• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Too young?

Hi @frustration I am so pleased for you that you have 'dodged the bullet' this time. Try to remember how you felt ( you won't, but try to anyway) and then you will find that you can apply that understanding when talking to other people about their problems. Aiming to be a paediatrician is a great ambition.Try to sort out yourself first. Eating low carb I find is hardly restrictive - eggs and bacon for breakfast, cream and berries for desserts, high quality chocolate, cheeses and pork scratchings for snacks all are good - diabetics do not always eat salads ( I always said if I was meant to eat salad I would have been born with long ears) Concentrate on your studies and hobby activities, universities look for people with a range of interests and will expect you to be able to discuss what you claim to do in your spare time ( if you say you read widely be prepared to talk about your favourite author, if music then what groups and music you have played etc.) The world is your oyster - go find a gem.
 
I did low carb and sometimes do a spell of keto. I would suggest you start off with lower carb, you may never need to go as far as keto. 100g would be a good starting point. The great thing about LCHF is that you need never be hungry so you don't feel you are on a diet. Just remember that it's the carbs that make you fat. They are also addictive so the more you eat the more you want them and the hungrier you get. I found this out by accident years ago.

My son and I used to have bacon butties for breakfast. One day I ran out of bread and so I gave him the butties and I had just the same amount of bacon as I would usually have but without the bread. Back then I was usually starving hungry by 10 am and had at least a couple of snacks before lunch at 12. I was amazed that I worked most of the morning and looked at the clock and it was past 1pm and I hadn't even thought about food! It seemed impossible that eating less could make you less hungry. I stopped eating bread, then followed by not eating rice, potatoes, pasta etc...all the white carbs and found that I slowly started to lose weight.

Cutting out the bland carbs, the 'filler' foods helped a lot. I was eating tasty food and I was still getting all the vitamins I need from having plenty of veg and protein and fat. Eating tasty things is important because the fuller taste satiates you more. Remember fat does not make you fat, it's the carbs that do that because they make your body produce insulin. It will be hard when the whole world talks about calories, but they are largely irrelevant to us. I have made a lot of diet mistakes in my 61 years and I have often wished I could go back to speak to my 16 year old self and tell her what I have learnt. Now I have the chance to tell you so you don't mess up your life like I did. Thank you for giving me that chance.

This is my biggest personal tip that not many folks will tell you. Be wary of diet drinks, they are OK in moderation when you are out, but they can mess up your body long term. Please don't drink 2 litres of them every day like I did to fill yourself up. They mess up your metabolism long term even though they are calorie free, sparkling water is a much better bet. At home I just have tap water and tea or coffee. I stopped drinking diet drinks 11 years ago and have still not fully rectified the damage caused by them. The paler coloured drinks are better (less worse) than the black ones like colas.

You will find your own path to weight loss. Keep talking to us and sharing, we are all here for you.
 
Oh sorry, I just realised you asked some more questions in your post lol. If you manage to lose enough excess weight there is no reason why the insulin resistance shouldn't disappear. Did you have any other blood tests done? Any liver test results? I look for the ALT liver test as the health of the liver is important for insulin sensitivity. If these test results aren't good they can easily be improved by reducing carbs so don't worry, it's just an indication of what is going on in your body.

At this stage there is no reason why you can't become 'normal' and stay that way, but it would be best not to go back to exactly what you did before. I doubt you will want to go back to eating like that all the time anyway.
 
I have just seen the news today about 800 cal diets. Some people here have done them. These aren't new. I tried them 40 years ago. Personally I wish I had never ever done them. Back then they were scorned by the mainstream as fad diets, now the mainstream seems to think they are a great idea. Yes they work short term but what the media don't tell you is that you have to watch your weight afterwards and control how much you eat always. Your body needs love and care, not starvation. Please don't be swayed by the calorie in calories out method that is so popular. You need to think in the long term and reducing carbs and increasing nutrition is the best way and is sustainable for life. When you reduce your carbs you don't need to beat yourself up about anything, if you are hungry you can have a piece of cheese or a few nuts.

Edit: There are a couple of books I use. One is Carbs and Cals, it shows you pictures of what the portion of food looks like on plate so is a good reference book. The other is Eat Fat a step-by-step guide to low carb living by Dr Trudi Deakin. This explains the low carb diet in very easy terms.
 
Last edited:
My thoughts exactly! @frustration you're only 16. A great age for turning your health around and preventing what you dread in later life. I know you're impatient to lose weight as per last year and do understand why, but please try to watch your carb intake rather than going for quick low cal solutions, which won't help you in the long run. Something like 95% of all who have lost weight gain it back and then some. This is not to discourage you, but to emphasize how important it is to find the right long term solution for you, and regular dieting/calorie restriction is not likely to work for you statistically.
No, you don't have to be in keto for the rest of your life, unless you want to and feel it's necessary. If I were you I'd adopt a Low Carb approach of perpaps 70 - 100 carbs/day, and see what happens. You are not likely to lose a couple of pounds per week, but you need to lose impatience too
 
Thank you all so much for your advice !! To reverse prediabetes, I’m listening to your suggestions and staying under 50 carbs a day, until my B1AC is compeletly normal. Afterwards, I will slowly increase the amount of carbs I intake (noodles one week, rice the next, cake once, etc.) and annoy my doctor by asking for regular tests. If it appears that I react to carbs in a non-diabetic, or manageable way, I will keep a very loose low carb diet for the rest of my life.

For excercise, I am running up the stairs ten minutes everyday and killing my knees and thighs, plus I do swimming twice a week. It’s very cold where I am now, so running outdoors is out of the question. What excercises have you all committed to?
 
It really saddens me reading these stories where people think they caused their diabetes through gluttony and sloth. Frankly I am sick to death of the mainstream media pedalling this industry influenced propaganda. The fact is that the western dietary guidelines are a recipe for diabetes in people who aren’t insulin sensitive. Then they blame the victims.

Diabetes (T2) and obesity are two sides of the same coin, it’s the insulin resistance that causes both. OP please don’t dwell on it, and please don’t panic. You have come to the right place for help, and you may quickly realise that the future doesn’t have to be grim. I bet a year from now you’ll be healthier than you’ve ever been. It’s not uncommon for people to look back and be glad they developed T2 because it gave them the opportunity to improve their life.

Best wishes. Keep reading and keep asking. We’ll have you right as rain in no time at all! It’s really not a life sentence if you’re smart about treating it
 
Hi. What are your thoughts on the cause(s) of the original insulin resistance?
 
Daibell said:
Hi. What are your thoughts on the cause(s) of the original insulin resistance?
Click to expand...

I would think that partly it is genetic variations in insulin sensitivity, but mostly I believe it’s caused by overconsumption of carbohydrate in the form of “healthy whole grains and starches” as per the dietary guidelines. Sucrose plays a role of course, although in terms of glucose load it’s not much different to bread. Basically people are filling their body with dietary glucose all day long because they’re told it’s good for them.

That’s my thoughts. Others are free to disagree
 
By the way OP, it’s not my place to offer any medical advice, but in my opinion don’t set about trying to lose weight through a low fat, calorie controlled diet. You have a level of insulin resistance. This means you have elevated blood insulin concentration. The body cannot burn stored energy in the presence of elevated insulin. Even exercise won’t do a whole lot. You need to reduce your insulin secretion. Going on a low fat diet will displace those calories with carbohydrate, thus increasing insulin secretion. You may lose some weight initially but you’ll be hungry, miserable, the weight loss will plateau, and quite likely your insulin sensitivity will get worse.

My ‘advice’ is to firstly ignore all mainstream advice. Read up here on diabetes.co.uk and you are in with a very good chance of improving your health outcomes. Follow mainstream orthodoxy and you’ll likely end up depressed and diabetic.

Good luck and keep us all posted!
 
Jim Lahey said:
I would think that partly it is genetic variations in insulin sensitivity, but mostly I believe it’s caused by overconsumption of carbohydrate in the form of “healthy whole grains and starches” as per the dietary guidelines.
Click to expand...

I completely agree, with one proviso - and that is the amount that constitutes 'over consumption' varies tremendously for different people.

It was really depressing to discover that my body finds a slice of toast for breakfast, and a boiled potato at dinner to be 'over consumption', while other people may be able to eat 5 or 10 times that much bread and potato without hitting their 'over consumption' line.

This is what makes it so tricky. Different people following media ideas on 'healthy carbs' and getting very different outcomes.

How can we possibly predict what outcome each person will each get? The only way we learn, is after the damage has already started, and then we flounder around following general ideas of 'healthy' such as fruit juice, wholemeal bread and low fat, all the while making the situation worse. By the time we discover what is really going on, there may be years of damage already done.
 
It would help if fasting insulin tests were occasionally carried out at regular checkups. Glucose checks are pointless in detecting the onset of diabetes. By the time they highlight the problem it’s too late. Fasting insulin checkups could detect the onset around a decade in advance. But that’s less grains and medications sold, so I can’t see it changing in my lifetime. It would also entail admission that obesity doesn’t cause diabetes, which means we can’t blame the victims.

The whole situation is a travesty.
 
I am having symptoms like my feet tingling and itchiness in legs. But aside from that, there's not that much urination or fluid consumption. I am really confused and anxious. It's my birthday today so I'll be enjoying the day but It's pretty bad that I have this at the back of my mind.

I saw some posts online that say pre-diabetes is diabetes with less symptoms and incurable like diabetes which means you can't eat non-keto and be normal again. Incredibly disheartening. Keto is not the worst thing in the world but it's really not maintainable, I have my parents make most meals for me and it's a stress on them and myself. When I move out, it seems like this life style would be impossible to uphold.

I don't want to be put on medications but with the way some people talk on reddit, it seems like it's keto for the rest of your life or death. I guess I'll get used to it eventually, but still, so depressing.
 
@frustration I have never been keto and have maintained my hba1c between 34 and 37, which are non-diabetic levels, for the past 4-5 years on an average of 100 carbs per day. I still watch my carb intake but can eat high protein bread, potatoes, rice and pasta albeit in smaller portions than before. I tend to have a low carb breakfast of Greek yoghurt and berries or eggs on a slice of toast. However I know what I can and cannot eat due to testing. I even have the odd cake which I enjoy.
 
Happy birthday!

Please be cautious of what you read online including here. However, if someone says something that is uninformed or just plain stupid, they are usually shot down in flames!

I think you are trying to look too far ahead. You have no idea what keto or LCHF is at the moment. Think of it as a voyage of discovery. Many people have been keto for years, it is not a fad diet. If it wasn't sustainable, the human species would have gone extinct thousands of years ago.

Go enjoy some cake!
 
Appart from when fasting I have never eaten keto, I have done ok over 7 years on between 70-120 carbs a day. Even during the periods when I have got fed up, I have rarely eaten over 150g compared with the 300-400g I was eating before I knew I was at risk of diabetes. Just start and do your best each day.
The members here are amazingly creative at reducing carbs within different budgets. Please read as many posts as possible from the pre/type 2 members who are positve, overcoming, thriving and inspirational.
 

Let’s say that tests show you’re not diabetic but the doctor forgot to tell you.

Thinking you’re diabetic causes you to drop processed foods, sodas etc. and you add healthy natural fats to your life.

Each month that passes, weight falls off.

You might find yourself so pleased, in just 6 months, that you’re filled with resolve for health.

Ya never know what exciting things are waiting for you in 2019.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…