• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

recent diagnosed


It’s not a scare story. It’s true.
 
Eating toast and marmalade does not lead to blindness or amputations - diabetes and its management is way more complicated and sophisticared than that
 
Pinkorchid said:
Yes but presumably you told it to scare the OP into stopping the toast and marmalade ...not helpful.
Click to expand...

I apologise I don’t mean to scare anyone.

You’re all absolutely correct. We are all different so having marmalade, crumpet and bread for breakfast might actually work for others.

Good luck!
 
Further to the comments re blood glucose monitoring and strips on prescription i am not the only patient in Northamptonshire who has been offered these on prescription. I suggest you refer your GP to the NICE recommendations and advice on this forum. It is not a post code lottery conundrum. I agree age is not an issue I was pleasantly surprised not to pay for prescriptions over 60. But by monitoring my results i am learning what food i can eat and what i can’t without spiking. Hopefully over time I will reduce medication and avoid complications resulting in less cost to the NHS and help prove that pre-emptive medication is lower cost. I can understand that at your age you prefer to stay with your GP but other GPs have a very progressive attitude to prevention being the best way of treatment.
 

I found it was easier to just stop having breakfast. Most breakfast foods (apart from of course bacon and eggs) are just full of carbs which for a Type 2 will not help your blood sugars go down and will probably make them spike up which is what you want to avoid. Some people choose to carry on eating "bread" type foods but in my mind this just perpetuates the thought that you are "missing out" on things rather than enjoying a new way of eating which helps you control your condition. Coffee and cream or tea and lactofree milk now keep me full until lunchtime at the earliest or until dinner.
 
Saturday night is cauli rice,curry and french dry red wine night.Followed by stilton and some lowest carb crackers I can find.
Well I have this for life and walk 4 to 5 miles a day.My treat.
 
Hi Guys and Girls
What constitutes no or low carb. as I am trying to look at all packaging now for carb content, eg my favourite Aldis cheese puffs say 9 grams, other brands have 12-16 other foods vary as well. mayonnaise has a label that says 3.9 coleslaw 6, mustard 16.
Is there an upper limit please?
I am seeing the quack and nurse tomorrow will they tell me different, as do all the websites.
I am so confused right now, (Not difficult for me as confusion reigns in my world being old and senile)
Thanks again for all the comments and support
 
It can be confusing to begin with, but you’ll soon become an expert at reading labels. I don’t know exactly what the carb measurements you’re quoting are. Most food labels quote carb grams per 100g of product but there is usually the number of grams of carbs per portion or per item etc which is much more useful. Mayonnaise for example, I’m guessing your figure of 3.9g is per 100g of product. There’s no way you’ll have 100g of product so there the carb content per portion is negligeable. The cheese puffs on the other hand at 9g carbs I’m guessing that’s per packet.
The definition of a low carb diet is variable, here is Diet Dr’s definitions:
https://www.dietdoctor.com/how-low-carb-is-low-carb
I started on <100g per day and after six weeks dropped to between 50-70g as my blood sugars had plateaued and I wasn’t as low as I wanted. Some people here go very low, at less than 30g/day.
The Diet Dr Website has loads of useful free info, have a browse around there:
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb
 
Low carb starts at under 130g carbs per day. Very low carb at 50g per day and ketogenic at 20-25g a day.
Different peoples bodies will tolerate differing levels of carbs as will their personal preferences. Testing is the only way to find out your personal threshold
 
Nutrition labels by law have to show the amount of total carbohydrate per 100g. So if it say 5g per 100g that means 5% of whatever portion you eat is carb. Some people here stick to under 10% whilst others prefer to stick to under 5%. However, this all depends on how much you are going to eat. If you are only going to eat a teaspoonful, the amount is insignificant, but if you are going to eat the whole packet, it is far more important.

Some food labels also show the amount per serving. You then need to look for the actual serving size and make a judgement.

It does involve knowing exactly what your portion size is going to be, so you will also need to know how many grams of food the packet contains in total and do the maths. A 200g tin of something that has 12g carbs per 100g means if you eat half the tin you've eaten 12g carbs. If you eat the whole tin you've had 24g carbs.
 
Hi Rachox
I have read through the Diet Doctors web site and as I also have high blood pressure, I now have to look at packaging in a different light, trying to understand whats required has been my concern over the past few days as many products say X (amount) Carbs of which Y (amount) is sugar? which I find even more confusing, so until I get the weight off significantly, I will not know what is going on. some of the symptoms I have been experiencing, light headedness and headaches but accordingly this will go away????
Thanks again for all the input, very helpful.
 
You can safely ignore the “of which sugars” bit, you just need to calculate the carb numbers. I too am on medication for high bp but my bp is much better these days, most probably due to my weight loss which has occurred easily on low carb diet. Your symptoms should improve as you gain more control.
 
Thank you, feel better about the OF WHICH SUGARS Bit
appreciate your help
 
old sparky said:
Thank you, feel better about the OF WHICH SUGARS Bit
appreciate your help
Click to expand...

Yes, we can safely ignore the of which sugars bit and just concern ourselves with total carbs. Sugar is just one of the carbs in the total.

However, when you are self testing, the of which sugars may help you with regards to when to test post meal. The higher the percentage of sugar content, the quicker the glucose will be released into the blood stream.
 
Is Porridge Ok does anyone know? we do Have porridge for breakfast never looked at the packets as we keep it in a food container Forgot to mention that having just got back from quacks, and accordingly I am doing things right by trying this low carb stuff, and I have lost 4lbs in weight, so keeping on track, and decided to go for moderate intake. 20g - 50g carbs per day will try this for a few weeks and then reduce to 20g per day, but as we are going on holiday, walking and swimming I should lose more weight?????
Thanks again people it is really appreciated, since my wife has also been diagnosed with borderline type 2 so we will work together on this.

Thank you all and we will keep you posted after our next blood tests.
 
Last edited:
Early on in my diabetes journey porridge was absolutely fine (as long as it was whole oats not the instant stuff) , about 10years in though it began to spike my sugars higher and higher so became an absolute no-no. The only way youll know if its ok for you is to test how your body reacts
 
If you are trying to go pretty low (which you say you are) then porridge is probably best avoided.
Even if it doesn't cause you to spike it will use up a lot of your carb allowance..bacon and eggs or no breakfast at all may well help you more.
 
Now my Wife and I are starting to look very seriously about things like shredded wheat and all breakfast cereals, and as she has just been diagnosed as borderline, we now know roughly the route to take, thank you once again.
 
old sparky said:
Now my Wife and I are starting to look very seriously about things like shredded wheat and all breakfast cereals, and as she has just been diagnosed as borderline, we now know roughly the route to take, thank you once again.
Click to expand...
I think you’ll find most breakfast cereals are high in carbs unfortunately. If you still want a porridge like experience give this low carb coconut ‘porridge’ a try. Not real porridge, not a grain in sight!
I have it every morning with strawberries and cream:
https://www.dietdoctor.com/recipes/keto-coconut-porridge
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…