Hi ppl. i am new to this site. just thought id give it a go and see what info i can get. I am a 37 yr old male from uk and father to 3 sons aged 3,10, and 15. I have also got another on the way although dnt know whether son or daughter.I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes about 2 yrs ago. i also had a cholesterol level of 6.9. the doc wanted me to take sum meds for both but i hate takin tabs so av just tried to change my diet and see how it goes. I was also takin citalopram 20mg at the time of diagnosis. ive been off them for around 10 months. I am at a point in my life where basically i feel i have to make a decision to take sumthin. Im feeling really low at the moment and its startin to wear me down. Add agoraphobia to all this and the fact that i can't travel too far from home and it paints quite a drab picture. Ive noticed my blood sugars are transitionally high at times...around 7 of a mornin and upto about 14.5 after breakfast...which is usually 3 weetabix and 2 toast!..it tends to drop back down a cpl of hrs later if i dont eat anythin. Its now 5 pm. i havnt eaten since about 11.30am. Im starvin. ha. my sugars are prob about 6.5 just now but will rise to between 12-15 after tea. how am i doin with my diabetes control? Any suggestions??
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re diabetes type 2
- Thread starter alfonz
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sugarless sue
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Welcome to the forum Alfonz.
3 weetabix and two toast is a lot of carbs and that is why your blood sugars are so high after breakfast. You need to eat regularly during the day and I may suggest getting a carb counter book such as Collins Gem to help you reduce the amount of carbs you are eating.This will help you keep your blood sugar levels down during the day.
3 weetabix and two toast is a lot of carbs and that is why your blood sugars are so high after breakfast. You need to eat regularly during the day and I may suggest getting a carb counter book such as Collins Gem to help you reduce the amount of carbs you are eating.This will help you keep your blood sugar levels down during the day.
Hi Alfonz and welcome! I'm about your age and was diagnosed in Jan. I wanted to start Metformin asap since it actually isn't too bad a drug to be on. Also for me one of the side effects is useful, appetite suppressant, since I need to lose a lot of weight. So I take 2 x 500 mg per day, no bother whatsoever really! It's a good thing you want to take charge now since your blood sugars are rather high, well into the danger zone of complication development. So I'd suggest you get in to see your gp for further advice and reconsider your meal plan.
Try porridgeoats for brekkie instead of weetabix and skip the toast if you can. Or try Burgen soya and linseed bread instead, it has significantly less carbs than normal bread. I try and keep my sugars under 6.9 at all times and generally have morning bs of 4-5.2, after meal values of 5.5-6.5. When I exercise, the numbers come down and I have found that restricting my carb intake has helped me a lot! Good luck in your battle and when things get tough, just think of your kids for motivation!
Try porridgeoats for brekkie instead of weetabix and skip the toast if you can. Or try Burgen soya and linseed bread instead, it has significantly less carbs than normal bread. I try and keep my sugars under 6.9 at all times and generally have morning bs of 4-5.2, after meal values of 5.5-6.5. When I exercise, the numbers come down and I have found that restricting my carb intake has helped me a lot! Good luck in your battle and when things get tough, just think of your kids for motivation!
Eliminator
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Hi, I am not one for breakfasts as I am just not hungry in the mornings, I am 39 and was diagnosed at 37, I weighed 17.5 stone at the time. I was told to start eating breckfast and tried the died thing, I soon started losing half a stone per week until I dropped to 14 stone.
I also started on metformin, they did nothing for me, but also had no side affects either as I was missdiagnosed and should have been type1.
The thing is, I found out a lot about type 2 and I found out a lot about type2. If your counting carbs for breakfast, knock the weetabix and toast on the head.
Anything made from wheet has a lot of natural sugars in it, all cereals with wheet and bread and stuff. Allthough I would not say your blood count is anywere near as high as mine, we would all love to be around 5 or 6.
As I think Saz said, try something with OAT's, as far as I know these are a hundred times better than wheet.
Hope this helps.
Eliminator.
I also started on metformin, they did nothing for me, but also had no side affects either as I was missdiagnosed and should have been type1.
The thing is, I found out a lot about type 2 and I found out a lot about type2. If your counting carbs for breakfast, knock the weetabix and toast on the head.
Anything made from wheet has a lot of natural sugars in it, all cereals with wheet and bread and stuff. Allthough I would not say your blood count is anywere near as high as mine, we would all love to be around 5 or 6.
As I think Saz said, try something with OAT's, as far as I know these are a hundred times better than wheet.
Hope this helps.
Eliminator.
Spiral
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Welcome!
If you want to adopt a diet/lifestyle based approach you need to look around for something you enjoy eating and will give you the results you want. If you don't enjoy it you won't stick to it.
I was diagnosed at the begining of this year and it wasn't a surprise. Like you, I'm not keen on taking medication, however, this does not mean that I'm anti-medication. I have brought my numbers down significantly in the six months since diagnosis by low carbing, although I had 3 months of reducing/removing sugar and junk food generally before leaning towards a low GI approach and now I low carb, which has made a huge difference.
My goals have always been to have a better result at the next blood test, even if only a small improvement. You numbers which appear to be returning to m=normal seem to indicate you still have a reasonably good second phase insulin response, which will help with your diet control.
As for breakfast, ditch the toast and oats and weetabix, try scrambled eggs (or bacon if you eat meat) or some nuts. My usual breakfast is greek yoghurt, a spoonful of double cream, a spoonful of almonds and a few raspberries or blueberries. Yum!
I think mornings are the worst time for many of us - they are form me. You need to eat otherwise your liver will dump glucose in to your blood, you need to avoid those swings in BS. They will fuel your hunger.
You might also find, if you manage to bring you blood glucose down, that you have more energy and some of the vague and non-specific symptoms you have may be down to high numbers. This is what I have found with my fatigue and headaches - they have almost gone since i dropped the carbs.
take a look around, especially in the food and diet forums, ask questions and test to find out what your particualr diabetic body does with the food you eat and use the results to tweak what you eat - either by elimination or portion control.
Good luck
If you want to adopt a diet/lifestyle based approach you need to look around for something you enjoy eating and will give you the results you want. If you don't enjoy it you won't stick to it.
I was diagnosed at the begining of this year and it wasn't a surprise. Like you, I'm not keen on taking medication, however, this does not mean that I'm anti-medication. I have brought my numbers down significantly in the six months since diagnosis by low carbing, although I had 3 months of reducing/removing sugar and junk food generally before leaning towards a low GI approach and now I low carb, which has made a huge difference.
My goals have always been to have a better result at the next blood test, even if only a small improvement. You numbers which appear to be returning to m=normal seem to indicate you still have a reasonably good second phase insulin response, which will help with your diet control.
As for breakfast, ditch the toast and oats and weetabix, try scrambled eggs (or bacon if you eat meat) or some nuts. My usual breakfast is greek yoghurt, a spoonful of double cream, a spoonful of almonds and a few raspberries or blueberries. Yum!
I think mornings are the worst time for many of us - they are form me. You need to eat otherwise your liver will dump glucose in to your blood, you need to avoid those swings in BS. They will fuel your hunger.
You might also find, if you manage to bring you blood glucose down, that you have more energy and some of the vague and non-specific symptoms you have may be down to high numbers. This is what I have found with my fatigue and headaches - they have almost gone since i dropped the carbs.
take a look around, especially in the food and diet forums, ask questions and test to find out what your particualr diabetic body does with the food you eat and use the results to tweak what you eat - either by elimination or portion control.
Good luck
Spiral
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It isn't a natural sugar. It is starch, which is much worse than sugar.
Table sugar is about 50/50 glucose and fructose. The glucose gives you a failrly rapid spike until whatever insulin you still produce brings it back down. The fructose does not require insulin, instead it hits your liver where it turns in to triglicerides, even though it does not have an impact on your blood sugar readings.
Starch on the other hand is evil stuff :evil: Every last bit of starch you eat will turn in to glucose as your body digests it :shock: Now this process takes a bit longer than the immediate spike you get from glucose, but it takes your readings up high and keeps them higher for longer, even the "healthy" brown stuff.
However, only you can know how your body reacts to differnet things by testing your blood glucose. Potato seems to give me my worst and most rapid spikes and pasta gives me longer at higher levels. We are all different and what makes me spike may have little impact on someone else.
Whatever dietary approach you take (low carb, low GI, low calorie) a succesful diabetic reduces their intake of carbohydrate.
Thanks for all your replys. I tried a low carb diet yesterday for the first time cutting out the toast and cereals etc. I had scrammbled egg for breakfast a tin of tuna for dinner, an omlette for a snack in the afternoon and chicken with green veg and a cpl of new potatoes for tea. My BS was between 6-9 all day which is a good improvement on what it normally is. Im goin to keep this approach up for a couple of weeks and see how it goes. when i was diagnosed around 2 yrs ago my cholesterol was 6.9 but the nurse said that my bad cholesterol was quite high and my liver and kidneys were showin enzymes..asked did i drink alcohol much i said i dont drink or smoke at all. I changed my diet since then, no more fried stuff, sugar in t, soft drinks and chick curry fried rice (my fav)! I was 16 stone 10, but my current weight is 14 stone 8 which i have been for about a yr. Im goin to the docs thru the week to see if anythings improved...hate goin the docs.
Spiral
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You sound like you have made a good start and that you know that you can do something to help yourself, which is great
I think you need to get a bit better organised and get a bit more support from people who are doing the diet you plan to do, and maybe do a bit of reading around on the subjects that concern you most... The damage is done by running high sugar numbers, so the lower you can get them and the closer to normal the better.
Doctors are not the enemy, and medication can help a lot. In my experience people don't know how to get the best out of healthcare (especially men, who leave things a lot longer before talking about them and asking for help :roll: ). And people don't know how to ask about the things that concern them most. You need to decide what kind of support you want from your doctor - I find the monitoring of my weight, blood sugar levels (I'm having 3-monthly HbA1c monitoring, although my GP would be happier with 6-monthly) and routine checks on other levels including my lipids (cholesterol).
If you are going to go low carb, you will find some good support just downstairs in the low carb diet forum. Low carbing is quite a contentious issue here (and elsewhere). If you want debate about it so that you can weigh up the arguments for and against, that's great, post in all sections of the boards. But if you want more focused support because that is what you are doing, you need to post on the low carb section where only low carbers will respond, or in the non low carb section if you are following another kind of diet where others following those diets will respond.
There is more than one dietary approach and as far as diabetics go, one diet does not fit all! What makes me spike may not have the same effect on another T2. And what you do while you are trying really hard to get your numbers back to normal may not be what you do once you have things under tight control, that said I can't imagine going back to my old high carb ways ever, I feel so much better since I cut the carbs.
I have lost 25% of the weight I need to lose and reduced my numbers considerably on initally reduced carbs and for the last 3 months low carbing - I hope to get the HbA1c results on Monday to see how far 3 months of low carbing has taken me towards my goal. I am about to start metformin because I'm fed up with high morning numbers :shock: and because it will help with the weight loss, I will review my use of this medication once I am a lot closer to my goals - normal blood sugar levels and a normal BMI. There are some people who have substantially reduced their medication and in some cases (T2 not T1) who have stopped all medication by actively managing their diabetes by diet and exercise.
Good luck!
I think you need to get a bit better organised and get a bit more support from people who are doing the diet you plan to do, and maybe do a bit of reading around on the subjects that concern you most... The damage is done by running high sugar numbers, so the lower you can get them and the closer to normal the better.
Doctors are not the enemy, and medication can help a lot. In my experience people don't know how to get the best out of healthcare (especially men, who leave things a lot longer before talking about them and asking for help :roll: ). And people don't know how to ask about the things that concern them most. You need to decide what kind of support you want from your doctor - I find the monitoring of my weight, blood sugar levels (I'm having 3-monthly HbA1c monitoring, although my GP would be happier with 6-monthly) and routine checks on other levels including my lipids (cholesterol).
If you are going to go low carb, you will find some good support just downstairs in the low carb diet forum. Low carbing is quite a contentious issue here (and elsewhere). If you want debate about it so that you can weigh up the arguments for and against, that's great, post in all sections of the boards. But if you want more focused support because that is what you are doing, you need to post on the low carb section where only low carbers will respond, or in the non low carb section if you are following another kind of diet where others following those diets will respond.
There is more than one dietary approach and as far as diabetics go, one diet does not fit all! What makes me spike may not have the same effect on another T2. And what you do while you are trying really hard to get your numbers back to normal may not be what you do once you have things under tight control, that said I can't imagine going back to my old high carb ways ever, I feel so much better since I cut the carbs.
I have lost 25% of the weight I need to lose and reduced my numbers considerably on initally reduced carbs and for the last 3 months low carbing - I hope to get the HbA1c results on Monday to see how far 3 months of low carbing has taken me towards my goal. I am about to start metformin because I'm fed up with high morning numbers :shock: and because it will help with the weight loss, I will review my use of this medication once I am a lot closer to my goals - normal blood sugar levels and a normal BMI. There are some people who have substantially reduced their medication and in some cases (T2 not T1) who have stopped all medication by actively managing their diabetes by diet and exercise.
Good luck!
