Hi Fetlar,
Like you I am fairly new to the diabetes game but I have just completed my first 3 months and found that food was pretty easy to manage. I was quite surprised at what I could eat without major impacts.
To give you a context
I am on Metformin 500 micrograms twice daily
I have just had my HbA1C result back at 5.8% (normal range)
I lost ~10kg in 4 months without significantly decreasing my overall food intake. It was mostly due to increase in exercise.
To achieve my HbA1C result I have been eating the following types of meals.
Typical breakfast: 1/2 cup homemade museli (mixed cereal flakes, dried fruit, seeds and nuts), 1/2 cup wheat bran, 1 medium fruit (e.g. apple, peach) and 2 table spoons of unsweeted, flavoured yoghurt (e.g. vanilla)
This usually raises by BGL from about 6.0 to 7.0-7.5 after two hours. When I exercise I have actually had a 2 hr reading which was lower than my fasting reading. This is filling breakfast due to the bran, as it provides bulk without adding to my carbohydrate load significantly.
On weekends my wife makes vegetarian omletes, fried tomato/mushroom etc. I usually eat this with 1-1.5 sheets of Mountain bread cut to biscuit sized pieces. This is more than enough to use in 'picking up' the other food.
Lunch:
Home cooked fish plus small serve rice and large salad
2x 'rolls' made from a sheet of flat bread with my preferred filling. I use a product called Mountain bread which is about 15g carbohydrate per sheet.
Dinner
Mexican bean stew: Red kidney beans, black beans, various veges. This was a real surprise as the beans cause a long slow BGL change for me. I measured my BGL at 1,2,3 & 4 hours and it peaked only at 3 hours but at a much lower level than other meals.
Pasta and salad. Only a small serve of pasta though.
Eating out
I can eat many finger foods at parties but I just take care to stay away from the sticky sweet things. For example 5 small crackers with cheese or savoury dip is quite OK. I sometimes permit myself a small 'sampler' of something sweet e.g. 1cm end of a slice of cake. I have found that denial of food leads to over indulgence and 'failing' whereas sampling beats the craving. You just balance out the indulgence somewhere else.
As far as resturant food goes I found it was realistic to eat out and not blow my BGL. For example chicken schinitzel, small serve chips and vege/salad does raise not my BGL in an unacceptable way.
You may find that my experience is different to yours but I am confident that if you monitor your BGL you will be able to identify the foods you like to eat that don't affect your BGL significantly when you eat appropriate portion sizes. I beleive the most import aspect is to manage the portion sizes of 'high impact' foods and substitute 'low impact' fillers. An example of this is the use of bran in my breakfast. I still eat about the same volume of breakfast but it is now lower impact overall due to what goes into that volume.
