Hello All,
I’ve just singed up to the forum today. I had a blood test on Friday and got the results yesterday. I was told that I have just tipped into ‘pre diabetes’ My HBa1c result was 42. I am at higher risk because I have to take antipsychotic medication.
I have had previous tests 2016 - 39, 2017 - 35 I understand that 42 is a the lower end of the PD scale. My weight reached an all time high of 20 stone in October and since then I have been seeing a personal trainer twice a week and lost 12lbs and 5 cm from my waist measurement. I have a further 7 stone to lose and 40 cm to loose from my Waist to get me to to the lower risk under 80 cm.
My main weakness is that I am an emotional eater whilst I can prepare and enjoy healthy food. At times of crisis, fear, pain and sadness I lose all my mindful earthing and over eat.
I want to say hello and thank you in advance for all your shared experiences and info. Hopefully taking control now I can turn things around but I know from now on I need to focus focus focus. This resource will be a great source of inspiration.
Tomorrow I am seeing a nurse practitioner and can make an action plan.
Best wishes and thank you
K8
A HbA1c of 42? Wonderful! Means you have to take less drastic measures to get to a non-diabetic level.
Seriously, it actually is good news, believe it or not. I wish I'd known I was prediabetic, I never would've let things get as far as they did. But hey, you can do stuff now, to avoid T2 later. And you really, really want to avoid it.
So you'll get the basic T2 101 from Daisy1, as she's been tagged already. But let's see about the basics:
As a prediabetic you've got a problem processing glucose back out again. You make lots of insulin, but instead of helping you burn glucose as fuel, it doesn't do much of anything, as you've become insensitive to it. That's when the weight starts piling on. As the glucose has nowhere to go, it gets stored in fat cells. And a usual diet of low fat, high carb won't help, and actually will only make it worse, because carbs, well, those are a problem. See, practically all carbs turn to glucose once ingested. Yeah. I know eh. That means potatoes, rice, pasta, bread (or anything made with grain/wheat, really), corn, cereals, most fruits... It'll all make your bloodsugars rise, not just straight sugars. Once you know that though, you can cut back on that stuff, or scratch it entirely.... And besides getting your bloodsugars back into the normal, non-diabetic range, you'd also shift a lot of weight. I dropped 25 kilo's going low carb...
Now, there's still a lot of stuff you can eat, without messing up your bloodsugars and while still losing weight. Surprisingly enough, that inclused foodstuffs with a lot of fat. Still, it works, and the science behind it makes sense (Check out Dr. Jason Fung's The Diabetes Code, if you're so inclined. Or diedoctor.com, also for meal-ideas. Basically though, there are 3 macro-nutrients... Fat, protein and carbs. Fat doesn't make you spike, protein ups the bloodglucoselevels a little bit, carbs make them go absolutely apes***t. So cut one macro-nutrient, up the others. But mainly fat.). So, the good stuff: Meat, fish, poultry, extra dark chocolate (didn't see that one coming, did you?), eggs, butter, cream, full fat greek yoghurt, bacon, bacon and bacon, berries, avocado, starfruit, tomatoes, above-ground veggies/leafy greens, that sort of thing.
So you could eat, without issue:
Scrambled eggs with bacon, cheese, mushrooms, tomato, maybe some high meat content sausages?
Eggs with ham, bacon and cheese
Omelet with spinach and/or smoked salmon
Omelet with cream, cinnamon, with some berries and coconut shavings
Full fat Greek yoghurt with nuts and berries
Leafy green salad with a can of tuna (oil, not brine!), mayonaise, capers, olives and avocado
Leafy green salad with (warmed goat's) cheese and bacon, maybe a nice vinaigrette?
Meat, fish or poultry with veggies. I usually go for cauliflower rice or broccoli rice, with cheese and bacon to bulk it up. Never the same meal twice in a row because of various herbs/spices.
Just as a for instance though. (And I admit I copies and pasted that list from a post I did earlier today, because I figured I was sure to forget something if I tried to regurgitate it myself, haha).
Since you're on medication that doesn't quite help with the weight/prediabetes, I really do strongly suggest making a change in diet... I'll keep you from taking other meds and their addtional side effects, plus it's better to tackle this with a diet; when you just let it go, and you become a T2 with medication only, it is a progressive disease. With diet in the mix, it needn't be. It's a good way to stay ahead of things, really. Besides that, I'm an introverted, clinically depressed borderliner (and self-imposed hermit 5 days a week. The weekend I have my husband with me to go outside.). I'm nowhere near cured or anything, but my depression is managable, and my panic attacks are fewer and less severe than they were: going low carb didn't just put my T2 in remission, it also made me sleep better, lose weight, get rid of food intolerances, it also made my mind work better... I'm not as much a victim to dark thoughts as I used to be. And people scare the bejezus out of me, yet I'm sitting here, talking to a complete stranger, telling them about my vulnerabilities. Go figure.
Hope this helps. You'll be okay. You're catching this thing early.
Jo