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T2, vegetarian and slimming world...how on earth is this going to work?

merrymunky

Member
Messages
22
Location
Poole, England
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Hi all,

I was diagnosed with T2 on Friday. I’m still coming to terms with it, amongst other issues (see my post in introductions section for more info but in a nutshell this diagnosis came about as a result of investigations following the loss of our only baby at 16 weeks gestation in November.)

My initial worries with managing this condition is that I follow slimming world which works so well for me when I am fully on plan. I need to lose weight as I am obese, especially if I want to ever conceive again before time runs out. I’m already 38 with irregular cycles so time is of the essence.

As a vegetarian a lot of my diet is made up of potatoes, rice and pasta. I know that carbs are a massive issue with diabetes. I’m already a fussy eater and taking out these from my diet on top of having to cut out chocolate etc is going to turn me into a miserable sod!

I have made some substitutions over the last year such as using red lentil pasta instead of white pasta. I did this in a bid to reduce gluten intake as I am slightly intolerant. This was before I had an inkling I had diabetes. I also sometimes use the butternut squash spaghetti on place of rice when I make a quorn chilli etc.

I rarely eat bread when I am 100% on plan.

I’ve heard so many different opinions. Some saying just to continue SW as usual. Others saying to just tweak with carbs etc and others saying to discard everything and do the low carb hi fat diet. This would mean coming off slimming world as I would be over my daily suns every day.

I really want to get my weight down and get this condition under control. My hba1c level was 75 (9%) which seems quite high to me. However I am only just learning about these numbers and what they mean so I have no real comparison. I have been put onto metformin. Just finished my first week. Tomorrow my dose increases to two tablets a day, then next week, to three. I think most people on metformin have started this way. So many people say they have lost weight on metformin but you have to adopt healthy eating principles in order to do so...which I do when my head is in the game on SW. However, I have a big appetite and have never exercised portion control on SW when I am eating a free foods meal, (nor have I needed to, I’ve still had great losses). I don’t know how this will be impacted going forward.

Any advice?

Thank you.
Emma
 
Its is a bit harder to do Low Carb whilst vegetarian but not impossible but I'd say you probably will need to up your fats somehow because that is what keeps you full. Coconut oil, olive oil ... do you eat butter and eggs? Pasta should really be off the menu although konjac noodles can be a workable substitute. Lots of green veg, salad, cheese (of the full fat variety) if ok. Personally I'd ditch Slimming World and go low carb as for me it worked extraordinarily well... but I'm a big meat eater so find it very easy.
 

I do eat butter when I have toast. I do not eat eggs though. Totally gross me out!

Yeah the vegetarian side of things really makes low carb difficult. It’s such a staple in my diet.
 
My understanding, possibly incorrect, is that programs such as SW restrict calories intake by means of going high carb and low fat. Your problem is that the weight gain associated with T2 diabetes is caused by the high carbs which can't be processed properly by your T2 body, resulting in a weight inducing combo of excess insulin and high blood sugars. So once you're used to the low carbs, going low carb high fat should both reduce your hunger and your weight.

Avocadoes, cheese, berries with unsweetened Greek yoghurt (my personal favourite breakfast)....
If you're Vegan it'll be a lot harder, though there is a Vegan section in this forum. (Personally, I'm lowish carb and though I'm not vegetarian have no problem going vegetarian for a while, though I would find it very hard to give up cheese...)

Good luck.
 
I’ve done slimming world twice, once being in the run up to my wedding. Totally focused, totally stuck to it and lost a steady and lovely 1 and half stone over a 6 month period. I now do Low carb High fat as found this forum when diagnosed and in truth, at the time, for lack of having any better ideas I followed what people on here advised. I’ve now lost almost 4 and half stone in 5 months. But like @bulkbiker i am a meat eater and so don’t struggle to follow it.
We are all different and i won’t preach what you should do. If slimming world is something you are passionate about and believe in then perhaps for you stick with it. However, all I would advise is be open to the idea of change. Your SW leader may have fabulous ideas of how to help a diabetic and they may well work for you. But if those ideas do indeed involve carbs then in truth you may struggle to get Blood glucose numbers down, and whilst weight loss is important, keeping BG at good levels has to be the main goal. My HBA1C at diagnosis was 62. Three months of LCHF and metformin and it was down to 32. Currently now going diet alone having dropped the metformin and hoping for similar results next blood. So my advice is to keep testing your blood sugars. See you’re readings immediately before and 2hrs after a meal. See what impact that meal is having on you. Only then will you see if the diet is right for you as a diabetic or not. And then you can decide from there the best way forward
 
If you go all-in on properly formulated low carbohydrate eating, your metabolic health will almost certainly improve, and as a result the weight will fall off you also. However, as a vegetarian you may find this lifestyle more difficult than most.

Also I’d like to say that I read your other topic and you & your husband have my heartfelt sympathies. A very sad trauma
 
@merrymunky - I'm so sorry to hear about your miscarriage. That must have been a low beyond belief.

This site has a Low Carb Programm (LCP), which has been successful in helping thousands of people improve their health, and for many even reversing/resolving/driving their diabetes into remission.

The LCP is a one-off, lifetime subscrription service, at just under £30. The LCP allows you to define your preferences, such as vegetarian, along with at a lower level, including foods you like and don't like. This link could be worth a watch:


I'm not a sales person, but it could be money well spent.

Whatever you decide; good luck with it all.
 
merrymunky said:
discard everything and do the low carb hi fat diet.
Click to expand...
Hi Emma, slimming world is not giving out the best advice.

With the best will in the world assuming they genuinely want to help all there members loose weight they are handing out old advice. Low Fat with added sugar and lots and eat lots of carbs with each meal.

THIS is terrible advice to a diabetic and will make you fat not loose weight.

You should only be looking at 2 things the carbs or the sugar. Since every vegetable is a carbohydrate it is going to be hard to work of a low carb diet as a vegetarian. Looking at a lower carb is more realistic by lower carb I mean cutting out the rice, bread, pasta & potatoes. Cooking meals from scratch will eliminate all the added sugar.

Weight Watchers own brands are full of added sugar
 
@merrymunky

so sorry to hear of your loss.

As for the diabetes, i think the posts so far a very considered and worthy of note

I agree with many that the aim for you should be the HBA1c..the impact of not getting those under control will
far outweigh the weight loss in terms of disruption to your life and health.

the good news is that the LCHF woe (way of eating) will and has done for so many. lower your weight as well as your HBA1c.

however i Know little about the vegan side of it, as i enjoy a meat eating lifestyle, along with veggies etc.,
i'll leave you to find a path that works for you in that respect.

as for the disease itself..a little background, if simplistic, helped me make sense of it.

As diabetics we had a normal tendency to process carbs as others do, however our intolerance to carbs increases, meaning the body produces more inulin to take care of and utilise the glucose.

That seems to get worse as time goes by, so we go from highly able to tolerate carbs on the one hand to struggling to cope.

And from inulin working well and at a moderate level .....to shifting to producing excess,

That in itself makes us fatter..
(.i found myself getting fatter as i got older, something i put down to age/poor food choices.)

But there IS an argument that regardless of those choices, my body was becoming inefficient at dealing with the glucose i was ingesting..aka the carbs and it began to store the excess as fats around my waist and organs, ...everywhere it could in fact.

if you take no action regarding your blood sugar levels, that just continues until complication rear their ugly head.

Metformin helps us become more efficient at moving the glucose into where it needs to be, BUT we have to do our part.
We MUST reduce the load on the body, by reducing the workload we FORCE upon it by overloading it with carbs.

(i am sure that others can dress that up far better then i can, ...
in a much more scientific fashion, and while it may not be 100% correct,
that as i understands it, is the broad brush stoke of the issue and the remedy,as such )

Your choice seems simple from where i sit.

Control the HBA1c, blood glucose levels, and stave off or delay indefinitely the complications,
(do see how many other have ..and their weight loss followed )

*i have never dieted, had no interest, until the DX to diet,
i simply wanted to lower my HBA1c to a less disastrous level (was 57 oct 2018..jan 2019 i hit 42 )
all that was done via eating the way quoted above (meat.fats.veg)..

I do exercise but nowhere near enough and far lower then the standards many others do on here.

But i've lowered my hba1c and gone down from a 40" waist to a 34" waist in trousers in the 3 months ,
from close to 17 stone, i now weigh in at 13st 12lbs.

the way seems clear, the how not so...or is that the other way around..?

however it is, i think you should consider finding a way to include this way of eating into your lifestyle,
all other issues are secondary, and as many have found the weight loss follows and other conditions ( with the reduction in carbs) also improve...

we basically end up with a dreadful disease, that weirdly leads to use being healthier..go figure.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

i hope you find your way to joining us on our journey.

many are way in front of me, lighting the way,
it is that kind of community, where it's NOT others saying do this ..
it's others saying I DID this, so can YOU

The example are littered throughout the forum,
scattered in the signatures of those with more posts then me,
but we all have our scores up and while they maybe less then others,
we all wear them with pride as they
tell the world where we came from AND where we're heading..


i hope my long essay, gives you pause for thought, food for consideration and hope,
that there is a way, and the confidence to try.

God bless you both.
 
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Hi @merrymunky ,

I'm so very sorry for your loss.

May I ask, have you been checked for PCOS? With irregular periods, T2, trouble with weight and the recent loss, you MAY have watercysts on your ovaries. I have them, and was told I wouldn't be able to conceive/carry to term without some hormonal medical help. Something to look into, because if, and that's a big if of course, but just to be on the safe side, this is the case, you'll want to get checked. PCOS can be treated with hormones, but from what I understand it responds well to the same diet one needs to get bloodsugars under control; LCHF. ( https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/benefits/pcos )

Slimming World focusses on other causes of obesity than a T2 usually has as a cause. When we are prediabetic, we actually become insulin resistant (and prediabetes is something that is a symptom of PCOS), meaning we make loads of the stuff, but it doesn't do what it's supposed to because we're insensitive to it: it should help us turn carbs into fuel. So when carbs become glucose, and practically all carbs turn to glucose once ingested, that glucose doesn't get burned for fuel... Instead it's just stored in fat cells. After a while though, those stores are full, and the glucose remains in our bloodstream, doing damage to eyes, liver, kidneys, nerve endings, what have you, spilling out in urine etc. That's when it's full-blown diabetes. So, while Slimming World tackles weight, it doesn't do anything for your bloodsugars. And it's slow going because you still eat a lot of carbs, keeping fatcells full, or filling them up again quickly even if you lose a little weight. On LCHF and later, Keto (which is 20 grams of carbs a day max, making a body go into ketosis and thus burning fat for fuel instead of carbs/glucose), I lost 25 kilo's/50 pounds, and got my bloodsugars into the normal range without medication: I was off Metformin and gliclazide in 3 months, been med-free for 2 years now. (Could even ditch the statins for cholesterol!).

Slimming World isn't designed for T2's... Because our reason for becoming bigger isn't the one they aim for. LCHF takes care of your bloodsugars, which you really, really want to happen (especially if you want to conceive again, because diabetes and pregnancies are a bad combination if you're running high all the time), it would probably tackle PCOS if it is there, and you'd shed weight like water. Literally, because a lot of waterweight is there because carbs make you retain water. So it is really worth looking into.

Being a vegetarian makes it a little harder, but check the dietdoctor.com website. https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb/recipes/vegetarian There's meals there for vegetarians as well, though it does limit you an awful lot if you also hate eggs... It should be doable though. Just hope you like avocado's.

And get yourself a meter. Check before a meal and 2 hours after the first bite. If you go up more than 2.0 mmol/l, the meal was carbier than your body could process out again. Your HbA1c is running high, but not so high you can't get it back into the normal range within a few months, via a lifestyle change. I was higher than you are now and I got it done, and I didn't have the support of this forum back then, had to figure it out on my own and botched it often, so... It can go a lot quicker. (And you want quick if you're in a hurry to get pregnant again, I suppose.)

The good news? On LCHF, a square or two of extra dark chocolate (85% or more) is perfectly fine. And if you hate it, just have a gulp of unwhipped cream to go with it. (I love it dark, but for variety... That's what I do. Or add a walnut or two!)

Wishing you all the best,
Jo
 

Brilliant post
 
Sorry for your loss.
Have you ever considered not being vegetarian? I used to be but found that’s when my problems started. I feel SO much better doing LCHF with meat. I didn’t need to lose weight tho and it’s a challenge to maintain my weight. Just a thought and after all, LCHF has now been proven to help with fertility as discussed on the TV programme The Truth About Carbs.
 
I too was an advocate if sw for many years. So far back that I remember the old red and green days. (I only ever lost on red days - green days were effectively carb days!!). Over the years it worked less and less well, especially when carbs were merged into the single plan. Turns out I was simultaneously becoming more and more insulin resistant heading unknowingly into diabetes.

As @JoKalsbeek says above slimming world isn’t designed for diabetics. Some aspects of it work but the carbs just then counteract those bits and it ends up being hard to lose weight and the diabetes just gets worse. Those saying keep doing sw or eat in moderation etc just don’t understand diabetes and low carb. Even medical people can fall into this category I’m afraid My sister is a vegetarian with a nut allergy who manages low carb. It can be done. Take a look at the vegetarian section of the forums and at lots of the low carb websites for ideas. Some vegetarians do return to some level of meat eating as a result of going low carb for health reasons. Maybe just fish or chicken. Might be a consideration depending on your reasons in the first place.

As far as being fussy goes you’ll have to either work round it as best you can or be open to trying new stuff. As you ditch carbs you’re taste buds will change, really they will. Some foods will become more appealing as a result. Also it can be about the way they are cooked so new techniques and practice can help. None of us kids in my family liked meat. Two became vegetarian as children as a result. With one exception we all love meat now. We all hated most veg too. It was my mums cooking !! Over cooked soggy veg and over cooked dried out chewy meat. (Sorry mum but it’s true). I hated some foods as a kid that I thought I still hated as an adult, til I tried them again after sometimes decades. This thing is if you want change you have to be open to trying change. Sometimes a few times. Of course you may still hate the food you try, I keep trying to like olives but just can’t.

Oh and low carb means you can eat chocolate (just work your way up to 85% cocoa and yes it can be done much more easily as tastebuds change), cream, bacon and cheese, which sw won’t let you do, and your overall health and weight will improve so there’s that to consider.
 

So sorry to hear of your loss hope things will be happier for you the next time. If you are happy going to SW and it has helped you to loose weight then no reason to stop going just because you have diabetes now. Many people like the face to face contact of a group and having a cup of tea and a chat with others doing the same thing it does give an incentive to stick with it. My daughter not diabetic went to SW lost the weight she wanted to is a size 10 and two years on has not gained the weight back she still eats the SW way as they say it is a life time way of eating not a diet. She never ate the SW ready meals she always cooked her own from their recipe books and she said they will adapt the diet to suit a diabetic there were three in her group
 
Yeah they do adapt. They cut sugar. Not carbs. When I last went about 2 yrs ago the diabetics in group were told to do pretty much the same but use brown bread and rice not white. They advocate the eatwell plate for diabetic the same as the .org group. https://www.slimmingworld.co.uk/faqs/health/i-have-diabetes-do-you-have-any-advice
 

There’s quite a logical fallacy in there somewhere, but out of respect for the OP’s sensitive situation I won’t labour the point. Causation aside though, personally I think encouraging a diabetic to consume a high carbohydrate diet is bad advice, but we’re all free to offer our views.
 

Nope. I am a devout vegetarian. I haven’t eaten any meat since I was 12. I never liked meat. I cannot eat it. The smell, taste, texture, the fact it is a dead animal. I just cannot do it. It took me years to even eat Quorn products and even some of those are too meat like for me so I can’t eat them.

I really think I am going to struggle to find anything suitable to eat. I’m going to see what the diabetes clinic have to say. But essentially, all the carbs I have been consuming make up staples of almost every meal I eat.

Typical meal choices for me on a standard day for me would usually be:

Breakfast:
Fruit salad with a fat free vanilla yoghurt
A small bowl of cereal with skimmed milk.
At weekends I will have 2 slices of whole meal or grain bread with peanut butter as a treat.

Lunch:
Jacket potato with cheese and salad,
Cheese salad
Mixed beans and couscous
Leftover red lentil pasta (usually with peppers, onions, sweetcorn and a passata sauce) with cheese
New potatoes and salad
Ryvita with soft cheese topped with peppers and cucumber
Home made vegetable soup (with carrots, peppers, onions and parsnip)

Tea:
Quorn chilli with rice (although I sometimes use butternut squash spaghetti instead)
Red lentil Pasta as above topped with grated cheese
Vegetarian quorn roast with veggies and roast potatoes
Quorn sausages with potatoes and baked beans
Vegetarian curry made with quorn pieces, chickpeas and vegetables etc with rice
Jacket potatoes with salads or new potatoes with salad

Basically carbs in most meals. If I take them out I am left with very little to eat. I’m sure I will work it out eventually.
 
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I’d rather not eat chocolate at all than go dark. I really don’t like it. I’m a milk girl all the way. It all just seems so daunting at the moments. It feels like I am going to have to change the way I eat so drastically.

Slimming world really works for me for weight loss. I remember old red and green days too. I lost 4.5 stone in 6 months on green days back in 2010.

I really cannot and will not ever turn to meat and I don’t know if Quorn works in the same way when doing LCHF.

All I do know is at 38 years old and at 19 stone with one big baby loss behind me I need to lose the weight at the same time as getting this condition under control....and quickly. Slimming world is the only thing that has ever worked for getting weight off. I’m just very confused at the moment.

I do appreciate all the messages and advice. I will be taking into account things people have said. The only firm non negotiable at the moment is meat. I will not eat it. Ever.

Some people have mentioned monitors to check levels. Any advice on the best type to purchase?
 
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