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Sweeteners

D

Donna85

Well-Known Member
Messages
78
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Hi everyone, so..long story short, I've been diagnosed a few years now. I've been very ignorant about having type 2, I go through phases of being good ...and phases of not at all. I've never had good numbers though. It didn't effect me so I didn't bother, or so I thought, until last week. Optician found a bleed in eye. Not huge, but enuf to scare me into reality. I'm 38. Id like to keep my vision, so working hard now. My question is about sweeteners. I've been finger prick testing 7 times a day at request of GP.. I'm only on day 4 of 7 and although the numbers are mostly heading in the right direction (still very high) I'm wondering how much sweeteners is effecting us all. I really struggle with drinking water, really struggle..so what options do I have? Should I just be sucking it up given the way things are or can I still have no added sugar flavoured drinks such as tea and dilute..with sweeteners and are there any specific ones to avoid? Thanks in advance!
 
Hi @Donna85 ,
I think it would make sense to look at your overall diet first, unless you're drinking a lot of sweet drinks.
Tea with a splash of milk or cream is still low carb, and many people find they do well with sweeteners. (I don't like the taste so I don't use them, but I like my tea and coffee with just a little milk.)
Donna85 said:
I've been finger prick testing 7 times a day at request of GP
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Have you found any patterns between before and after foods/sugary drinks?

What kind of foods/beverages are you typically eating in a day?
 
I also never used to drink water, ever! Now, that's all I drink with a night treat of a cup of coffee. I tried various sweeteners & they didn't raise my blood sugar, but I didn't like the taste. Happily found erythritol & that's fine. No point having a treat of a cup of coffee & not liking it.
 
Ive been having readings of between 14 and 12 on a morning, fasted. And usually between 7 and 10 on a night. Testing through the day before and 12 hours after and the results vary. I can't put my finger on the culprit. I've had meals with virtually no carbs and they have still risen after a 2 HR period. Sometimes I'm back at baseline which I know is good. Today I had some fresh chicken breast in whole meal no added sugar bread, 2 slices, 17 carbs a slice. My numbers were still up over 2, more than 2 hours after. Yesterday I managed to get away with 6.4 carbs all day but reading still went up again before bed, not as high as morning but higher than expected considering it baselines after tea testing. I'm confused. Not sure where I am going wrong. I've only drank water today, no tea, no dilute. Not sure what else I can cut out. X
 
***2 hours after... Not 12 hours !!
 
10 days ago, my HbA1c came back at 101 and scared the pants off me. So I began testing regularly, avoiding sugar as much as possible and went on a strict diet substantially reducing carbs. As a result I lost 7lbs in 10 days and today my average BG today is about 6.1 and I now have an estimated Hba1c of 57.5 (I'm taking this as a guideline only).

I don't use sweetener in drinks, though I do like muesli of a morning and add it to that and of an evening I eat a zero sugar natural yoghurt with a little sweetener added.

I'm lucky as sucralose doesn't seem to affect my BGs, though I know there are some who avoid it.

Iw would strongly suggest a test. Drink some sweetened water or tea and test before and after. If your BGs spike then avoid that type of sweetener.

In a couple of weeks you'll have fingertips like a pincushion but you'll have a much better I'd ea of what you can and cannot eat.

Best of luck
 
Donna85 said:
Yesterday I managed to get away with 6.4 carbs all day but reading still went up again before bed,
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What was your evening meal yesterday, and how much did you rise?
Donna85 said:
Today I had some fresh chicken breast in whole meal no added sugar bread, 2 slices, 17 carbs a slice. My numbers were still up over 2, more than 2 hours after.
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I think most of our T2, diet only members would still be up over 2 mmol/l after two hours from eating 34 grams of carbs from bread in one meal. Wholemeal or not doesn't make much of a difference for me.
Chicken breast tends to be lean, so it has less calories than a fattier cut, and likely won't fill you up on it's own. You could have a juicy leg (or two, skin on) instead, and leave the bread or have less of it.

Not sure if you've already ran into this, written by one of our member, I find it very informative on diabetes and food: https://josekalsbeek.blogspot.com/2019/11/the-nutritional-thingy.html
And there is this thread in the low carb section of the forum where we share our meals, you might like it. https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/th...y-low-carb-forum.75781/page-2968#post-2665486
 
Oh, @Donna85 , would you mind updating your profile? It says both diet only and gliclazide. On gliclazide, things are slightly different because it can cause hypos, although it doesn't look like you're in immediate danger of this.
It can also make your test results a bit more confusing, because you're not only looking at the effect of food and exercise, but also at the time when you take your tablets: gliclazide doesn't work steady for 24 hours but it has a bit of a peak action time and tails off after some 10-12 hours.
 
I think I'm a long way off any hypo risk at the moment. Lots of hard work to do. Yes, doing a test for drinks is probably a good idea. I've ditched the takeaways, fizzy drinks, milk, all the breads (except the 1 sandwich), potatoes, pasta and rice. I've had things like bacon, omelette , chicken breast, cucumber and soft cheese, beef mince, and some turkey, tuna and salad leaves. I'm not a great cook and not very adventurous yet. I didn't think the wholemeal rice or bread would effect me as much as it seemed to. I will definitely have a look at the links you have all sent. Thank you for the advice so far. It's going to be a long journey and I'm finally realising I'm going to have to stick this out if I want to get better, it's not a fad diet. Oh, and I'm sorry, I don't know how to update my profile from diet only. I am on gliclazide 80mg daily, but that option to change is blacked out on my phone for some reason. Not sure why. I will try again when I can get on computer, it may be my phone that's the issue.
 
What is the best time of day to take it please?
 
I had chicken breast pieces 200g, and 60g soft cheese and cucumber. It went down at 2 hrs testing to 8.4 but then back up at bedtime even tho I hadn't eaten anything after. I did have some no added sugar dilute juice to drink which made me think of the sweeteners.
 
Donna85 said:
What is the best time of day to take it please?
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I have no idea!
I was on gliclazide for about 3 weeks, and this was 7 years ago. I only googled its action time today because of this thread, and found out it doesn't work steady for 24 hours, so timing might impact your numbers in a confusing way.
 
By how much did it go up from that 8.4? Like are we talking 9.4 or 14.4?
Donna85 said:
I did have some no added sugar dilute juice
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No sugar added doesn't mean no sugar. If it's juice, it has the natural fruit sugars.
Have a look at the back of the bottle/carton to see the carb count per 100 grams. This may well have been the culprit.
 
This makes sense, I will check tomorrow morning. Thank you.
 
As @Antje77 said- I never just look at the 'no added sugar' on the packet I always check the actual nutritional values on the container. It can be quite surprising sometime.

I also am careful with cucumber as I do like it and can go overboard with it and while low carb it still has some.

I also remember it taking a few days of basically no carbs for my levels to come down. The body can be quite set in it's ways.
 
I didn't know this. I'm going to have to look at more detail. I'm going shopping tomorrow so any advice/tips/suggestions are welcome. I appreciate all the advice from everyone so far. I think I may have to go low to no carb for a while to get this sorted. I'm in bed now and at last test it was 8.8, i woke this morning at 13.2 so hoping its heading the right way from now. I really should have dealt with this a long time ago.
 
Donna85 said:
It went up to 10.1
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That's not that much of a rise from 8.4, could well be the juice, even though pretty low carb.
Or it could have been the time you took your gliclazide.
It could even be the time you saw something distressing on the news or such. Just to emphasise it takes time to find true patterns...
 
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