very confused

Best thing to do is get a glucose monitor. If your doctor wont give you one try the sd codefree as the strips are alot cheaper than others. Test before you eat, then 2 hours later, your looking for any rise to be less than 2mmol at 2 hours.

See how you go, you may be able to tolerate some carbs better than others.

Hi Sallybee, well NHS starchy carb advice is now thought to be outdated but the change in advice is slow to filter through. Simplistically, carbs turn to sugar and elevate your levels. I have been low carbing for a week now and have cut my insulin and readings are mainly 5s and 6s. I think somebody recommended T Deakins book, eat fat, to you? Think that is what it is called, get hold of a copy and start there.

Ali

Definitely. The Nhs advice is very outdated. Low carb is becoming better received with healthcare professionals though. My nurse doesnt disapprove but is sending me to a diet specialist at the hospital. I'll see what they have to say on friday. But from my experience, I've gone from being threatened with insulin as the only next option to having my meds reduced.

listen to people on here. We are the ones that have to live with the condition and any complications.

also not all doctors/nurses like us to test. Mainly cos they cant fund it. But its your body.your choice.

Yes, eating lots of carbs is plain stupid although complex carbs are always better than highly refined carbs. Why do these silly nurses think we take extra insulin if we have more carbs; it's not for fun it's 'cos we need to take care of the extra glucose. I wouldn't worry too much about the Metformin. It's a very safe drug with few interactions.

It is quite an eye opener to find that your health team aren't actually giving you the correct info. Mine told me that the occasional biscuit or cake is fine, follow the eat well plate, then moaned when my numbers went up when i see her 3 months later and i havent lost weight. Then after finding this site, getting my numbers down, losing weight, i then got moaned at for not eating carbs! Cant win. I gave up on her and asked for a different nurse, she was so much better. Unfortunately she retired. My new nurse does listen to me though.

Hi Sallybee, I've been on low carb high fat for around 2 weeks now, I was totally confused to start with, but read a lot on here and my levels have gone from over 30 when I started to between 7 and around 12 at the moment.
I started testing before and after meals and discovered that porridge and wholemeal bread sends my levels sky high, they're the worst two things for me (not tried rice and pasta yet) but I was also told to eat them by the nurse.
You need to get your meter asap as you can't tell anything without one, and as soon as you get one you can take control. Once you start being pro-active it's not as hard or as confusing as it seems, I promise!

I have a big pan of veg soup on the go all the time, I add lentils, barley, chickpeas, stuff like that, makes it more filling and it's always there when i need a snack. Recently discovered celeriac and put that in the pot too, very nice

A low carb diet is pretty much a gluten free diet (although a gluten free diet is not necessarily a low carb diet). Have a look on YouTube for a video by Dr Troy Stapleton. The one you want has a picture of different foods and is just under half an hour long. He makes really, really good points about low carb diets and their benefits.

Search for dietdoctor.theres great advice there for low carbing.

I would recommend the Metformin, also. It lowers your insulin resistance and has lots of other really benign effects on the metabolism too. It's been around for many years and seems very safe. Just don't increase the dosage too fast.

And get your SD meter and test, test, test and eat to your meter. You'll be well soon! Good luck.

And read, if you can. Jenny Ruhl's whole website http://www.phlaunt.com/ is excellent. She also put it into two books, available on Amazon.

sallybee said:

Hi

Im becoming very anxious and quite low as a result of the confusion im feeling over this Diabetes merlarky.

Recently diagnosed as Type 2 (only just as readings range 8.2 - 10. Something), i cant remember what the long term readings were but they werent hugely alarming, i was sent to the diabetic nurse, who told me to eat lots of slow release carbs, yet everyone hear is telling me not to eat carbs!

Im meant to be starting on Metformin, but GP was off ill so that will have to wait another week, but am scared of yet another drug, and how that will interact with current meds.

Im really confused and lost!

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Sorry to hear of your diagnosis, try not to panic. I've been type II for 17 years and I was in some ways protected from worrying because there were several relatives of all shapes and sizes in my family who were also type II.

I was prescribed Metformin and actually told to eat more carbs by my GP and the hospital dietician. Just as well I didn't follow up their advice to eat more carbs. It's only been in the last two years that I've gone the low carb route, which I actually started before I found this forum and on the advice of a Nutritional Therapist that I consulted, a very well trained Nutritional Therapist I should add as they come in different levels of expertise. Since I stopped eating the obvious pasta/rice/bread/potato I've discovered that the diarrhea side effect that I had with Metformin were partially caused by how much carb I use to eat and I stopped getting those side effects.

In my case I was also able to ditch Gliclazide and Januvia which I took for diabetes and even better than that, I threw away the statins because lowering carbs lowers total cholesterol as well.

As has been suggested, get yourself a meter, you can then at least see the effects of different carbs, low GI or otherwise. We all seem to have different experiences with different carbs, there doesn't seem to be one rule for everyone.

You might like to write a food diary and then calculate how many carbs you've eaten, the info is all there on the internet. You just need to weigh stuff. There seems to be different advice about what's the normal amount of carb, some say about 250 gms carb, whereas others would suggest 125 gms. I'm down to about 80 gms a day and I really don't miss it, especially with the knowledge that my BG is pretty good, my GP actually puts well done in my notes and there's three drugs I don't have to take. I'm not happy with a lot of meds because they've caused me more harm than good in the past.

Hi we can only tell you what we do diet wise and this does vary there is no.. one size fits all.. we are not medically trained so therefore not experts.What you do will depend on your weight and if you need to loose any and also any other medical conditions you may have
Many do well on a very low carb high fat.. LCHF.. diet some do it with more moderate carbs and fat some do low GL, some don't count carbs at all but just calorie count our diets are as different and individual as we all are.
The LCHF diet is not recognised by the NHS yet so yes you will get conflicting advise about it from here and from you medical advisors but at the end of the day we all have to do what we feel is best and works for us it is all trial and error

AnnieC said:

The LCHF diet is not recognised by the NHS yet so yes you will get conflicting advise about it from here and from you medical advisors but at the end of the day we all have to do what we feel is best and works for us it is all trial and error

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That's an interesting point. I wonder if that's because everyone tends to assume that Low Carb automatically means High Fat, which even 50+ years after Ancel Keys and his cherry picked data people assume is a really bad thing. I think LCHF has all the wrong connotations, maybe we should emphasise the LC bit and not worry so much about the HF. Let's call it LC?F. OK, I was only joking . . . . . maybe. LOL LCHF?

I

graj0 said:

That's an interesting point. I wonder if that's because everyone tends to assume that Low Carb automatically means High Fat, which even 50+ years after Ancel Keys and his cherry picked data people assume is a really bad thing. I think LCHF has all the wrong connotations, maybe we should emphasise the LC bit and not worry so much about the HF. Let's call it LC?F. OK, I was only joking . . . . . maybe. LOL LCHF?

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From my own perspective it's LCFF Low Carb Full Fat in that I've not increased the amount food with fat that I eat just substituted the low fat varieties eg semi skim milk, low fat spreads and yoghurt etc with full fat versions and I don't feel guilty eating cheese and eggs!

Daphne917 said:

I

From my own perspective it's LCFF Low Carb Full Fat in that I've not increased the amount food with fat that I eat just substituted the low fat varieties eg semi skim milk, low fat spreads and yoghurt etc with full fat versions and I don't feel guilty eating cheese and eggs!

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That's the important thing, like you, I don't feel so guilty about the full fat options. I think my stomach has got used to the low fat regime that I've adhered to for 30 years and complains if I don't watch it.

I had a fairly low fat diet for many years but never felt guilty eating cheese and eggs.I have always loved all kinds of cheese and I still ate eggs .I still lean towards the lower fat end like meat I really only eat chicken and fish have done for years no red meat and this includes sausages and bacon I still have semi skimmed milk I use spreads and I just have butter to put a bit on my vegetables and in scrambled eggs and sometimes on ryvita I do have EasiYo unsweetened full fat greek yogurt though but this is not quite as high in fat as some shop varieties . Now I am older I don't think my digestions wants to start coping with all full fat stuff again after the years of low fat so what I do now suits me As I said to the OP we all have to find the way that suits us personally there is no best way for all