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Struggling to make sense

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Fiona I

Well-Known Member
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I am new here, I am trying to control my diabetes with diet.
About two and a half hours ago my reading was on 9.0 I had two boiled eggs one slice of white bread and probably three cups of tea, no sugar but semi skimmed milk, My reading is now 12.3. is it the eggs or the bread ??
I feel like giving up and saying hey just give me the tablets but I am then on them for life, this is sooooo confusing.
 
Its the bread. If you want to control by diet alone then the majority of us find we have to not only cut out sugar but also significantly cut down on starchy foods as well so rice, pasta, potatoes, cereals, bread and other flour based products. Both sugar and starchy foods are types of carbohydrates and its carbohydrates that make blood levels rise.

Try halving your intake of all the starchy foods and preferably replace what's left with brown versions so brown basmati rice, brown or tri colour pasta. The best bread that most of us can tolerate is Burgen Soya bread that you can get from most supermarkets. New boiled potatoes and better still roast potatoes but avoid mashed potato and again you will find you will only tolerate so much.

Even if you start to drastically cut your carbs then if you have been running high levels for a while then it can take some days if not weeks to get your levels to reduce towards normal but look for a gradual day by day improvement. Your goal should be to get below 8 two hours after eating a meal. If you initially have a problem getting near to 8 then aim for you levels to be roughly the same as they were before you ate at the two hour point. If you can't do that then you need to look to reducing your carbohydrates further it really is that simple.

Remember 8ish is the two hour safe level and the guidelines say you should be between 4 & 7 at other times. It sounds hard but it does work. By drastically reducing my carbohydrates I got my levels to be consistently under 8 after around 6 weeks from a starting point in the 20's. When you cut out the starchy fooods its going to leave you hungry so make up with more meat, eggs, cheese and especially vegetables.

Take care and keep asking questions :)
 
Will cut out the bread from today, its deffo the potatoes I am going to struggle as most of our family meals are centred around potatoes. Also if I go out is better to drink lager or wine ???
 
You can find effective alternatives to potatoes without too much trouble, you could have cauliflower cheese instead of potatoes, or brocolli (as long as there is no flour in the cheese sauce). If my family are having mash, I will cook and mash cauliflower, add a handful of grated cheese and its yummy, everyone tries to steal it off me!!
 
Hi
I agree with all the above advice. I was in the late teens, now rarely above 7 two hours after a meal. I think wine (dry) is better than larger, but spirits with diet soft drinks are better than wine.
Eddie
 
Hey Fiona!

I have to disagree with Eddie - a large glass of dry white wine is better than anything :lol: (Only kidding, Eddie! I have no idea which alcohol is best - I only drink wine).

Having said that, alcohol lowers blood glucose, so if you have a glass of wine with a carby meal, you tend to react less to the carb and your BG will probably be better than you expect. Now, I'm not advising you to turn to alcohol to control your BG (before anyone shouts at me), but it is worth knowing :wink: As an insulin-using LADA diabetic, I have to reduce my insulin by half a unit if I'm drinking wine and I have to be very careful not to go hypo the next day. So don't thik you have to give up the odd drink or three :lol:

Smidge
 
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