Struggling to get back into low carbing

Hey @susanprice1964, don't know if you have been officially welcomes to the Forum, so welcome! You have picked a great site to have your questions answered, feelings validated, and great encouragement to control your diabetes in a way that suits you and your lifestyle and gives you the results that you are looking for to be the best you can be....I would suggest that you look at the lowcarb/highfat/modprotein. I would think that you are perhaps not getting enough good fat in your diet to keep you sated and thus are finding yourself snacking. There are T1s who low carb and of course T2s. Not sure where you fit in. Have a look at dietdoctor.com for great advice, recipes, etc. And of course, read around here on the various threads.

I see you are on insulin and I can't really say anything constructive about that as I have no experience - was threatened with it and that was my wake up call to get serious and do something to avoid it! Thankfully, this Forum was a God send in that regard.

Sometimes we snack out of habit - afternoon coffee? - need a sweet to go with it.....watching TV? need a munchie....you know how it goes! I have found that I succeed most when I have made out menus for the week, then if I feel I want a munchie, I look at my menu and pick something on it to eat.....With LCHFMP I am very rarely feeling the need to snack as my BG levels are so much better controlled and the desire to eat isn't there.

One thing that might help is to have a glass of water if you want to munch - sometimes our body needs water and not food. If you think you want a snack, wait 20 minutes - put a timer on if you need to! before you actually go and get that snack - usually by then the urge to eat is gone and you have distracted yourself with other things.

Hang in there and get to it! In a friendly way! You succeeded once before and there is no reason you can't again and hopefully get off the insulin if you are a T2....Blessings/L

susanprice1964 said:

I'm still on insulin lacking the motivation to return to the healthier eating

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Does it have to be one or the other? Is it such a bad thing to be on insulin? I imagine that if you really hated the insulin palaver you'd crash your carbs to get off it again. Maybe you could be comfortable for now taking insulin, eating healthy meals and starting to tweak your snacks in a healthy direction eg nuts, cheese, hard-boiled eggs. IMO using insulin and / or meds is not a failure. I worked very hard to persuade my GP to prescribe me Metformin and I'd take insulin like a shot if I could get it, but I also work hard at my low carb diet. Life is very long. We have time to try different strategies and find out what works best for us in the p;resent moment.

hi, you have my sympathy, i think the snacking crave is one of the hardest things to overcome. when i was first advised to go lchf, i was told that it's better to try not to eat at all for at least 5 hours after eating, as it gives your body time to reset. so i tend to drink gallons of water and coffee (usually, but not always black) in between meals. having said that, my body is now so used to the regime that i am usually fine without a snack between meals. when i'm desperate, i have nuts or a raw carrot, which really fills me up. but i know that not everyone can tolerate raw carrots, so you'd have to test to see what they do to your levels.

Alexandra100 said:

Does it have to be one or the other? Is it such a bad thing to be on insulin? I imagine that if you really hated the insulin palaver you'd crash your carbs to get off it again. Maybe you could be comfortable for now taking insulin, eating healthy meals and starting to tweak your snacks in a healthy direction eg nuts, cheese, hard-boiled eggs. IMO using insulin and / or meds is not a failure. I worked very hard to persuade my GP to prescribe me Metformin and I'd take insulin like a shot if I could get it, but I also work hard at my low carb diet. Life is very long. We have time to try different strategies and find out what works best for us in the p;resent moment.

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If a person is Type2 which is an advanced form of insulin resistance taking more insulin in the form of Exogenous insulin, will worsen the diabetes in the long run. Hyperinsulineamia, damages organs, prevents weight loss (if over weight is an issue), makes a person constantly hungry, raises triglycerides. Insulin for type 2 should only be a last option. Limiting carbs works wonders for type 2 diabetes. Ones health should not be seen as a " Game of life is bla...bla try different options" There are safe, efficacious protocols .The info in this video is worth noting

brassyblonde900 said:

If a person is Type2 which is an advanced form of insulin resistance taking more insulin in the form of Exogenous insulin, will worsen the diabetes in the long run. Hyperinsulineamia, damages organs, prevents weight loss (if over weight is an issue), makes a person constantly hungry, raises triglycerides. Insulin for type 2 should only be a last option. Limiting carbs works wonders for type 2 diabetes. Ones health should not be seen as a " Game of life is bla...bla try different options" There are safe, efficacious protocols .

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Thanks, tht's very informative. It reinforces my suspicion that I am actually pre-LADA, as limiting carbs, even drastically, has sadly not worked wonders for me. It is from this perspective that I say I would be happy to try insulin.

Alexandra100 said:

Thanks, tht's very informative. It reinforces my suspicion that I am actually pre-LADA, as limiting carbs, even drastically, has sadly not worked wonders for me. It is from this perspective that I say I would be happy to try insulin.

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OK, I get you. Are you, fasting or exercising? I find that though those things work for a lot of folks it spikes me to Xmas cake and treacle proportions
This thing called diabetes is a "funny" beast. So many types. One constant though, is low carb protocol works for most if not all.
Even type 1 is more manageable with low carb. Dr Richard Bernstein said " less carb, less BG rise, less issue with insulin bolusing.

brassyblonde900 said:

OK, I get you. Are you, fasting or exercising? I find that though those things work for a lot of folks it spikes me to Xmas cake and treacle proportions
This thing called diabetes is a "funny" beast. So many types. One constant though, is low carb protocol works for most if not all.
Even type 1 is more manageable with low carb. Dr Richard Bernstein said " less carb, less BG rise, less issue with insulin bolusing.

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I do believe in low carb, even though I'm sad that it (and Metformin) can't fully solve my bg problem. Dr B is my guru. I have bought his book, read everything in it that is remotely relevant to me, at least twice, and espoused his Law of Small Numbers, which I first heard about here. As I suffer from gastroparesis, bolusing will not be possible for me unless I can reverse that by diligent low carbing. I think I might feel less like a wet week if I could get hold of some basal, though.

As I am VERY under-weight, fasting would not be the best idea for me. I do exercise, in theory, with enthusiasm, (running, walking, resistance training) but lately I have been feeling so weak it doesn't happen so much.

Alexandra100 said:

As I am VERY under-weight, fasting would not be the best idea for me. I do exercise, in theory, with enthusiasm, (running, walking, resistance training) but lately I have been feeling so weak it doesn't happen so much.

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Could this weakness be caused by not eating enough? We do need enough nutrients to keep our bodies in shape, protein and fats in particular. Just a thought.

Bluetit1802 said:

Could this weakness be caused by not eating enough? We do need enough nutrients to keep our bodies in shape, protein and fats in particular. Just a thought.

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Yes, perhaps, but there are also various currently not well explained health problems which may be the cause. I am diligently eating as much protein and fat as I can. Too much protein seems to make my bg go up, and too much fat makes me feel sick, but I think I am eating plenty of protein and much more than a "normal" amount of fat, nonetheless. Before I discovered my bg problem I was just about keeping my very low weight stable by consuming lots and lots of fruit, milk and nuts but obviously that is no longer an option.

susanprice1964 said:

At the end of last year I was rather chuffed that I'd completed the 8 week low carb low cal diet. Within a week of finishing I contracted a chest infection which gave me scarily high bf on very little food intake, only controlled in the end by returning to taking insulin. Now 4 months later, I'm still on insulin lacking the motivation to return to the healthier eating. Mealtimes are generally low carb - snacking is my downfall. Any suggestions?

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What time are you taking your insulin? Insulin makes us hungry.
Ideally 20mins before meal? Or is your insulin a mixed one and twice a day?

Your low carb meal should be satisfying. So much do that you don't want to snack.
I know if I eat too many nuts, I want more but if peanut butter, I don't.
Experiment with your meals to gain more satisfaction then you will look forward to same food and know you can rely on it to satisfy. And keep your bgs low.

susanprice1964 said:

Btw, what is basal and bolus?

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Jenny Ruhl explains basal insulin here:

"To understand what happens as your blood sugar deteriorates from normal to pre-diabetes, and finally, to full-fledged diabetes you first need to understand how blood sugar control works in a normal body. The most important factor here is the role played by special cells called beta cells. These tiny cells are scattered through an organ called the pancreas which is located just under your stomach. The job of the beta cell is to produce insulin, store it, and release it into the blood stream at appropriate times.

You can learn how blood sugar fluctuates during the day in people with normal blood sugar, those with mildly diabetic blood sugars, and those with full fledged Type 2 Diabetes on this page: Blood Sugar Throughout the Day.

Healthy beta-cells are continually making insulin, storing it within the cell in little granules you can see in the illustration above. This insulin is released into the blood stream in two different fashions. Some of it is secreted into the blood continually. This is called basal insulin."

Injecting basal insulin can help lower fasting and pre-prandial bg, but does not help with post prandial (after meals) bg. For that we need a bolus.

I am by no means expert in the use of insulin, but my understanding is that people with an inadequate supply of insulin can inject some (called a bolus) before eating. They have to decide how many grams of carbohydrate they are going to eat and how much insulin they will need to cope with that. Different insulins are faster or slower acting and that has to be taken into account. If the insulin hits before the food, a hypo / serious fall in bg may ensue which can even be dangerous. If it arrives too late, the person has a spike of bg / become hyper. Hence Dr Bernstein's Law of Small Numbers. He reckons that it is almost impossible to get this calculation right all the time, so the best thing to do is keep carb intake low and insulin injections small. In this way, when there is a mismatch, the damage is not too great.

In my case, I suffer from delayed stomach emptying / gastoparesis. This is one of the known complications due to prolonged raised bg. Unfortunately this is completely unpredictable, so that after some meals my bg may not rise at all for several hours, and after others much more quickly. This would make it impossible to match insulin dose to food intake.

susanprice1964 said:

Btw, what is basal and bolus?

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Basal insulin is a background insulin that is normally taken once a day and is supposed to keep your levels well balanced all day and night apart from after eating. Bolus is an insulin you take before food (in addition to the basal) to keep post meal spikes down. It doesn't sound like you are on this regime, so no need to worry about it.