Afternoon all,
Just had a text message off my GP surgery saying I have Prediabetes, which come as a bit of a shock considering I only went for getting pains in my legs!
Anyways, I don't look obese but I am 17st 5lb and 6' 2" aged 43 so technically I am classed as obese. I am wanting to start a diet so have been looking at the Carnivore diet but just wondering if it's any good for prediabetes since I see posts about eating more fruit and vegetables when the Carnivore diet cuts all of these out?
I walk quite a lot and started playing cricket last year and also joined the gym last month but that hasn't stopped getting this text message.
Also is it advisable to cut out sugar? I don't have a lot, maybes the odd can of pop and 1x can of energy drink a day although I do try to have sugar free energy drink.
Thank you
Lee
Hi and welcome. It's all a bit confusing in the early days, and I'll tell you a couple of things I wish someone had told me back in the beginning.
Firstly, forget everything you think you know about what "healthy eating" is. The official advice in the NICE guidelines that set NHS treatment procedures for Type 2 is to have T2s eat "normal diets" with plenty of starchy carbohydrates. So you will see advice to T2s supporting eating fruit and cereals and all sorts of things that are digested to glucose.
Secondly, set yourself some goals and establish what works for you (as opposed to me or anyone else) in getting there.
Did your doc tell you what your HbA1c result was? That's how they assess your blood glucose levels. Normal blood glucose is in the range 36-41mmol/mol. Most non-diabetic people are around 38. Type 2 diabetes is automatically diagnosed with an Hba1c of 48 or above. The bit in-between, where BG is no longer normal, they've taken to calling "pre-diabetes", but it's by definition abnormally high blood glucose. I had a large number of diabetic symptoms at comparatively low, but abnormal, BG levels.
There are a lot of approaches which limit carbohydrate intake and therefore will help to reduce blood glucose. Carnivore is one of them, and by eliminating carbs entirely would probably lower your BG fairly quickly. The downside of carnivore for me is that it's just meat (some people include cheese as part of carnivore, some don't). Much as I like meat, I like vegetables too. I have been eating around 20g carb/ day for the last five years. Most of my meals are based on meat, fish and/or cheese - it's worked a treat for me, with both BG levels and subsequently weight loss. Getting down to normal BG (to 37 from 50) took less than four months. That 20g carb comes mainly from above ground green veg - nothing from things like pasta, bread, cereals, pastry, fruit, rice, sugary things, etc. none of which I eat.
Normal BG didn't happen as a result of weight loss - I did lose some, but my records say it was the grand total of 4kg in the first year. I started off somewhere above 120kg. In the five years since I've lost about 40 kg, but the weight loss took so much longer than sorting my BG. And "weight" can be a bit misleading - what we're really talking about is body fat loss - if you are building muscle, that weighs a lot more than bodyfat.
Exercise really had very little to do with it for me. I did exactly no exercise for the first two or three years, but after I lost enough weight so I wasn't injuring myself or others, I went back to playing football. I do it because it's fun, not because it's good for me.
This forum is a great resource. Ask as many questions as you like.
