Slimming World dilemma

I went on it with the wife and lost weight but yeah, there are carbs there and if thats the strategy you are adopting to manage blood sugar there will be some clashes...

But there will be plenty of lower carb recipes to choose from on the program....so its worth a shot..

ExD said:

Has anyone been given a free 12 week course at Slimming World by their GP?
Can you recommend it? I have looked through the hype on their webpage and their recipes seem very high carb and include potatoes, pasta and rice. This is totally against everything I've learned on here and is going to be a huge about turn in my way of thinking.
It means my shopping list will include skimmed milk, low fat cooking spray, fat free yogurt, tinned beans and rice to name a few. My cooking methods and meals will undergo an enormous change of direction. No cream, cut all fat off meat and remove chicken skin, eat pasta, boiled rice and potatoes ...... my head's in a spin.
If the weight loss is good, do you think it will help establish insulin production and help the type 2 diabetes?
Help!

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As you have said, it really does include quite a lot of carbs but (to satisfy your doctor and your own curiosity) you could try it for a week using the less carby foods and if your BG goes up then you and your doctor will have your answer.

ExD said:

Has anyone been given a free 12 week course at Slimming World by their GP?

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Round here (High Wycombe) they push Weight Watchers which I believe has a low carb (Atkins, South Beach) option. If you Google Slimming World low carb, some people aren't very complimentary about SW.

3 years ago I had a free 12 week course at SW from my GP. I decided I might as well use it so I went to the weekly weigh-ins and followed my own diet (LCHF) and started a thread here to help motivate me. I rarely stayed to the talks because they were all about low fat, and low fat diets just left me hungry. After the initial 12 weeks I was given another 12 weeks free as I had lost more than 5% of my bodyweight. I lost over 10% during my time there, but that was thanks to LCHF and the guys here motivating me. I didn't let on that I wasn't following the rules and they didn't care as long as I lost the weight. Win, win then

ExD said:

Has anyone been given a free 12 week course at Slimming World by their GP?
Can you recommend it? I have looked through the hype on their webpage and their recipes seem very high carb and include potatoes, pasta and rice. This is totally against everything I've learned on here and is going to be a huge about turn in my way of thinking.
Help!

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Can I ask a couple of questions?
How is your weight loss doing Low Carb?
What are your blood sugars like doing Low Carb?
If both are going the right way low carbing why would you want to change to something that you think won't do you any good?
If low carbing isn't working for you then give it a go..
if you don't want to do it then tell the GP so he can give the course to someone else.

ExD said:

Can you recommend it? I have looked through the hype on their webpage and their recipes seem very high carb and include potatoes, pasta and rice.

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My wife did diet the SW course and I don't recall it being high-carb (but it would be to you if your following a strict low-carb diet @ExD ).

SW do have different meal plans and I believe they can adapt the diet to a persons dietary preference so worth discussing it with them if you do enrol on the course, there was a thread discussing the SW diet around a year ago where it had a mixture of replies from type 1's & 2's, here it is:

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/thr...-and-effective-for-those-with-diabetes.91559/

@ExD I went to SW with my mother-in-law a few years back - she (non-D) lost 2 stone and I (type 1) lost 1stone 5lb.

It was BEFORE I started eating lower carb. At the time I had been eating what I would consider to be a 'standard' diet (pasta, bread, potatoes, rice - all the stuff I now substitute cauliflower for!) and then when I started SW I noticed that gosh, I can eat as much pasta/rice/potato/meat/fish as I like, but I need to 'count' milk and dairy, bread and cereal, and avoid things like cheese, cream, sauces, anything floury or fatty.

To give it credit, it did work. It did. I then switched to LCHF, having lost more than I needed, really, and now I plough my own furrow, eating veg instead of potatoes and rice etc, and not cutting the fat off anything.

BUT...
I am on insulin, and could treat rises in blood glucose accordingly.
AND...
I feel the only reason I lost weight was BECAUSE of tightly following a prescribed plan. I feel that if I veered off and didn't trim fat off things, or had gravy. I would not have seen weight-loss results.

I am making the assumption that you are not on insulin. And I'd say you're right to wonder at the high-carb approach of SW versus what you see on here.

I didn't have much weight to lose, but lose it I did. So yes, it worked.
But if I were managing my diabetes with diet alone (I don't know much about type 2 medication so please forgive me) I would be tempted to reduce carbs for the sake of both weight and diabetes control, rather than follow what was - at the time I did it at least - a very carby and quite restrictive-of-other-stuff plan.

I'm so sorry for my mixed messages in this post! I think in your position I would definitely a) stick around on this fabulous forum and b) give LCHF a spin. Oh and c) get a meter and test lots, so whatever you decide about SW, you at least have the chance to see how your body deals with the carbs. Some find some things affect them more than others. Forewarned is forearmed!

Love Snapsy

You are also asking about this diet establishing insulin production. Most T2's actually produce far too much insulin until very late in the game. High insulin levels are as damaging as high glucose levels. Unless you have been tested and know your insulin production is low then assuming your levels are low may not be right. A fasting c-peptide test will tell you how much insulin you produce if you can convince the powers to let you have one. Low carb reduces both BG and insulin levels. Less carb means less insulin needed. High insulin levels also make it very very difficult to lose weight. This is one of the reasons low carb works so well for weight loss for many people.

I tried slimming world about 6 years ago before I was diagnosed as type2. I went for roughly a year and put weight on. I decided to stop because I thought why was I paying 5 pound a week to be weighed to find I had put weight on.
I decided after that, to be weighed monthly at my Dr's surgery and that's free. In doing that, and dieting my way, I lost to date over 6 stone. Also by getting help here with what I can and can,t eat

My friend has been going to SW for several years & to be brutally honest I can't see it's made any difference! She's still what she calls "a comfortable 16". As for the diet, it's a bloody nightmare! Because I do LCHF if she comes to dinner I have to change everything. Fish pie? I use half a carton of cream, she only uses a tablespoon, olive oil? Oh no no no, I have to use one of those low cal sprays. Going out is a minefield, she HAS to go somewhere that does vegetables so Beefeater, Table Table, pub meals etc are out & a flipping' carvery has to be the restaurant of choice. As far as carbs go, she is fairly low carb hence no roast potatoes, especially in goose fat, no chips, one or two small new potatoes. Honestly it does my head in & I'm not the one on the diet. If you are managing to lose weight following LCHF keep doing it. The only thing with SW is if you need the support infrastructure then go for it. I keep getting "Oh, SW is eating plan for life" ad infinitum. Almost as boring as my vegan friend going on about she can't eat cake as it's not worth murdering chicks to make one. Give me strength!!

losing weight but eating carbs is not something I'd go along with - high BG levels are not something to deliberately seek out and encourage.
If you are a 'normal' new type 2 you have too much insulin but your cells are ignoring it. You need to reduce your carb input so your insulin levels drop and your cells drop their resistance to it. If you go on eating carbs that will not happen.

Well I can't add much to this discussion except to say have just walked past a shop with a poster advertising the local SW meetings and the poster picture was of a huge plate of spaghetti with sauce. Looked very appetising felt like I needed to test BG after just looking at it.

ExD said:

Too much insulin folks? Now why didn't someone explain that in the beginning? The info I was given at GPs and at clinic was that diabetic's pancreas was damaged and so I assumed NOT producing the stuff. I've spoken to someone at 'headquarters' who was very helpful - well almost too helpful saying you could eat bread, pasta, potatoes, rice etc ........... but didn't mention cheese, or crean and cooking fats.
We'll give it a 'go' when she gets back in touch and I'll ask if they have a low carb 'plan' when I go for the induction (?!!?)
I'll let you know how things pan out.

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I was told the same thing when I was diagnosed - that my pancreas wasn't producing enough insulin.

Type 2s only get put on insulin if they ignore the situation and their poor old pancreas just wears itself out.
Cut back on the carbs and the pancreas eventually gets a rest - there seems to be various different intervals along the way where odd things go on - stable BG, unstable BG, the old energy plummet in the afternoons I used to get which made the last lesson of school so difficult to concentrate on and then in later life made the picking up the kids from school such a labour of love. I tried fasting and got a higher than normal BG level, but this is just 5 months after diagnosis, so all sorts of things might be going on, but hopefully all will be well at the end of a year - that is what I have been aiming for - a year of experimentation and reversal.
Also lots of roast chicken, pork and lamb - mushrooms and tomatoes and salad, cream cheese and celery, sugar free jelly, berries and coffee with cream, oh and beef with sweet peppers and onions, and courgettes, and bacon and eggs, or scrambled eggs with cheese grated in and then thinly sliced tomatoes on top, covered over and left for a minute.
There's not much need for starchy foods with so much else to chose from...

Resurgam said:

Type 2s only get put on insulin if they ignore the situation and their poor old pancreas just wears itself out.
Cut back on the carbs and the pancreas eventually gets a rest - there seems to be various different intervals along the way where odd things go on - stable BG, unstable BG, the old energy plummet in the afternoons I used to get which made the last lesson of school so difficult to concentrate on and then in later life made the picking up the kids from school such a labour of love. I tried fasting and got a higher than normal BG level, but this is just 5 months after diagnosis, so all sorts of things might be going on, but hopefully all will be well at the end of a year - that is what I have been aiming for - a year of experimentation and reversal.
Also lots of roast chicken, pork and lamb - mushrooms and tomatoes and salad, cream cheese and celery, sugar free jelly, berries and coffee with cream, oh and beef with sweet peppers and onions, and courgettes, and bacon and eggs, or scrambled eggs with cheese grated in and then thinly sliced tomatoes on top, covered over and left for a minute.
There's not much need for starchy foods with so much else to chose from...

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no some type 2 do have too little production of insuline right from diagnosis time...............(their pancreas has already been serverely damaged from the permanently high blood glucose they have had before they were diagnosed)

but also others who have still a far too high insuline production(and insuline resistance) do get added insuline because they do close to nothing to eat less carbs and their doctors find it nessesary to try to help with insuline as they lack other ways to help them.... and this added insuline on an already extreemly raised level of insuline which their body already does refuse reacting propperly towards is like putting petrol on a fire.... but what can they do.....?

restricting food seems to be the true first choice to treat diabetes 2 but many patient only want a medication to fix them and can or will not do the effort needed..

High carb diets : Just say no! It's like a poison to diabetics, making IR worse. (or spiking insulin requirements, same end result)

Anyone or any diet recommending one eats potatos, pasta, and bread for diabetics should be summarily ignored, IMO. And possibly even called out as ignorant and/or dangerous.

If you eat a super low fat vegan diet which is high in fiber and low in GI and overall calories, you can apparently do quite well, but personally I know a lot of vegans who are overweight and the proof is in the pudding (and they're smug and condescending about it too, which makes it all the more irritating. Ask them what causes insulin resistance and see if they respond something inane like too much animal fat. Beep! wrong).

It's easy to overeat by thinking if the ingredients are healthy so they don't need to worry about portion control. This is a huge mistake, because vegans have way too high a carb / fat ratio in their diet to eat any substantial amount of calories per day to be considered a sound choice for diabetes.

Veganism, unless it's very low calorie, spikes carbs due to it being naturally quite low fat and high carb. Although, of course it depends on what types of foods are eaten. Legumes, avocados, beans, all these are good for diabetics but if they're supplemented with bread (even whole wheat), rice, pasta, it's a losing formula. It's just pouring fuel on the fire.

ExD said:

Too much insulin folks? Now why didn't someone explain that in the beginning? The info I was given at GPs and at clinic was that diabetic's pancreas was damaged and so I assumed NOT producing the stuff. I've spoken to someone at 'headquarters' who was very helpful - well almost too helpful saying you could eat bread, pasta, potatoes, rice etc ........... but didn't mention cheese, or crean and cooking fats.

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Most often the official description of Type 2 diabetes states that we have ineffective insulin and that obscure the fact that most of us have had years of elevated insulin levels. That is the primary reason why obesity is so closely associated with Type 2 diabetes.

Dr Joseph Kraft identified that and later Dr Jason Fung connected the dots and found that lowering circulating insulin levels thru low carbs and intermittent fasting is remarkably effective in normalizing the condition of elevated insulin AND glucose levels.

https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/understanding-joseph-kraft-diabetes-in-situ-t2d-24/



But if your T2D is not obesity related, eg drug induce, pancreatic injury etc...then this model don't apply.