PLEASE HELP! DIET NIGHTMARE...

[geddron]

Hi, I have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes for just over 2 years now and have always been diet controlled. At first i changed my diet drastically and began eating skin free chicken breasts with herbs to vary the flavour daily and filled my plate with lots of vegetables and swapped out the potatoes for sweet potatoes as i was advised that these hold a lot less carbs.
I managed to do this for 6 months and my h1bac results were perfect every time and were showing the diabetes was under excellent control.
I went on holiday and slipped off the wagon and never really regained the grip on my diet again. I have found that i just cannot continue the boring chicken and veg routine any longer and as such found my self eating the WRONG foods regularly again.
To my suprise though, my h1bac results continued to be great??

With this in mind i just carried on eating without any worry because i seemed to be doing fine. However, this all ended with an abrupt thud when at my last h1bac the results showed that my glucose levels had bumped up to double i believe the result was 85mmol? from 43mmol.
I have been looking to change diet to something that i can stick to and live with, so i looked in to anthony worral thompsons diabetes cook book which is backed by a leading diabetes expert. However, reading the reviews, i have found that the recipes are not suitable for a diet controlled type 2 diabetic as they concentrate more for type 1 and have higher amounts of carbs and GI carbs than i should be consuming.

I am simply lost. I do not know how i am going to get in to a routine of weekly meals which i know are good for my condition unless someone literally gives me an easy to follow recipe book that i can select 7 days of meals from to rotate which are not time consuming to make and easy to shop for.

At the moment i feel like just eating what the hell i like and just letting the diabetes get it all over with as quickly as possible! I work and have a wife and kid, but to be honest the depressing feeling of trying to get a grip on a diet to improve my health seems to be such a minefield of mis information that i feel like giving up and just living.

Is there no-one out there that can give clear, concise and honest information to us people to make living with a condition that little bit easier?
i even asked my gp for help and he just gave me a piece of paper that showed types of food to avoid!? mind you, i guess i shouldnt expect too much from the gp, after all, i was never told that my cholesterol level was 9.9 until 7 years after the test when i was diagnosed with the diabetes!

I honestly feel like ****, like i've been cast aside to look out for myself with a condition that i can't get my head round eating away at what life i have left..
If anyone can help, please let me know..

Thanks

 

[Grazer]

This is difficult, because I think a suggested list of meals won't work. We're all different, and can tolerate different levels of carbs. You need to work out what you can and can't eat. I do see however from your "skinless chicken" comment that you're probably listening to the rubbish NHS advice that lot's of us get regarding fat. Fat isn't your enemy. High blood sugar levels are, and they come from Carbs. If you have less carbs, you have to have more something else and for a lot of us it's fat. Eat as much of any meat as you like, plus any dairy and loads of veg (but prefetrably not those that grow below ground) Here's my general eating and living plan; avoid the bad things I note and eat as much of anything else as you like (although that's from a BG point of view - if you're trying to lose weight you'll need to watch the cals as well) :-
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. So that means eating 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 (again not too many) 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. The SD Codefree available on the internet is about the cheapest at the moment. 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. Keep careful records of what you ate and when, together with the result, so you can refer back at a later date. 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!

 

[orchidlady]

Hi, I have recently diagnosed so have been doing a lot of reading, I know exactly what you mean about being left to get on with it. I have just bought "the diabetes cooking book" by Fiona Hunter and Heather Whinney. It is fab, lots fantastic easy to make recipes. Gave to me some great ideas. Hope that helps

 

[MaryJ]

Also you can both have a search through the low-carb section of this forum

LOADS of great receipes

Mary x

 

[hanadr]

The usual "healthy Balanced Diet" doesn't work! at least not for most people. It's far too high in starch. 100% of the stach we consume turns to blood glucose, where only 50% of table sugar does.
The problem is in the general misunderstanding of the word "sugar"
Sugars are a large family of molecules.. The one in blood is Glucose, a 6 carbon sugar. Table sugar is a 12 carbon double molecule. 1 half is glucose, the other is Fructose. Fructose doesn't raise blood glucose levels, but it has some nasty habits.
Starch is a chain of glucose molecules a bit like a chain of poppet beads. If you dismantle a starch molecule[which may consist of hundreds of glucose units] All of them are able to raise the blood glucose level and do damage to the micro blood vessels in various places in the body.
To keep blood glucose down to safe levels [about a teaspoonful in the whole body!] you can burn it off by vigorous exercise, which takes a lot of time and effort. Take medicines to push it down and cope with side effects or not eat the stuff.
I like the last option best. I do exercise. I've just got back from the gym and swimming pool! All on a low carb diet.
Hana

 

[KennyS]

For me the word diet grates. Diet implys a short term solution that can be discarded at a future date. For someone who is not diabetic... or doesn't like large injections of insulin, this 'diet' is about eating foods that for all intents and purposes are poison. They are poison to the well-being of a diabetic and the are poison to the general population who constantly fight weight gains and a number of other metabolic syndrome symptoms.

As I have said before, I liken this journey since being diagnosed T2 as very much like getting rid of a three pack a day smoking habit some 25 years ago. In my mind, the only way that you will change any aspect of your life is to find the change to be more pleasurable than your current behaviour. The no smoking campaigns generally fail to address this very powerful motivator. They often focus on just how bad smoking is for you and not just how much better you will feel, how much better foods will taste and how much more endurance you have to pursue the pleasures that you can't do because of smoking.... add greatly to your entertainment budget too!

This is very much the same kind of challenge and its not about quitting for a while... Its about realizing that even if arsenic were the best tasting food in the world, for your own sake you shouldn't eat it.... ever again. Is your life today worth the food and health choices you are currently making or would your life be better ... and longer by getting rid of the temporary pleasure of the foods that are poisoning you. After doing a ton of reading, I personally have come to the determination that, for me as a T2, all grains, all sugars, and all starches are my enemy and most of them are poison to the human condition in general. By assuming this position, getting rid of the physical cravings of a 'fast' carb diet went away very quickly, I started loosing weight without effort and my energy and motivation levels went up rapidly. Now that isn't to say that I don't think about that peanut butter and jelly sandwich on white or a nice piece of chocolate cake, but as I learned from quitting smoking.... that to will pass. It might take a month for some things... might take a year for others but they will pass. It is a matter of finding pleasure in the tastes of new foods and finding positives in activity that has the negative connotation of .... uggh... exercise.... like a nice walk in the park or an active vacation that isn't centred around eating.

It is much easier to 'stay on the wagon' when you start detesting, within your self, the things you fall of the wagon for. I detested the fact that I was hooked on nicotine and I only realized later when I got my sense of smell back that I, frankly smelled, couldn't taste food and my ability to do much for long was seriously impaired. In my reading, I see that people who rid themselves of the addiction of the yoyo highs and lows of fast release carbs, have more energy, have much better mental clarity, loose weigh with much less stress and regulate many other life signs measurements. The draw of breads, cakes, sweets and starches is powerful but to understand their dangers and act appropriately is the key to much better weight control and better health.

My short journey with T2 and by assuming this attitude has lowered my weight by 10% , is lowering my blood pressure to the point that I am almost ready to ask for a review of my meds, my pulse pressure(people don't talk about this one much) has lowered from the 60's to the high 40's, my resting pulse is now lower and my estimated HbA1c is in the low 5's, my energy and mental clarity is markedly improved...... I can trade that for a piece of cake any day!

Kenny :thumbup:

 

[viviennem]

Hi Geddron

Have a look at Viv's Modified Atkins Diet which is in the "Sticky Threads" bit. It is very low carb, working out at about 25g per day.

As you will see, it is a comprehensive list of low- or no-carb foods that you can eat freely - only a few of the quantities are limited. Not much need to weigh or measure. You can use the foods in any combination, so there's plenty of variety.

I have a 2-egg omelette cooked with butter every morning; usually a salad for lunch, with meat or fish or cheese; and some sort of roast/casserole for supper with lots of fresh veg. Cheese and cold meats with bite-sized veg as snacks.

If you want more carbs than 25g, buy yourself a carb counter book (Collins do one in their Gem series) and add in a few extra carbs, such as pulses or lower-carb veg, until you get to your daily allowance. I prefer to stay below 50g daily and preferably stick to 25g; other people, such as Grazer, manage very successfully on 100g - 150g per day.

Do you have a blood glucose meter and test strips? This is your most valuable tool for monitoring your blood glucose levels and finding out which foods spike you too much. Check just before and 2 hours after each meal; if the food is suitable for you there will only be a small difference between the before and after readings. It won't take long for you to work out which foods you can eat.

Have a look at the Low-carb Recipe section on here; there are some marvellous recipes, which can be enjoyed by all the family.

There's no need for low-carb to be boring. "Eat to your meter" is one of our watchwords on here, and I think we all enjoy our food.

Also - don't beat yourself up about the odd lapse ; but make sure the lapses are only "odd" :mrgreen:

Good luck! let us know how you go on.

Viv 8)