Only Diagnosed A Week Ago

Hi Charlotte and welcome

Hi Charlotte and welcome. You're right, bananas aren't the best. Here's a bit of general info which may be of use.
. In general terms you will need to reduce the total number of carbohydrates you eat per day. All carbohydrates turn to sugar when we eat them, and no type 2 diabetic on diet only, or on diet and metformin only, can control their blood sugars (BGs) without controlling their carb intake. Even those on strong medication normally choose to control their carb intake to keep the level of medication they take down. The total number of carbs per day you can eat depends on how advanced your diabetes is. It’s perhaps worth starting at about 50% of normal levels for a non-diabetic then adjusting up or down according to how you get on. That’s 150 grams of carbs per day for a man, 125 for a woman. You can read the total carb content of food under “nutritional info” on the packet or wrapping, or look it up on the internet for loose food. Just google “carb content..”
You also need to stop or reduce the bad carbs; that is the starchy ones that make your BG go up quickly.
So obviously no sugar or glucose! But also no white bread, white rice, pasta, flour products like pastry, cake and batter. You can eat a little basmati rice, wholewheat pasta or the tri-color pasta fusilli ones in small quantities. Boiled new potatos are OK but not old pots mashed, boiled or in their jackets. (Roast is not so bad, the fat slows their absorption and conversion to glucose in the blood) Amongst other veg, parsnips are about the worst for BG, and carrots not great but ok in smaller amounts.
Multi grain bread (not wholemeal) is not SO bad, but lots of us eat Burgen soya and linseed bread from tescos and sainsburys, although all bread should be in limited amounts.
All fruit has carbohydrates, and needs to be included in the amounts of carbs you eat in a day. For most people, bananas are about the worst for pushing our BG up and berries (like strawberries, raspberries etc) are the least bad.
No sweeties!
Exercise is important. I tend to exercise about an hour after eating when I know my BG will be peaking. This helps to bring it down quicker and further. I do ten minutes hard work on an exercise machine, but you could run up and down stairs for ten minutes or go for a brisk walk.
Returning to types of food and quantities of carbs - you can only find out how many you can eat by testing. Most type 2’s are not given access to testing equipment, so you should get your own – although try arguing with your Doc that you want to manage to NICE guideline blood sugar levels, and can’t do that without testing! If you have to buy a meter, they are cheap and most manufacturers will give them away for free. They make their money on the strips you have to use! So go for the meter with the cheapest testing strips. Some people test before and after eating, on waking (fasting test) and before bed. But if you have limited strips because of cost, the key to me is testing 2 hours after eating. If your BG is above, say, 7.8 at that stage, you need to cut down on the carb content the next time you have that meal. Test after various different meals and you soon get to see a pattern of what you can and can’t eat, and in what quantities. You can then reduce your testing. I said “below, say, 7.8” because NICE guidelines are below 8.5 but most of us think that’s a little high. 7.8 is the max. Level at 2 hours after eating that a non-diabetic normally gets to so is perhaps a better target. Some then set progressively lower targets.
Do ask lots of questions; there is normally an answer on here. The more you get to learn about your diabetes, the better it will be.
Good luck!

Hello Charlotte and welcome.

Sounds like you're getting quite clued up already and it's great you've been given a meter.

As you've probably been reading a lot of us have found that reducing carbohydrates is what really helps with blood sugar levels. So just to get things a bit clearer in your head that means drastically reducing or stopping eating anything with plain sugar in it like cakes and biscuits and sugar in tea and coffee. Importantly also try and at least halve starchy foods like rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, cereals and anything else made with flour. Replace those things with extra meat, fish, cheese, eggs and especially vegetables. Vegetables that grow above ground are best but most of us find carrots ok too. A small amount of fresh fruit is fine and I personally fine fruits that end in berry to be the best. If you're ok with artificial sweeteners then things like diet coke are fine but obviously the non diet versions of drinks are definitely out.

Blood sugar wise the NHS (NICE) guideline says to be under 8.5 two hours after eating any meal. Many of us see that as a bit out of date nowadays with 7.8 being a better target to aim for. 7.8 is what the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) recommends as a lot of modern research shows that 7.8 is the number where if regularly exceeded bad things will start to happen with your body. Depending on how much risk you want to take some of us aim for even lower targets of around 6.5 as that would be the maximum that 19 out of 20 average non diabetics would reach.

If you've read around the forum a bit then you may have seen stuff about carb counting. This just means that you work out from the backs of packets how many grams of carbohydrates you eat in a day. If you want to do that but are unclear how then ask. The main rule is to include the total carbohydrate count not just the "of which sugars" value. A good target that most people would recommend is to aim between 120 and 150g of carbs a day. This is called a low to moderate carb regime and would be what you would be recommended to eat by your doctor if you were Swedish or German as it's become standard practice within their health systems. The American Diabetes Association also recognises the value of a low carbohydrate diet.

A benefit of carb counting is it will allow you to fine tune the amount and types of carbohydrate you can eat safely when combined with your meter as no two people are the same. You may find you have to adjust your initial grams per day down (like me) or you might find you can eat more. Some people on the forum cut their carbs to a very low figure of less than 30g / day called ULC or ultra low carbing. Again while this may seem extreme it is not necessarily a bad thing and other countries don't actively discourage people from doing it. At those kind of levels AND if you are still producing enough insulin quite a few members discover they can give up all their medication if they want to. If you are wondering I still quite like carbs so eat around 65g / day on average, I'd love to eat a few more but then I wouldn't be able to keep my levels safe which to me is the most important thing.

Here in the UK you may find your local doctor and nurse will also have no problem with a low to moderate carb regime but some very much still do and may well recommend you eat all the starchy foods I listed above in quantity. Again the choice is entirely yours. If you want to eat at that higher carbohydrate level then most diabetics have to accept sooner or later they will be on stronger diabetic drugs than Metformin to keep in those safe blood sugar ranges.

Losing weight is important if you need to. The extra weight is a major cause of what's called insulin resistance. What that means is that the insulin you produce is being stopped from working properly by excess weight. If you lose weight your insulin resistance will begin to get better and of course losing weight is good for other things like your heart. Unfortunately don't think by losing weight you will be "cured" If you are very lucky you might find that with a reduction in insulin resistance your ability to eat things may get somewhat better but how much better is really determined by how long you were running at high blood sugar levels as those high levels can and do destroy the very cells in the body that produce insulin.

Finally an idea of how long it takes to get your blood sugars under control. In me on a low carb and Metformin regime it took around 8 weeks. Each week I saw a gradual improvement. In some people it happens in days. We have had a couple of new members recently who cut their carbohydrates really low and got back to near normal blood sugar levels in just about a week. From this take it that everyone is different!

Just keep asking questions it's what the forum is all about.

Beat me to it again Grazer :lol: I need to type faster. Good job we say the same thing.

Hi Charlotte and welcome to the forum Here is the information we give to new members and I hope you will find it helpful. If you follow this advice you should see your levels gradually drop. Luckily you have been given testing equipment so you can see if what you are eating is good for you or not. As mentioned in this information, test before and 2 hours after meals, aiming for similar levels, then you know the food is OK for you. If the second reading is higher, you will need to reduce or cut out that particular food. If you have any questions just go ahead and ask as there is usually someone here who can help.

BASIC INFORMATION FOR NEWLY DIAGNOSED DIABETICS


Diabetes is the general term to describe people who have blood that is sweeter than normal. A number of different types of diabetes exist.

A diagnosis of diabetes tends to be a big shock for most of us. It’s far from the end of the world though and on this forum you’ll find well over 30,000 people who are demonstrating this.

On the forum we have found that with the number of new people being diagnosed with diabetes each day, sometimes the NHS is not being able to give all the advice it would perhaps like to deliver - particularly with regards to people with type 2 diabetes.

The role of carbohydrate

Carbohydrates are a factor in diabetes because they ultimately break down into sugar (glucose) within our blood. We then need enough insulin to either convert the blood sugar into energy for our body, or to store the blood sugar as body fat.

If the amount of carbohydrate we take in is more than our body’s own (or injected) insulin can cope with, then our blood sugar will rise.

The bad news

Research indicates that raised blood sugar levels over a period of years can lead to organ damage, commonly referred to as diabetic complications.

The good news

People on the forum here have shown that there is plenty of opportunity to keep blood sugar levels from going too high. It’s a daily task but it’s within our reach and it’s well worth the effort.

Controlling your carbs

The info below is primarily aimed at people with type 2 diabetes, however, it may also be of benefit for other types of diabetes as well.
There are two approaches to controlling your carbs:

• Reduce your carbohydrate intake
• Choose ‘better’ carbohydrates

Reduce your carbohydrates
A large number of people on this forum have chosen to reduce the amount of carbohydrates they eat as they have found this to be an effective way of improving (lowering) their blood sugar levels.

The carbohydrates which tend to have the most pronounced effect on blood sugar levels tend to be starchy carbohydrates such as rice, pasta, bread, potatoes and similar root vegetables, flour based products (pastry, cakes, biscuits, battered food etc) and certain fruits.

Choosing better carbohydrates

Another option is to replace ‘white carbohydrates’ (such as white bread, white rice, white flour etc) with whole grain varieties. The idea behind having whole grain varieties is that the carbohydrates get broken down slower than the white varieties –and these are said to have a lower glycaemic index.
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/food/diabetes ... rains.html

The low glycaemic index diet is often favoured by healthcare professionals but some people with diabetes find that low GI does not help their blood sugar enough and may wish to cut out these foods altogether.

Read more on carbohydrates and diabetes

Eating what works for you

Different people respond differently to different types of food. What works for one person may not work so well for another. The best way to see which foods are working for you is to test your blood sugar with a glucose meter.

To be able to see what effect a particular type of food or meal has on your blood sugar is to do a test before the meal and then test after the meal. A test 2 hours after the meal gives a good idea of how your body has reacted to the meal.

The blood sugar ranges recommended by NICE are as follows:

Blood glucose ranges for type 2 diabetes

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 8.5 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (adults)

• Before meals: 4 to 7 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 9 mmol/l

Blood glucose ranges for type 1 diabetes (children)

• Before meals: 4 to 8 mmol/l
• 2 hours after meals: under 10 mmol/l

However, those that are able to, may wish to keep blood sugar levels below the NICE after meal targets.

Access to blood glucose test strips
The NICE guidelines suggest that people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should be offered:

• structured education to every person and/or their carer at and around the time of diagnosis, with annual reinforcement and review
• self-monitoring of plasma glucose to a person newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes only as an integral part of his or her self-management education

Therefore both structured education and self-monitoring of blood glucose should be offered to people with type 2 diabetes. Read more on getting access to blood glucose testing supplies.

You may also be interested to read questions to ask at a diabetic clinic

Note: This post has been edited from Sue/Ken's post to include up to date information.
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Please sign our e-petition for free testing for all type 2's; here's the link:
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/petition/

Do get your friends and colleagues to sign as well.

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I have Canderel in my tea and coffee and to the best of my belief-It's absolutely fine and I think a lot of other members on here use it too!

Canderel is fine. By the way, did you know they do a Canderel yellow granulated for using in cooking? Normal canderel/splenda etc breaks down under heat and doesn't work well, but the yellow is designed for high heat use.