Stress & Type 2 Diabetes

Hi Jenner, I wonder if there’s scope to tweak your diet to lower your blood sugars? Can you tell us what you eat in a typical day please, then we may be able to make some suggestions.

jenner68 said:

Hi Rachox, Today I have had a diabetic milkshake made up of Banana, Strawberries, Milk, Porridge Oats and greek yogurt. 2 cups of coffee, 2 glasses of aldi diet coke. 1 hour after milkshake reading 8.7mmo/l, 2hrs, 7.8mmo/l. Before lunch reading back up to 8.1mmo/l, had lunch of Ham & cheese & tomato wrap. and went for 2 mile brisk walk reading was 8.1mmol. After a walk my readings are usually back in normal range.

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If you want to utilise diet to bring numbers down the “diabetic” milkshake (who called it that?) has a lot of carbs in the banana and oats, and the milk isn’t low carb either! The wrap at lunchtime was undoubtedly quite carb laden too. Dropping these would drop your levels, well would for most type 2’s.

Walking is pretty good for most of us, especially to bring numbers back down but better that they don’t go up too much in the first place

From what you ate today, I would only eat a few strawberries, Greek yogurt, coffee, ham, cheese and tomato. Everything else would shoot up my blood sugars sky high.

Stress will raise your blood sugar. I threw out most of my books with diabetes in the title. Far too high carb.

jenner68 said:

The diabetic milkshake is from a diabetic cookbook so I thought it would be suitable. I find it so difficult to find things to eat first thing that are not laden with sugar. Might have to go back to boiled eggs or something. Thanks for your help.

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Hi jenner68,
If you really want to control your Type2 by diet and exercise then there are 3 things you need to understand:
1. All products labelled 'diabetic' are to be avoided since they may be low in added sugar, but are usually high id netural sugars and carbs.
2, Diet is much more effective than exercise. But at least a minimum amount of exercise is really required. A minimum may be as little as the equivalent of a 10 min brisk walk per day. Personally I do a 30min brisk walk (or more) every day unless it would endanger my health (e.g. ice, torrential rain, not well enough).
3. You need to count carbs (or estimate the carbs) in every meal and every snack - but best not to snack! You also need (initially) to test your BG before and then 2hrs after every meal at least until you know what that meal does to your BG. Note that it won't always have exactly the same effect since illness, stress, pain, lack of sleep, lack of exercise etc. all increase BG.

What do people do?
- Well those who can actually use diet and exercise to control their BG do all of the above. Some go further on exercise, some go further on Low Carb, some go Keto or Carnivore or Paleo, or Low Carb High Fat (as I do). Some use some Intermittent Fasting i.e. skip Breakfast if the BG is too high in the morning.
Some others manage to control their BG in the short term by either a crash diet (Newcastle Diet or Michael Moseley's diets oe even Weight Watchers garbage diet! And some do it by using a Gastric Bypass operation.

Take medication or take your pick! I strongly suggest that LCHF is the easiest way for most people.

jenner68 said:

Hi, I am been under a lot of stress recently and I can not seem to get my readings into the normal range?. I am diet controlled Type 2. I have tried going for a walk but this has had no effect and trying drinking lots of water but to no avail. This happened last week as well and my numbers did not go down for about three days. What do other people do?

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Stress will up your bloodsugars, but your current diet would too. (Could be worse though!) https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog-entry/the-nutritional-thingy.2330/ has a few easy meal ideas (mainly because I can't cook to save my life, practically literally), so.... It's not all boiled eggs, all the time. You have options.

And if you're really stressed, CBD oil might take the edge off a little. It eases my panic attacks and helps me sleep, so might be of use to you as well.
Good luck!
Jo

jenner68 said:

The diabetic milkshake is from a diabetic cookbook so I thought it would be suitable. I find it so difficult to find things to eat first thing that are not laden with sugar. Might have to go back to boiled eggs or something. Thanks for your help.

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Sadly too many “diabetic “ things are only concerned with added sugars and fats and still have shed loads of carbs which turn into....glucose ie sugar.

When you say you are diet controlled what do you mean? What do you look for and what do you currently avoid? And importantly what do you like to eat?

Low carb to some extent or other is almost always the answer. (Ideally with some extra movement or exercise). That usually means fats and or protein increase to replace the energy you previously got from carbs. Take a look at dietdoctor.com for some straightforward food lists and many recipes. Quite a few are pretty simple if you’re not used to cooking.

jenner68 said:

The diabetic milkshake is from a diabetic cookbook so I thought it would be suitable. I find it so difficult to find things to eat first thing that are not laden with sugar. Might have to go back to boiled eggs or something. Thanks for your help.

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Eggs every which way are a good breakfast. Perhaps with a high meat content sausage (or 2)

Hi Jenner, Try this for breakfast, I dessert spoon full of Porridge Oats, try and get the whole rolled ones, half a tablespoon of wheatgerm, can get both of these from health food shops, 1 dessert spoon full of blueberries mix with water, NOT milk and microwave for 5 mins. I think you need to cut your carb portions, although there are carbs in this (oats) they are good carbs and in a small portion, and the only sugar is the natural sugar from the blueberries. Hope this helps.

Hi @jenner68

since you have a test meter, I think you can really tailor make your own way of eating to suit your tastes AND your blood glucose.

I can't eat anything like oats (even a tablespoon raises my blood glucose too high), or any grains whatsoever. Gluten is my kryptonite. I can tolerate a few carbs as starchy root veg, but prefer not to. But your meter can teach you all that, and what works for you.

Just test before eating and at 2 hours after, and if you see a rise of 2mmol/l or more, then either adjust the carb portions downwards, or eat somehting else.

Your 'diabetic' shake would be disastrous for me.
I often skip breakfast, but if I have it, then there are never carbs involved. coffee and cream is a good one. low carb hot choc works for me. bacon. egg. sausage. last night's supper reheated. cheese. ham. eggs florentine. eggs benedict. smoked salmon and cream cheese. The options are pretty endless.

Stress most definitely affects bg, but if you remove the food triggers too, then that is one less thing to stress about...

Hope that helps.

Hi @jenner68

If I may add to what has already been said, coming from my own experience of diet controlled T2.

Breakfast: I found that both porridge and bananas resulted in high blood sugar readings. They are no longer in my diet. I now alternate between something like this:

-skyr (or greek yog) a few blueberries or raspberries. Tesco Cranberry & Raspberry juice (0 carbs) and half a red grapefuit
-egg, bacon, sausage, black pud, juice as above. No bread

Both choices keep me going until lunchtime and I no longer need or want a mid morning top up.

For other meals most of the no-nos are gone most of the time: white bread, rice, pasta, old spuds, crisps and so on. Where bread (and tortilla wraps) are used it always multi seeded, wholemal, brown and in modest amounts.

Lunch is like you - often a wrap (wholemeal) with ham, cheese, chicken, tuna etc etc and salads

I found that there is a strong relantionship between stress, poor sleep and high blood sugars. Likewise never good to test immediately after walking or exercise as your body is naturaly using and producing glucose.

After long walks (5mi+) I find that I often get a low reading (4-5) a day or so later.

And finally, if you can get a copy of X-Pert Diabetes by xpert-health, as supplied to me by my local hospital during a diabetes awareness course then please do. The content will amaze you - espically the bit that debunks much advice (emanting from the food industry) about fats.

When I started this journey I had a blood sugar reading of 23 and Hba1c of 97. Nowadays I feel better, livelier, healthier and most bs readings are in the 5-6 range and hba1c of around 46 (a tad high but no pills)

Good luck. I hope the above helps.

Hi Jenner68
I absolutely agree with what has been said above about the diet. And frankly diabetic foods and recipes seem designed to give you diabetes rather than help control it!
Up until quite recently I was doing really well with a LCHF (low carb high fat) diet as explained on this site and on the dietdoctor.com site suggested above with HbA1C readings in the normal range.
However, over the last month I have also been suffering a lot of stress with family health problems and have seen a sharp rise in my blood glucose levels, especially the morning fasting reading which has leapt from 5-6 to 7-9!
Stress is definitely a huge factor as it prepares the body for "fight or flight" which means a big dump of glycogen (basically the same as glucose) from the liver.
You don't mention why you are so stressed, but as a very anxious, stressy person myself, can I recommend some form of relaxation therapy such as listening to soothing music, meditation, quiet reading, a walk in nature (not as exercise but just for the peace of mind), taking a long bath, etc? It has really helped me in the past and I think that my lapse in meditation lately has added to my bad glucose readings.
I do meditation and use an app called Headspace which gives me a sense of doing my meditation with someone and helps to keep me on track with my internal chatter. It helps to keep me away from worry and negativity which just makes things worse.
I hope this helps.

jenner68 said:

Hi, I am been under a lot of stress recently and I can not seem to get my readings into the normal range?. I am diet controlled Type 2. I have tried going for a walk but this has had no effect and trying drinking lots of water but to no avail. This happened last week as well and my numbers did not go down for about three days. What do other people do?

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For me stress raises by BG value a lot. I measured at morning 5.1 just woke up and calm. Started stressing about diabetes, no appetite so I did not eat anything, hour later I measured again and it was 6.5

jenner68 said:

The diabetic milkshake is from a diabetic cookbook so I thought it would be suitable. I find it so difficult to find things to eat first thing that are not laden with sugar. Might have to go back to boiled eggs or something. Thanks for your help.

Click to expand...

There seems to be new trend, that reached levels of fanatical faith on this forum, that all carbs are as bad as sugars. Even though the conventional (old) diabetic diet does not consider carbs that bad.
I am not disputing that claim. I will be lowering by carbs too to see if it helps.

Mike Sixx said:

There seems to be new trend, that reached levels of fanatical faith on this forum, that all carbs are as bad as sugars. Even though the conventional (old) diabetic diet does not consider carbs that bad.
I am not disputing that claim. I will be lowering by carbs too to see if it helps.

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That is sort of the point. Carbs turn to sugar, whatever their source. Yes, complex carbs break down more slowly but they still break down.
So low carb way of eating reduces the amount of sugar converted from carbs. I am only at the beginning of my diabetic journey but from the results I've seen in my self, and have heard of in others, I'll be sticking to it for as long as i find it keeps me healthy.

Mike Sixx said:

There seems to be new trend, that reached levels of fanatical faith on this forum, that all carbs are as bad as sugars. Even though the conventional (old) diabetic diet does not consider carbs that bad.
I am not disputing that claim. I will be lowering by carbs too to see if it helps.

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carbs are sugars. Carbs turn into sugar in our bodies. All carbs. Some carbs take longer to turn into sugars than others, but they all eventually become glucose (sugar). That is the whole problem with having type 2 diabetes, we cant process the carbs (sugars) efficiently and so the sugar levels in our blood raises as we cant get rid of them properly. The only remedy for this is to put less carbs (glucose/sugar) into our bodies.

A lot of health care professionals dont recognise that carbs turn to sugars inside us, and only focus on sugar itself , anything with an 'ose' at the end of it.

Also, a lot of conventional (old) diabetic diet advice is aimed at type 1 diabetics, as they havent yet really got to grips with type 2 diabetics, and still forget most of us dont use insulin to cope with the sugars/carbs we eat and drink.

What do you understand sugars/carbs to be?

Hi @jenner68

the start is always a little more difficult in terms of what to eat i think

we have had a lifetime of eating a particular way, so finding some changes isn't so easy.

maybe a little list i posted ages back might be of use.

".the one i always point to is avocado.
they come ripe (eat today tomorrow ) OR to ripen and eat in a few days time.

Most useful for the fats, but goes well i think with scrambled egg.make an easy breakfast.

i eat a good breakfast when i work late,
then it might be a kebab later in day..but not the pita.
or a subway salad..5 stars.
maybe grilled chicken ..(my local cottage chicken now closed )
or as said cook the night before and bring food in to work to heat N eat.

No one says what you MUST eat,
so it all depends on you
what you are prepared to do to help your self.
( eat to the meter, good advice )

Normally no foods a sin, but diabetics do pay a price if we go off piste.
but the cost is yours to bear.

I'd say, don't see this as a diet.
but more of a way of life.

I quite enjoy that i am bucking the supposed wisdom that i can not eat better,
and must accept the complications will come regardless.

2 fingers to that.
so i enjoy the foods i do eat.
but we must all make our own stand.

i can't really cook like others can
but i get by, as @Jim Lahey once said
simple real food will get us through, IF we want to get through.
(breakfast eggs , bacon. sausages, mushrooms tomatoes ? ...YUM )
but don't be restricted by what you THINK you must eat...
skip a meal or go outside your comfort zone.
(I had curry veg and fried eggs for breakfast the other day..delicious )

In the mean time fridge snacks await.
Yoghurt and real fruit..(berries)
a variety of cheeses..cheddar and boursin on my fav list.
ryvita, peanut butter, pork scratchings,
double cream and more fruits (berries)
and then there's always lo cal jelly...

and BILTONG..i never would have bothered with it pre Diagnosis,
but now it's a staple in the fridge,
alongside any deli meat. ( chorizo sausage current favourite.)
Both help as a snack to stop me eating things that are not so good.
both keep in fridge for ages.

the phrase i remember the best was REAL FOOD,

so if it still looks like REAL FOOD when you buy it, OR the ingredient list is small.it's probably ok,
BUT i do still measure EVERYTHING i buy by 3 rules.

Under 5g per 100g..i put in basket
5-10g..i umm and ahh, and think IS it worth it for the taste etc.
(bear in mind many thing you won't eat in large amounts, (tomato sauce, mustard, etc),, judge yourself how much you'll use )
and things over 10g have to be pretty spectacular and even then i probably put it back on the shelf and quickly move on to the next items.

Hope some of that helps.

Good Luck.