Recent blood tests have given a diagnosis of pre diabetes any help or advice appreciated

I found that as long as I stick to a very simple diet I can stay healthy and have far less side effects from Diabetes medication ;

1. STOP DRINKING & SMOKING 100%
2. Plenty of Vitamin supplements
3. Bananas are Best
4. Plenty of exercise
5. Drink lots of water

You WILL soon feel a lot better believe me , I lost 8 stone !! I feel like a new man ( If anyone can find me one please let me know LOL )

Hello and welcome @KREJ200

Okay- welcome to the club no one wants to join. The great news is that being pre diabetic means it may be easier to turn it around

My first suggestion is to try to lower the carbs in your general diet. While I am keto you may well not have to be anywhere near that drastic.

Given you have fresh food during the weekend my first suggestion is to try to cook a bit extra so you have a couple of meals for the week. It's easier to avoid frozen food if you have prepared food in your fridge.

So some suggestions
-boiled eggs in the fridge - I sometimes mash them with salt and low carb mayonnaise
- tinned tuna with mayonnaise and spring onion and salt
-some chicken can be precooked and eaten later
-chicken wings can be cooked and then reheated later (or eaten cold). Try it with some blue vein cheese dip
-steak can be pretty easy to cook quickly
you can prepare meatballs on the weekend so they are easy to cook during the week.

Let me know if any of these work and if you need more ideas.

Hello @KREJ200 ,

Yeah, I know, it's scary. @VashtiB 's suggestions are absolutely sound, none of that will raise your blood sugars. And while dropping the smokes may be hard for the moment, especially because I imagine you're just really, REALLY stressed right now with the diagnosis, you can give it a go at a later date. Tackle one thing at a time, and when you're feeling a bit steadier on your feet and have your blood glucose under control, you can give it a go without the vape. You know it's better, but knowing a thing and acting on it aren't always... Doable. (No judgement here, I used to light one cigarette with the other, being a high strung kind of person. I know it feels nigh on impossible to quit, but I also know it can be done. Provided you're in the right mindset, and now, you don't seem to be.) As for the drinks on the weekend, if you think you can stick with wine, rather than beers, would that help? Beers can spike blood glucose, wines are much more doable. (Not to mention spirits... You could try a Bacardi coke zero? It's something you can nurse for a while and still be sociable and slightly buzzed/relaxed.).

Has anyone brought up Metabolic Syndrome to you? It's an umbrella term for a bunch of conditions that are often seen together. It means having have some, or all, of the following: Diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. The thing is, when you drop the carbs and your blood sugars start coming down... Everything else tends to improve too. So for the moment, focus on the diabetes part, and hope the high cholesterol will calm down some too as you gain blood glucose control. Takes a long time to see a difference there, cholesterol is slow to change; blood glucose is a little faster in letting you know where you stand, especially if you get yourself a meter, but... Just give yourself a little time to wrap your head around this diabetes thing and get into a groove with it.

Also, uh, banana's.... They're very high in carbs and anyone following a low carb way of eating would usually steer clear. We're all different though. But that's another thing it illustrates perfectly: there's loads and loads of information on the internet, and a heck of a lot of it, contradicts! Just like in this thread, evidently, haha. That's another reason to get a meter and test around meals. What is true for @Flappo , who seems to be dealing with banana's just fine, isn't true for me. (Granted, I'm allergic to banana's, but if I wasn't, I wouldn't be eating them because a single one would be carbier than what I put away in a whole day!). So you start sussing out how your body works, how it copes, and what it can and can't handle. Test before a meal and 2 hours after that first bite. You're aiming for a rise of no more, and preferably less, than 2.0 mmol/l. If you manage that, your blood glucose should come down gradually, and hopefully, get more in the direction of the normal range. I fare well on a very, very low carb diet, but you might not have to be anywhere near as drastic. And what some health guru on Instagram, or random internet person (like me) might say, none of us have YOUR body, your level of insulin resistance/sensitivity, and other contributing factors like medications, conditions, sensitivities, daily rythm, amount and quality of sleep, stress... You're you, none of us are. So make yourself your own experiment, and be a little forgiving to yourself in the meantime. Get a meter and learn what you need. There are no absolutes here, though I do tend to speak in them sometimes, but... Try and find a method that suits you. Find work-arounds, like wine rather than beer, or batch cooking on the weekend... Make this doable for you and your life, because this is something you'll be doing for the long haul, and it has to agree with you, not with some fitgirl on Tiktok.

You'll get the hang of this. It's very scary right at the start, but all of us got through this bit to come to a point where we tell others how to get through it. You're not alone.
Jo

PS: This might help some: https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html

KREJ200 said:

@Flappo

Thanks for the reply and the advice. 8 stone thats amazing well done.
Can I ask what supplements you are taking?

Click to expand...

Vitamins A, B12 , C, D , E & Magnesium

I sometimes replace the Vitamin C pill with a Banana

I found if I stop eating at 3pm that helps with weight loss , after that my metabolism seems to slow down and I get tummy issues

I stopped dinking after going to the doctor and going through my weekly alcohol intake

12 x cans of Kronenborg , 2 x Bottles of wine , 1/2 Bottle of Gin ( 3 x times a week )

His reaction was - How on earth are you still alive ??

I think I dodged a bullet to put it mildly