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This evening I tested my non-diabetic wife . . . I had a lower postprandial than she had

Ronancastled

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,234
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Grand National started at 5:15pm today, I'd dinner ready so the family sat down for dinner at the same time.
Myself & the good lady had the same portion of pasta, bolognaise & garlic bread.

My Accu-Chek meter has a cassette that has 50 tests but expires after a few months, I'd 3 tests left but it expires at midnight so I decided it was time to poke her finger.

Took a 1 hour reading (chasing the spike), mine have been tumbling lately.
I read 5.7 & she was 6.3, off she went with her usual "you're not diabetic, told you".
She had GD on our last child so knows what a diabetic reading looks like, she's never seen my dodgy ones.

Anyway, here I am, a diagnosed diabetic for life while someone with greater insulin resistance doesn't carry that badge.
Has anyone tested non-diabetic family or friends & had better readings.
 
I find even comparing myself to other type 2s problematic! There's so many variables all the time.
In this instance you could have been on the way up and she could already have been the way down. Single readings say nothing


But that is not a healthy balanced meal for any of you...diabetic or not , sorry!
 
My OH did once until I remembered he’d had full fat coke whilst I had Pepsi Max!
 

Hi,

Yep, once on my wife before & 2Hs after the same meal? She was in range even after the additional chocolate coated raisins.
Mine was lower.. It only demonstrated I'd got my bolus dose timing right..
 
MrsA2 said:
But that is not a healthy balanced meal for any of you...diabetic or not , sorry!
Click to expand...

I try to keep to <50g of carbs per meal as I find they don't move my meter.
Take a sandwich with a pack of crisps, 30gs of carbs for the bread, 12.7gs for the crisps.
I've given up checking as I kept measuring 5s at the 1 hour then back to 4s at the 2 hour, with or without exercise.

Only meal of the day that I "push it" is dinner with the family.
I try to eat what they eat, I cook it & all sauces from scratch so no Dolmio or that ****.

The past few months I've seen huge drops in my one hour pps, I wouldn't even call them spikes anymore.
Typically mid 5s at one hour, that's with pasta, McDonalds, Chinese . . . you name it.
I repeated a nemesis of mine last night, Dominos Pizza, Garlic Bread, Fries, Chips & Garlic Dip.
Was 6.2 at the 1 hour, then 5.3 at the 2 hour, previously I would have hit 9 with the same meal.

I'm 18 months post diagnosis & all I can say is my blood sugar issues seem to be resolved.
 

What was happening with the pizza around the 4 hour mark?
For me even with using insulin it's like a "deal with the mob." It can come back much later to work up me over..?
There can be a drop on the 2 hour mark then a high plateau 4 hours on?
 
Jaylee said:
What was happening with the pizza around the 4 hour mark?
Click to expand...

I never waste tests on 3 or 4 hour checks once I'm back in the 5s.
I did one day where, trying to estimate an A1c, I decided to poke every waking hour.
My 3 hours were always back at fasting & stayed there until the next meal.

My A1c estimate from that was spot on to the last lab last June.
 

To be fair, I find it more enlightening using a sensor.

I just don't see my wife allowing me to plant one just for the sake of a random experiment.
 
I must put it out there to @Jaylee & others, not a typical T2 in remission.
Low carb entered my equation at the beginning, it really accelerated my weight loss.

My meter allowed me to reintroduce carbs, slowly.
Found a max plateau, about 2 months ago, of about 100gs of carbs per main meal to keep under mid 6s at 2 hours.

In the last 2 months I've thrown everything at my pancreas & it laughs back.
As long as I keep my weight in check & keep up the exercise it lets me away with anything I eat.
 
Ronancastled said:
In the last 2 months I've thrown everything at my pancreas & it laughs back.
As long as I keep my weight in check & keep up the exercise it lets me away with anything I eat.
Click to expand...

Looking at the levels in your signature, maybe you were low enough to effectively do a prediabetic reversal of T2? You started early enough in the process so your body could reverse the metabolic syndrome? Though I suspect you may have to watch things more in decades to come... (Your profile doesn't show your age so if you're already 80 then I guess you don't have to worry at all )
Congatulations.
 
That just shows how worthwhile is the effort needed to lose weight and heal your Beta Cells. You are a shining example of the success of the weight loss diet - and the dieter! Congratulations. You have inspired me to keep going for a bit longer.
 
Or a shining example of how for SOME it’s about weight loss. But not others. I lost more than 20% of my body weight within a few months of diagnosis reaching well within normal bmi and am on less than 40g carbs a day in ketosis for the last 3 yrs without excessive calories either and still can’t reach those numbers let alone do it on pasta and garlic bread.
Well done @Ronancastled but please keep a close eye on it. If it went wrong once it can do it again.
 
MrsA2 said:
But that is not a healthy balanced meal for any of you...diabetic or not , sorry!
Click to expand...
I suppose it could depend on what is perceived as a healthy meal - to many people the ultra carb and/or carnivore diet is seen as restrictive and, to some nutritionists, totally unhealthy and unbalanced yet we have evidence that it does no harm and many people thrive on it. I personally don’t eat much fruit - usually only berries whereas in the past I ensured I had my 5, sometimes more, portions a day inc a banana. Myself and @Ronancastled are probably lucky in that we can tolerate more carbs than many diabetics, especially T2s, and on the occasions that I have had spaghetti Bolognese with pasta (usually have it with courgetti) I have not considered it to be unhealthy in fact pre T2 I used to have it at least once a fortnight as I believed it was a healthy option!
 
That's why it's SO important to try weight loss first, as there's a limited window of opportunity for it to work. Once the Beta cells have been damaged for a long time (or rather differentiated into alpha cells, which can't produce insulin) they cannot be revived. If you waste time at the outset trying low carb first, you may have had T2 for too long by then for weight loss to work, whereas you can do low carb anytime. However there is no evidence that I have seen that low carb restores Beta cell function. It does lower blood sugar, but only mechanically, by putting less sugar, (carbs) into the bloodstream, rather than by healing the Beta cells so they can do the work for you once again. You may well have had T2 a lot longer than you realised by the time you were actually "diagnosed"
 
Tannith said:
That's why it's SO important to try weight loss first,
Click to expand...
Tannith said:
If you waste time at the outset trying low carb first, you may have had T2 for too long by then for weight loss to work
Click to expand...

The two are not mutually exclusive and there is no way (without formal testing) to know baseline levels of beta function and what they are after the target weight loss.

Speaking from personal experience (details in signature), 16% of body weight lost in 6 months is both fast and significant. 42% lost in 18 months even more so. HbA1c at non-diabetic numbers, but carbs even in small amounts are a problem.

My question is, would losing the same weight in a less sustainable manner (I am still eating ketogenically 4 years later) have had a different outcome? No way to tell.

Routes to weight loss/non-diabetic numbers (where possible) are personal choices so let’s not pretend that anyone has the ‘correct’ or ‘only’ way.
 
Reactions: VMK

Yes. I’m similar. I’ve never been overweight and am currently less than 9 stone. I am 64, keep active and count my carbs. I’m not on any medication but can’t get down to non-diabetic levels even on very low carbs and I have plateaued at an HbA1c of 43. I have decided to be ‘satisfied’ with this.....
 
Err I said I lost more than 20% of body weight within months of diagnosis. I did what you advocate. So if fat alone was responsible (your position based on prof Taylor yes?) I should have perfect numbers and total remission regardless of method used to achieve this. This to me proves it’s about more than just weight for some of us at least.
 
It must be acknowledged that my route to remission may not be typical for another diabetic.
Indeed for normal weight T2s there is no correlation whatsoever.
In fact using the collective term T2 to describe the group as a whole is a little bit unscientific.

Couple of things about my own remission.
I never went ultra low carb or keto, the online advice was 45-60g carbs per meal & I stuck to that easily in the early days.
I employed "eat to your meter" fastidiously once I began reintroducing larger amounts of carbs.
I used a digital scales to weigh out individual strands of spaghetti on occasion such was my ultra scientific approach to establish my limits.

I have seen large spikes early on my journey, one hour after a bowl of Shreddies I read 13.3, the disfunction was real.
I recently ate the same ****** carb laden cereal as test & read 5.7 at one hour, doesn't seem the same person.
 

So you didn't count calories or restrict the amount of food you ate to lose weight, you simply followed low carb (less than 130g). Weight loss without dieting. I too use digital scales to check on the amount of carbs I consume.

Very well done on achieving remission without starving yourself.
 
There seem to be a few ways to achieve changes. I did count carbs and calories and exercised. So I cannot state which of these worked for me. I have lost > 20% body weight (32%) and have non diabetic hba1c and when I test my bloods am doing fine even with quite a few more carbs than many on here can. Probably in the order of 90 to 150g net carbs although I can also occasionally tolerate a lot more on rare days (fish and chip days) but I do see higher spikes the day after on those days

I reckon though before this change I was in the order of easily 300 - 400g carbs easily

I remain amazed to be fair that diagnosed since 2008 I have been able to reverse so far. I see myself as extremely lucky and perhaps, for me, it is a weight related aspect to it

but I have seen so many posts on here about how well lowering carbs as works that I can see it is a way that works. If weight drop works for some that’s good too

but it’s not a means of “my way is the only way”... if different ways work, then great

the human body is interesting, but regardless it’s a life long change I am sure. If I go back to the old ways i do think carb increase will mean weight gain, so I stay lower
 
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