn’t give me spikes. I checked the supermarket website to see how much carbs I ate and it was 52.4g so in future I have to keep well below that.
I’ve checked the freezer and thrown out all potato products. Throwing a few frozen chips into the air fryer used to be so convenient after getting home from work but I guess that’s what got me into this mess.
When I had my blood tests my ldl and total cholesterol were a little high. Some of that will be my idiotic cake and pastry habit but I should probably lay off the bacon just in case.
If I can get my diabetes into remission will I be ok to have maybe one cake a month or will it take a while for my insulin response to normalise?
Click to expand...

You will definitely benefit from lots of testing of blood sugars to start with (attached will help guide you).

I try to keep between 30g and 50g carbs a
day. That keeps my blood sugar levels at a good level. As I said previously, we ARE all different so see how you get on with testing. You will soon see what food/drink to avoid.

Convenience food (highly processed and full of sugar and undesirable ingredients) was my downfall too. So much ultra processed food around now :-(

For more info on cholesterol you could have a look at this informative thread

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/cholesterol-and-statins.156985/

When I get my annual bloods done I always ask for a full lipid panel as it gives you a much better idea of what's happening.

There are some great low carb cakes available to buy online (freezable). As one example this site offers delicious cakes:

https://deliciouslyguiltfree.com/pages/uk-low-carb-podcast

Or whip something up yourself in a minute or so in the microwave. For example:

https://jenniferbanz.com/keto-mug-cake

You could Google your favourite cake and add low carb and give that a whirl.

Re improvement in insulin response, again we are all different.

You are certainly taking the bull by the horns so off to a great start.
 

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Thanks Debandez. Just checked again and approx 7hrs after eating I’m down to 6.2. I’ll check again in the morning.
 
Had a late breakfast and checked my blood before and 2hrs after eating. Had 100g of 5% fat natural yoghurt and some blueberries and some pecans. Blood glucose went from 4.8 to 5.9. Overall I think I had about 12g of carbs with a fair bit of that sugars but only a 1.1 increase. I’m glad I found this place as the information shared is so useful.
 
Now you have several variations for a good breakfast - you can switch around the low carb berries and lower carb nuts if you get bored Otherwise there are a host of different ways to cook eggs which are almost zero carb e.g. mushroom omelette
 
Thanks Ian, a mushroom omelette sounds like a good option.

For lunch (no breakfast, just black coffee) I had a meal deal. The snack was two hard boiled eggs so I had that first, and the main was chicken and pasta. I tested before eating and 2hrs after and I went from 4.7 to 6.2. I'll do the same on Thursday (fasting tomorrow) but it looks like I might have an easy, convenient and cheap lunch option that doesn't give me a spike.
 
In other news, I weighed myself this morning and I'm now 0.2kg away from losing 10kg since my diagnosis. I haven't increased my exercise much but I have stopped eating cakes, chocolate, pastries, donuts, cookies, biscuits, chips and crisps. I'm curious what the spike would be if I ate a cinnamon bun but I've nothing to compare it to so I wouldn't know if anything has changed.
 
It might be worth testing your blood sugar at the 3 and 4 hour point after pasta, as for some people it can spike your blood sugar later than 2 hours.
 
You were correct about the pasta. The timing of my tests were off because I got caught up in meetings but I was 3.8 before eating then 6.5 about 2 or 3hrs later then 6.6 an hour or so after that. I need to do it properly with accurate gaps and see what happens. Today before lunch was 4.9 then 3hrs later after my yoghurt, blueberries and brazil nuts it was 4.6.
 
It was a colleague’s 40th birthday on Thursday and I was guilt-tripped into having some cake. Buttercream so I probably ate over 50g of sugar. I thought “if I’m going to do this then I might as well try to get some benefit from it” so I tested after 60 mins and then every 30 mins. The peak was 7.7 and it went down reasonably quickly. I was surprised by that. When I ate bread the spike was 10.2 so I was expecting a much higher reading from what was a very sweet cake.
 
There are lots of recipes for low carb baking, so you don't have to go without - but watch the amount of any artificial sweetener as it seems vastly over used and makes things taste sickly sweet. I usually start at 1/4 the suggested amount and often find that is fine for my tastes.
If really pressed to have something I don't want to eat I accept and then just put it down and leave it.
 
CatrinJ said:
It was a colleague’s 40th birthday on Thursday and I was guilt-tripped into having some cake. Buttercream so I probably ate over 50g of sugar. I thought “if I’m going to do this then I might as well try to get some benefit from it” so I tested after 60 mins and then every 30 mins. The peak was 7.7 and it went down reasonably quickly. I was surprised by that. When I ate bread the spike was 10.2 so I was expecting a much higher reading from what was a very sweet cake.
Click to expand...
Be careful drawing assumptions from readings if you've also had any alcohol. Your liver will prioritise the alcohol which means that the carbs will be delayed in getting into your bloodstream. They'll still get there, however.

I find that if I have a carby meal - say some pasta - and a couple of glasses of red with it, I can have a lower BG reading at the two hour mark than immediately before the meal. However, I then will have a much longer and more gradual rise in BG which can stay comparatively high for two days.
 
I didn’t have any alcohol. I had a mojito about 2yrs ago in a lockdown zoom quiz but not a drop since.
 
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