Tears of frustration

Hi. It's sad to say but your GP hasn't that much knowledge about diabetes but saying to reduce the carbs is fine. You don't need to go for 75gm as it may be too tight for you. At least stay below 150gm/day and go lower if you can. Tea is absolutely fine. Fats are fine as are proteins. Sadly most writers of diabetes cook books haven't a clue about diabetes and think you need to keep the (in)famous 'fat/sugar/salt' down. Sugar, yes, as with all Carbs.

Bunnylover1973 said:

I have high cholesterol too so have been told to not have any red meat and only very limited dairy. Doctor said to stop my cups of tea and change to Diet Coke instead. Been put on Metformin and Statins straight away

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Please research statins before taking too many of them as they can have side effects. In my case I had dizzy spells, sleep disturbance and they increased my Hba1c from 48 to 54. Some other members have had other side effects. Did the Dr tell you what your cholesterol was and what the breakdown is or was it the old chestnut of “all diabetics should take statins”?

I was really ill after a week or so of Metformin and Atorvastatin. After a month I was suicidal and my memory was pretty much shot to pieces.
Some people have no problem, but I was in real trouble.
It was all the more galling to realise that I never even needed the tablets.
Eating a low carb diet sorted my diabetes, and it even lowered my cholesterol, and after a few years my memory seems to be good enough, but I can't remember some things - I used to play guitar.

You don’t say how much you weigh, but you need to get as much body fat off of you as you can if you are overweight. I have been diabetic now for 11 years. I am currently working on reversing it with a great diabetes coach, Dr. Mowll. Google him. I have been on a keto diet for over two years now and have cut my Metformin in half and have eliminated Januvia altogether. What you need to do beginning now, is test after each meal. I do not know your system in the UK, but over here in the USA, blood glucose should not go over 140 two hrs. after you take your first bite of food. You will need to translate that to the measuring system you use in the UK. You can determine the amount of carbs you can eat based on that threshold. For me, I can eat no more than 50 net grams of carbohydrates per day. That translates to about 17 net grams of carbs per meal. Net carbohydrate grams equal total carbs minus fiber. If you want to stop the progression of this horrible disease, the first step is to view all food as medicine. Eat whole organic foods in smaller quantities. Eliminate any processed foods or any foods with ingredients that have chemical names. use only avocado, olive, or coconut oil‘s to fry things in. And exercise every day. I would even recommend giving up alcohol. And what really helped me was giving up dairy. I lost a bunch of weight and, as Dr. Mowll’s counsels, dairy raises insulin levels. Diabetics have two problems: High blood sugar and high insulin levels. You want to bring them both down to reduce inflammation. Your real problem is insulin resistance, not high blood sugar. High blood sugar is a result of the insulin resistance. Soooo, The first step is to stop eating too many carbs. Stop overloading your system with this macro nutrient. What I normally eat for dinner is a piece of high-quality, low-fat protein and a pile of non-starchy vegetables. If you start living this new lifestyle, you may be able to reverse it, depending on how long you went undiagnosed and how much damage was done to your islet cells. Sometimes eyelet cells are not dead. They’re just surrounded with fat, as your liver could be, and this fat makes your liver and pancreas insulin resistant and sluggish. The low-carb program that’s offered at this site is really good to. Good luck to you. It took me 10 years to figure this all out. I started out going down the road of conventional medicine and then found this website and the low-carb option, which really brought my blood sugar under control. What I’m working on now is making my body more sensitive to the insulin that I make. And that is what will truly reverse the diabetes.

We are all different. I have no problem with dairy and eat it every day, in one form or another. Butter is my best friend for taste, saity and stable blood sugar levels. Testing is the key, as you will find out what you personally can eat, and in what quantities. Depsite losing almost no weight, my blood sugar levels have been stable for over 9 years now. Its all about the carbs.

Bunnylover1973 said:

I have high cholesterol too so have been told to not have any red meat and only very limited dairy. Doctor said to stop my cups of tea and change to Diet Coke instead. Been put on Metformin and Statins straight away

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Oh dear. After your first post I had hope you had an up to date enlightened dr but it seems she doesn’t know which she is.

Cholesterol is often high at diagnosis. It’s part and parcel of the metabolic dysfunction package. You need all the figures, not just the total and then you need to learn a bit about it and you’ll see that eating low carb will lower the harmful parts and raise the good parts making the ratios much better. Statins will likely raise blood glucose levels too.

Almost everyone that low carbs gets better readings for cholesterol once they’ve done it a while and weight loss has stabilised - without statins. And then there’s a huge debate about if they are even beneficial for heart and cardiovascular health at all. It’s a tick box exercise that too many drs don’t question for each individual. I refused them at the very first mention and haven’t look back as my levels all improved. Many others in here have done likewise. It is your choice to take them or not. Not mine not the drs.
Same goes for dairy and red meat. No need to avoid them. In fact the basis of low carb is increasing fats/proteins to compensate for the energy lost from carbs. No wonder you’re miserable and hungry. She is advocating low carb and low fat.
Diet Coke is fine for an occasional thing but not ideal as a regular drink. Artificial sweeteners and carbonation have their own issues.

@Bunnylover1973 welcome to the forum,
As you can see people are knowledgeable and helpful here.

My two cents worth
1) Don't panic! While your Hb1Ac of 53 is diabetic, it could be much worse, I started at > 100.
2) Take control - this is your body and your life. We are all different
and you have to find out what works for you.
3) While not yet properly recognised by health care professionals,
there is lots of evidence that lowering your carb intake will reduce your Hb1Ac.
Many people on this forum are doing exactly this.
While some here only eat very low carb,
others get by with up to 150g per day, and that might work for you, too
you need to try it out yourself.
For this you need to measure your blood sugar.
Your doctor might resist, but you should insist, you don't want to do this blindly,
if this fails, you can buy your own.
4) LCHF stands for low carb, high fat and this works for many of us here,
i.e. we only eat full fat and have ditched anything low fat, margarine, ...
By replacing carbs with fat we are going back to eating what our parents or grandparents ate,
before fat was wrongly shamed and replaced by artificial and sugary stuff.
Diet coke and the like is not good for us either, so I would ditch it.
Tea or coffee without sugar is fine, coffee apparently is good for losing weight.
5) Be careful with dieting, most diets will make you hungry and don't work.
You don't give information, e.g. if you are overweight or not,
so it is not clear if you want/need to lose weight.
The good thing is that by lowering carbs you will likely lose weight anyway
Jason Fung's book - the Diabetes Code - is very informative,
His book discusses intermittent fasting, which is what I am doing,
other useful diet info is available at
https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/blog-entry/the-nutritional-thingy.2330/
www.dietdoctor.com
6) Your doctor is a mixed bag, she seems to understand that
lowering carbs is good, so try to discuss your plans,
There is no link between dairy/ eggsand cholesterol,
and afaik also not for red meat @bulkbiker do you have links to studies for this?

Bunnylover1973 said:

Hi all. I was diagnosed as Type 2 last week. Called in for a blood test by GP because “it’s been a while”. Got a text saying “you are diabetic. Pick up a pack at reception”. That was literally it.
I sent a message on Ask My GP for more help and got a phone call back from a doctor. She said that 2 years ago my HbA1c level was 49 and now it is 53. She said I had to cut back my carbs to no more than 75g a day. 75g????? I have actually pretty much given up eating anything this week because even fruit and veg is full of carbs. I looked through the recipes on here and they are loaded with carbs too. I am now eating less fruit and veg than before.
I have spent every night since being diagnosed crying my eyes out. I am hungry, missing my cups of tea and generally just fed up.
Friends with Type 2 have been raving about the Education day Course, but this has, of course, now been cancelled because of Covid and there aren’t any online options.
I have bought The Hairy Bikers “Eat to Beat” book, the “Reverse your diabetes” cookbook, and the “Diabetes Weight Loss” cookbook. EVERY recipe in them would push me over the maximum 25g of carbs per meal the doctor has suggested.
Only plus side is that I have lost 8lb in a week, just by not eating.
My first diabetic nurse appointment is June 9th and I am sure she will be thrilled that I have lost some weight, but at what cost? This can’t be helping my body.
Any advice would be gratefully received xx

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it has been a groundbreaking chock to most of us... it is so hard to accept , but you seem to take some very fine initiatives, buying those books .. many need to avoid carbs a much as possible , but a few can actually eat around 100 grams of carbs in total in a day.. the best you can do is to adapt to the low carb eating style, well I have failed for a very long time even knowing what and how to do it.. so I know it can be hard to do.

Lupf said:

also not for red meat

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@Bunnylover1973

Whilst it's hard to find studies that prove that something isn't harmful there are many debunking articles on those that say red meat is bad for us. The PURE study gave some good indications.
Zoe Harcombe has done stirling work on showing the false arguments behind many of the "red meat bad" myths along with Georgia Ede in this video

Resurgam said:

I was really ill after a week or so of Metformin and Atorvastatin. After a month I was suicidal and my memory was pretty much shot to pieces.
Some people have no problem, but I was in real trouble.
It was all the more galling to realise that I never even needed the tablets.
Eating a low carb diet sorted my diabetes, and it even lowered my cholesterol, and after a few years my memory seems to be good enough, but I can't remember some things - I used to play guitar.

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KennyA said:

Don't panic. Lots of people are on 20g carbs/day or less and doing fine. Your starting HbA1c is not so bad, at that, and you might be able to make positive changes quickly. This is what helped me:

1. You need to unlearn all the standard NHS healthy eating advice, all the assumptions made by the media, your family and friends about what's healthy and what's not. I do mean all.


2. As Type 2 diabetics we are not, by definition, good at handling carbohydrates. Some of us are better than others at it but we all have the same problem. Eating carbohydrates causes our blood glucose to rise out of control and that causes us physical damage.


3. Eating carbohydrates, of any kind, is therefore potentially going to cause us a problem as Type 2s.


4. Just how big of a problem depends on the individual.


5. Test your blood glucose and record your results to find out what your pattern and tolerances are. Then cut the things that cause the rises.


6. Nobody will do this for you. Only you can do this.

Best of luck. Lots of good advice and support on this forum, stick at it.

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Great advice, some things I've learnt as well, berberine before meals helps, it's reported as working better than metformin, from personal experience it's helped loads, corned beef or the sodium nitrite while not good for you according to some site has stopped and turned around suger rises, if you vegetarian beetroot has natural sodium nitrite. Beta gucans in shitake mushrooms helps, tumeric and cinnamon with black pepper helps as well as improves heart protection. Finally I would strongly recommend using a cgm like libre or dexcom and experimenting with food to see the results, this will give you the best indication for your body. Ps don't forget basics exercise and water.

hi everyone i was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes i’m on metformin and so confused on what to eat or drink

shamy said:

hi everyone i was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes i’m on metformin and so confused on what to eat or drink

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Eat protein drink water, keep up your fresh veg, read some of the posts prior there good advice, personally I would not touch anything with aspartame in it, I get cluster headackrs with diet sodas, juicing is a good replacement for tea and coffee, just use veg not fruit. Get a libre sensor and watch what your body does, once you know, you don't need the sensor, it will teach you the trigger foods, trigger for me is dairy but some are fine, use high protein nuts instead of sweets.

Damian Adams said:

Eat protein drink water, keep up your fresh veg, read some of the posts prior there good advice, personally I would not touch anything with aspartame in it, I get cluster headackrs with diet sodas, juicing is a good replacement for tea and coffee, just use veg not fruit. Get a libre sensor and watch what your body does, once you know, you don't need the sensor, it will teach you the trigger foods, trigger for me is dairy but some are fine, use high protein nuts instead of sweets.

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i will do that thankyou very much for the advice and guidance