• Guest, the forum is undergoing some upgrades and so the usual themes will be unavailable for a few days. In the meantime, you can use the forum like normal. We'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Self sabotage

I

imperp

Member
Does anyone do this to themselves. Only got diagnosed this week and much as it's on my mind to do this and sort myself out. I have so far eaten carbs, carbs and more carbs just can't seem to stop myself. Could I be in denial. I'm not a big meat eater could happily be vegetarian but without jkt potatoes, pasta and bread I really don't know what the hell I am going to base my meals around. Also what do you do for lunch at work. Sandwiches are out of the question and I just know a salad won't fill me up. No cooking facilities at work.
 

Hiya

I was diagnosed a couple of months back and still in the same boat. I am a fussy eater. I am a builder so find myself sitting in the van to eat. I usually take a salad or a sandwich and some nuts but i know this will shock alot of people on this forum (people on this site have the best of good intentions and will probably live longer than me but are a bit unrealistic with some replies)you may eventually find something and when you do let me know because everything i have found is a bit repetitive.

Good luck
 

Perhaps you are shoving as many carbs down your throat as you can because you know they could be your last! It is not unusual to be in denial at the beginning.

Making a list of all the foods you can eat safely will help. Start with all the less carby vegetables, then the proteins, then dairy and other fats. Push all the foods you shouldn't eat out of your mind. Concentrate on those you can.

Bread can be got round because there are several low carb breads on the market. Lidl sells high protein rolls that are excellent and only about 9g carbs per roll - and for me, half a roll is enough to fill me. Supermarkets sell Burgen bread, also low carb. Waitrose sells Livelife bread - also low carb.

Salads can and do fill us up if they contain sufficient protein and fats. A 105g tin of salmon, or a tin of tuna, or boiled eggs, or any cold meats, chicken thighs, cheese, olive oil or real mayonnaise (Hellmans is best). You could follow this with a few strawberries or raspberries with a full fat yogurt, or a handful of nuts. It isn't just lettuce and rabbit food! Low carb bread comes in useful at lunch times. There are other alternatives to salads. When not working, a lovely brunch with bacon, eggs, high meat content sausages (plenty of those in supermarkets), mushrooms, a tomato, followed by some berries with cream.

Think to yourself - it is most likely your current diet that has put you where you are, so if you want to change things, you have to change your diet. If you don't, then more and more medication is your future.... or worse.

Let your meter be your friend, you may have a nice surprise. Not all carbs affect all people, although portion size has to be smaller than it is now.
 
I stayed in denial for a couple of years knowing in my heart I was diabetic. As it started to get worse, I could feel things starting to get ready to drop off - sepsis, detached retina, snoring fit to wake the neighbours, an inability to sleep, a constant cough and STILL I carried on damaging myself -

Then one day - reality hit home - this was no way to live. I decided to give it a go and get rid of carbs and sugars from my life and yes it is hard work, and the food is very different - but it doesn't have to be monotonous.

The main thing to get your head around is to find a way to start eating "real foods" instead of processed foods .

Whilst its better to go " cold turkey" if you can- there are lots of intermediate things you can do that will help
for example - fish and chips - skip the chips and replace it with coleslaw. snacks - get pork scratchings instead of crisps, chocolate go for higher cocoa content instead of milk , vegetables - try and increase the above ground content. fruit - focus on blackberries, strawberries and raspberries instead of tropical fruits. try avocados if you haven't before .Avocado egg and mayonnaise makes a great packed lunch.
Explore adding in nuts and seeds to you diet , try more varieties of fish .
Explore adding spices to foods to create nice sauces .

One of the things I found most strange to get my head around - you can still go to your favorite Indian now and again, just forget the rice and naan bread with the sauce. its just as tasty eaten with a spoon and some yoghurt.

Others will advise you here to get hold of a meter , and I agree with that. If you do and you start testing yourself , you will soon see just how much things like pasta bread, rice and jacket potatoes are spiking your blood sugars whereas bacon and eggs, salads, nuts, meat and fish are not . it makes it a lot easier to start making the changes you need to you diet when you can see the result so quickly .

In the end the reason why so much carbs are in our diet is that they are cheap to supply and addictive - especially when full of sugar - it doesn't actually taste of that much !
 
Bg spikes also spike cravings. Impossible cravings.

All good advice above. A little imagination and creativity. Loads of delishous foods and varieties. It doesn't have to be complicated or anything you need recipes for.

Grab some protein, grab some veggies and grab some fat.
Bulk cooking and freezing meals works well too

Protein. Fish of all kinds( not breaded), beef, lamb, eggs, chicken, turkey, shrimp etc
Veggies. Salad greens or large leaves for lettuce wraps ( replacing bread) ,all above ground veggies,
Fat . Cheese ( also protein) dairy, nuts, seeds, full fat mayo, olive oil, avocado, olives.

You might be surprised once you kick the carbs how your hunger diminishes. Loads of us find we don't need ( or want ) nearly the amount of food we used to eat
 
I am only four months from diagnosis but the craving for carbs has already almost disappeared. The change in diet needn't be rabbit food all the time. Have a gander at dietdoctor dot com for great recipes or look at the thread here on the forum called 'What have you eaten today?' for ideas.
Honestly, it really boils down to a change of mindset and that change happens surprisingly quickly.

And yes, denial is common but not insurmountable.
 
I have self sabotaged a couple of times in a very big way - it took me years to work out that the carbs themselves are very addictive and even though I was getting bloating, feeling ill all the time, gaining weight from the insulin, had loads of diabetes related ailments and constant thirst and hunger I found I was STILL craving carbs. Then I had a mishap with some insulin and came to the conclusion that either I had to stop eating carbs or I could see that within a year or two my ailments could easily escalate in to some seriously nasty complications. The day after the insulin mishap I started a two week experiment in cutting out carbs completely which was incredibly hard but I got some quick results I then added some carbs back in and found my balance.

I wouldn't recommend cutting all carbs out like I did - I think if I was to start over I would start with, say, 200g of carbs per day for a day or two then reduce down to 180g, then down to 160g, and so on until I found a level of carbs that my finger prick tests would tell me gave me the best results.

My biggest tip would be to make a complete list of all the foods you can eat and focus on that rather than thinking about the foods that raise your BG. It doesn't take very long before planning / eating / shopping in a low carb way becomes a habit.

As Henry Ford said “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
 
It isn't easy I would say from my experience.
I have set myself an aim to try and get to a position where the control allow me some freedom on holidays and high days.
So though I would not say I do not miss the carbs, I would say that I am in a sense banking them.

I try and skip lunch now some of the working days - or take some high fat/protein foods like cheese and nuts. I just cannot eat bread now I am afraid so a sandwich is just not an option. I replaced potato with roasted carrots which do not spike me at all. I take a small tub of strawberries or blueberries, blackberries and raspberries with cream for lunch as a treat some days.
Nuts are really good and easy to consume. Chicken pieces with a few tomatoes. Lettuce or cheese as the bread for a ham sandwich. There are lots of compromise options - it just depends what the choices you want to make are I think.
 
@imperp , one of the things which had a big effect on my approach to dx and how I was going to deal with it was reading an article a few months after dx by a person who'd been dx'd aged 20, same as I was, went off the rails and was being told 5 years down the line that there was a realistic chance of her losing her sight within the next year. I remember siting myself down and saying, that's not going to happen to me, I'm going to pay attention to this. In some respects, just acknowledging that both T1 and T2 can be vicious, savage conditions in terms of complications if not minded properly and that you massively improve your odds if you do pay attention can be enough motivation to start looking after yourself.

Also, instead of viewing it as an enemy, I tend to think of it more as a bit of me has gone wrong, so I need to help it, and, thus, me, out. That way, it's not a fight, it's co-operation. Sure, it's a bit of a mind game, but I just find I have more peace of mind looking at it that way.
 
Hi
It sounds like you are telling yourself a story about your 'self sabotage' and 'denial'; you have attempted to run a full marathon without training and then, unsurprisingly, failed. I won't give you practical advice as there is already loads of this but would say, with (tough) love, that you are being over dramatic. Its understandable that when we fail to meet our own high standards, we protect our ego by thinking of this as something that is beyond our control e.g. why do I always do this to myself, I have no control, its so difficult,,, I may as well give up. The reality is you can control what you are eating but don't try to run before you can walk with dietary changes. What are you willing to do that will help? Be realistic ( e.g. For 3 days I will eat only half my usual sandwich plus try a salad to test my assumption that they are not filling ). My personal criteria is not to make any changes that I don't think I could stick to for the rest of my life!
I hope you will find out that you can do these things that seem hard right now.
 
I have just posted a similar post about binge eating. I am a comfort eater. I eat instead of facing whatever is bothering me. It doesn't work of course, and I still have to deal with whatever the problem is plus being obese and type 2.
All the advice on here is good. Its a personal choice as to whether give up carbs all at once or bit by bit. I did it all at once because I found that just eating a few carbs just made the cravings so much worse.

We are all just human. Give yourself a pat on the back for recognising that there is a problem. And now decide what is your long term goal. For me, at first, it was just a desire to not go blind and to hang onto all of my toes. Now that I have been doing this for the long term ( 10weeks!!) I feel so much better and I have found that my long term goals are changing.

What do you want to happen? For me, all I could see at the beginning were the negative consequences of not sticking to a "diet". If I didn't stick to it I would go blind, lose my toes, have terrible pain etc. Now I am staring to look at my diagnosis as perhaps a good thing. I am walking for the fun of it, I can keep up with my grandchildren that I look after 5 days a week. I actually have started to enjoy taking them to the park. At the beginning all I could see was never eating my favourite foods ever again. And now I am starting to see that the food was more important than living my life.

It is not easy. And yes, you will have to find other ways to eat. But it is most certainly possible. If you have a very physically demanding job, like Philip why not have a look at some of the lchf sites that are dedicated to athletes? They know all there is to know about not being hungry .

I would say to not worry too much at the beginning about losing weight. Eat until you are not hungry of all the good food that lchf allows you to eat. Do you have much weight to lose?

This is a difficult journey. But there are lots of good things along the way.
 
I am just approaching 10 months from diagnosis and I am becoming vague about how to alter diet - it is so easy once you decide to do it.
Having a couple of different shopping lists and rotate them around so as to get some variety into the month, but always have something in the freezer just in case. If you can't get the Lidl low carb rolls then perhaps trying out the various low carb bread or cracker recipes which are around would give you something to take out for lunch - or there are various alternatives to pizza or quiche which are both portable and easy to eat.
Once you get into it the problems just fade away - ignore them and things can become serious quite quickly.
I have just got a 4th grandchild, so staying able to drive over to see family became pretty much a top priority, being able to do it so easily, eating a really enjoyable diet is a bonus.
 

you could try salat with cheese cubes and bacon chips... then it might fill you up... the one thing that is sure , we need to lower the amount of carbs to become more healthy again and to get normal levels of blood glucose... (and avoid adding diseases )

luckily there are so many delicious ways to cook low carb foods and when you get some of the recipes under your skin you´ll probably find it a much more joyus way of eating..
 
Hi! Diagnosed at the age of 24!
I struggled in the beginning thinking I can't eat this and I can't eat that. The truth is, you can eat what you wants when you want just in moderation. For example. A roast dinner with roast potatoes and mashed potato. I now have 1 or 2 roasties and a small portion of mash. You will learn how to control your sugars quite quickly. For me, I know if I take 2 units of insulin per 10g of carbs it brings my sugars back into normal range. I have no idea how to 'carb count' so I downloaded the 'carbs and cals' app on my phone and it works it out for me. Never tell yourself you can't have certain things because you're diabetic. If you have that mentality you will never be in control. I was only diagnosed in July and I'm getting a grip on things after a lot of research. I'm looking forward to the DAFNE course
Good luck!
 

Hi Christina,

The original poster is a Type 2, so cannot eat carbs to the extent that Type 1s can as he does not have the benefit of injected insulin to deal with them. His own insulin has to cope and battle against insulin resistance. It is unfortunate, but true, that T2s simply can't eat everything.
 
Even though a type 1 CAN eat whatever they want whenever they want it doesn't mean loads of carbs and junk food are good for anyone. Diabetes or not a healthy diet should be the goal.
 
Here's a lunch suggestion for on the go. De-seed and partially peel a cucumber. Then fill it with your favorite sandwich fillings and put it back together. Some good ones are: 1 chicken, guacamole, and cheddar cheese 2 cream cheese, sliced beef and onion, 3 pesto, tuna and diced peppers. The trick is to use something that can act as a glue to hold everything together.
 
 
It is normal for newly diagnosed type2 diabetics to encounter some of the challenges your have mentioned.
what you need to do is educate yourself as much as possible. You have made the correct decision joining the forum.
you mentioned eating vegetables would be simple to do,therefore increase your consumption.
for lunch you could prepare it and carry it to work.
Tip:
Pre-prepare your meals and avoid having to grab things quickly to eat.
eliminate buying the foods you crave and educate your family on the seriousness of the disease, you will need their Support.
I found this to work for me you can try it, ask someone in your home to bring stuff from the refrigerator and pantry.
this will reduce your temptation for the food you should avoid ,also stay away from the drink machine if they are at your work.
Take water and keep it where you can have it without going to the machine.
 

Ah my mistake, I didn't read the Type 2 part. In some ways I'm relieved I'm Type 1.
 
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.…