Skipping meals

DnB said:

I didn't get much advice from my nurse at gp's and I'm wondering if going for such a long time without food could be causing high levels?

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T1 here, so my advice should be taken with a pinch of salt (or sugar?).

I would expect fasting to decrease rather than increase your blood sugar. However, stress and illness can increase blood sugars (sometimes quite dramatically) so consider if that applies.

DnB said:

Obviously a healthy but balanced diet, which I generally followed and my levels were reasonable.

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Was this as advised by your nutritionist (let me guess, "healthy" includes lots of low gi carbs)? Put very simply, and possibly overgeneralising, T2 diabetes (and incidentally, associated weight gain) is caused by the body's inability to process correctly the carbs it's taking in. Many of the T2s on here control their illness by going low carb high fat, which the dietititians are only now starting to recognise as an option. By doing this they achieve normal blood sugars (aka remission). If you continue with a high/normal carb diet (even a "healthy" one) the T2 tends to turn into a progressive disease, controlled by increasing medication and eventually insulin.

If you list on here a typical day's healthy diet, the T2s will be able to advise on its viability....

If you're on sitagliptin then I believe you're eligible for a glucose meter on the nhs. Honestly, testing your blood sugars before and after meals is the only real way to tell whether your metabolism can cope with the carb load it is receiving.

Good luck.

I agree with EllieM, get a Blood Glucose meter and test before and 2hrs after meals (possibly 1hr after and 3hrs after) to find out which foods spike your Blood Glucose. Otherwise you are faced with making changes and not being able to see if they are working for a minimum of 3months - since the blood cells tested in the Hba1c test live for up to 3 months.

Like many/most T2 on here I was advised to cut down a bit on carbs and to make sure all carbs where Low GI. But Carbs are carbs, so Low GI just pushes the Glucose spike to later after the meal!

Skipping meals for T2s can very often raise blood glucose, but in the longer term this is beneficial as it helps you to burn off the sugar in your body that is causing the resistance.

I’m afraid that the moment you mentioned ‘a healthy balanced diet’ I had a vision of plates piled with granary bread salad sandwiches, low fat mayo, small portions of lean grilled meats, ‘heart healthy processed margarines’, brown rice and pasta...
All of which will be more likely to raise blood glucose and keep it high, causing progressive degeneration.

I agree with the posts above. Get a meter and test to see what your current ‘balanced’ diet it doing to you. You will probably be shocked.

And then take a deep breath.
You can turn this around.
There are many people on this forum who have turned their blood glucose readings, their type 2 diabetes and their overall wellbeing by making some diet changes and ditching all those carbs.