welcome kea
there is lots of great advice here
I don't think there is such a thing as a simple list when it comes to diabetes :? except in relatin to carbohydrate and there is a lot of conflicting advice and information out there :?
You don't mention your blood sugar readings HbA1c or fasting or pre and post meal or the timing of your tests and how high you actually go after eating, or what medication you are taking (if any) and advice you have been given.
However, even without that info I can say that what you need is a diet you can stick to for the rest of your life. This diet has to get your blood sugar lower and it has to be something that you enjoy eating, otherwise there is no way you will stick to it. I was diagnosed in late February/early March. It wasn't a surprise to me, since then I have made some major changes to my diet, my blood sugar is under much better control and I'm enjoying what I'm eating.
Succesful diabetics reduce the amount of carbohydrate they eat, whatever approach they take. The most obvious thing to do is cut out added sugar to anything and all sweets. This was how I started and I continued to do this for about a month between blood tests and brought my fasting blood levels down by a couple of points when it was tested at the surgery.
The other thing I wanted was to be able to eat the same food as my son and entertain friends and family and even eat out. If I can't do those things then I will fail. I can't afford to fail because developing the long term complications of diabetes will knock several years of life off my lifespan. If it doesn't, I don't want to end up like my dad, from whom I inherited my diabetic genes. His quality of life was very poor for the last 10 years, he died last year at 81.
I wasn't happy with the NHS approach that diabetes is a deteriorating condition and that complications are inevitable. So I kept looking until I found something that was a bit more positive. I found
http://www.bloodsugar101.com and this website and spent a lot of time looking around here. If you go to bloodsugar101 you need to remember it is American and they use different numbers to us - convert the numbers they give by dividing by 1.12 and then again by 18 to get mmol readings (complicated :roll: ). However, I tend to just look at the inforamtion on getting to grips with blood sugar. The advice here is great and there are people taking many different approaches.
I'd initially thought that a low Glycaemic Index diet was the way to go. My GP nodded happily when I told him that I planned to do the low GI diet. Diabetes UK has some "offical" low GI cookery books by Anthony Worrall Thompson. Then I looked around here and after a few weeks realised that the people who's control I really admired were all low carbers. So that is what I do, I'm also a vegetarian.
However, we are all different and you need to find out what makes you spike, because what makes me spike may be very different to what makes you spike. You need use the readings your meter gives you to find out what makes you spike and then you can either avoid the food or eat considerably smaller quanitities of it. Testing is essential and very expensive :shock: I suplement my 50 NHS strips a months from eBay where there are several very reliable suppliers. My price limit at eBay is half the retail price, including the postage, for something that has at least 10 months before it expires.
There is a lot of conflicting information. My view is that the advice given my the NHS will slowly poision me as the NHS recomends a diet that turns to glucose in my body, which is what happens to those slow burning complex carbohydrates - they turn to glucose as my body digests them.
You don't mention your weight. I also have a substantial amount of weight to lose - I must be half the woman I was in February and so far have lost 25% of the weight that needs to go since I started changing my diet. The extra weight causes insulin resistance and my body can't use the insulin it does produce properly because of the insulin resistance, my insulin resistance is at its worst in the mornings. My long term aim is to have an HbA1c under 6% and a place on the 5% sofa, I hope to be there before the end of this year. This is what will reduce the risk of me developing long term complications.
Things will become clearer as time passes, honest! But we can't afford to let too much time pass before we get a grip of what we need to do and develop good control. Good luck, ask any questions you want. Look around here, especially in the diet forums at the success stories threads.
And on a positive note, since my diagnosis I have eaten better than I have for years. I'm not hungry and those awful carb cravings have gone since I cut out the pasta, rice, bread and potatos. My posture has improved, I have more energy and I have realised the fuzzy head and headaches I used to get were symptoms of high blood sugar. I've also stopped using antacids and don't get the acid reflux that was becoming a regular problem. I don't feel at all deprived on the diet I'm using and my last HbA1c was 6%.
