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Type 2 Will I be able to stay off the medications if my carbs are 75 to 100 per day?

Y

Yogamommy5

Member
Messages
15
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Hi,

I'm 51 year old female and about 80 pounds overweight. I started out when I was diagnosed six weeks ago with the two-week lchf Diet Doctor plan with a maximum of 20 grams of carbs a day. I kept up with all the guidelines and I eat healthy Whole Foods.

However, I find this too restrictive and it seems to cause me anxiety and increase my depression (I have bipolar 2 which I am now trying to manage without medications as they have caused me a lot of metabolic damage and many other side effects and I finally figured out after trying so many over a period of ten years that they were actually making my depression and anxiety worse).

So, while eating a mostly healthy foods diet with small cheats, I find I am now averaging between 75 to 100 carbs per day. My blood sugar readings are averaging at 6.9 mmol. When I was diagnosed I had a 7.3 A1c. My lowest blood sugar reading is now 4.9 and the highest I ever got was 10.2 after having a large order of homemade french fries. Generally most of my readings are in the 6 range and usually not higher than 7.2.

Do I really have to go Whole Hog on the low-carb thing a hundred percent of the time? How low is low enough? I'm happy to avoid sweets & grains, but I guess I have sort of a potato addiction and I like Mexican food. I'm no longer going to do such a big cheat as a full order of fries. A few times I've had that small poutine that they do at McDonald's here which is about 41 grams of carbs. That's as high as I would go right now for a treat every two weeks or so.

Thanks
 
I eat 100-130g carbs per day from about 1500 calories with a couple of long walks each day for exercise. It seems to work fine for me, I have lost weight and got my BG down too. Looking at your figures which are not too bad I suspect that you would be fine but only time would tell. I d try to space out my carbs through the day too, not have them all at once.

I list my daily food diary in another thread (see link)

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/thr...-and-what-did-you-eat-yesterday.117017/page-2
 
Hi @Yogamommy5 modern carbs are generally engineered to be addictive and often are over processed. LCHF is extremely diverse if you can see your way clear to doing a little work to substitute what I will call the other stuff. Society is setup in a carby manner so lifetime "normal" eating is hard to change.

What made things easier for me was a fear family, a fear of the complications and educating myself about the foods that diabetics should avoid and contrasting the properties of real food and what impact this has on health. Clearly your anxiety is a response to the input of LCHF, so if you can persuade your inner self with education and tasty food, your anxiety could lessen. If you check out Instagram you can get lots of low carb ideas for free.

It's difficult to advise about fast foods from outlets, as nutritionally it's hard to find the benefit. My persona is technical so I view things as either on of off; others on this site can offer some light and shade in this area, all the best.
 

I have to disagree to some extent. As you can see from my food diary, I eat nothing processed except a little bacon and sausage every now and then. This was true before diagnosis, my weakness was home made cakes, biscuits, and particularly home baked bread. It is quite easy to avoid all things processed and I'm happy to provide recipes for this
 
We vary hugely. As does our carb tolerance.

A 6'2" foot rugby player will be able to tolerate a heck of a lot more carbs than a petite 5 foot menopausal woman carrying several stone of extra weight (forgive me @Yogamommy5 i am describing vague stereotypes, since i have no idea of height! )

So all i can suggest is that you keep testing, keep adjusting, until you find your own personal comfort zone, balancing carbs, calories and blood glucose.
 
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Hi @midnightrider, a little misunderstanding here, my reference "..modern carbs are generally engineered to be addictive and often are over processed." I am happy to standby as factual, this was not directed at you or the OP, I just happened to respond to the OP's post after you.
 
Well, you are not far not far off. Although at a menopausal age, I am not exhibiting any symptoms of that. I'm 5'4 which is on the short side and I am many many Stone overweight I think. I'm more of a grandma aquafit and yoga person then a rugby player LOL. I think I'm going to have to try a little bit harder on this low-carb business.
 
I just love your food diary! That is the kind of food that I have been eating. What I need to do is get back into a regular exercise routine. I just can't stand the lack of variety on a very strict LCHF diet. It triggers kind of panic and depression in me sometimes. I like a lot of ethnic foods, and I also love to cook from scratch. I use an app called realplans to help me with planning meals with real foods.
 
Hi @Yogamommy5
My personal view is testing before and after a meal is the best way to find what works for you. My levels at diagnosis were a lot higher than yours. Fasting was 18. Cereal was giving me about 5 point rise and even my nurse said that had to come out. She had told me how good it was for me and was surprised with my reaction to it. I think while I was trying to get control I was down to about 50 carbs a day, but ones that didn't spike me. We are all different so try things and see.
 
I have seen the comment about lack of variety on a low carb diet a couple of times - I find that there is far more variety when I cut myself loose from the meals I make for my husband and concentrate on low carb eating.
 
Yogamommy5 said:
the lack of variety on a very strict LCHF diet
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Sorry have to disagree.. there is no lack of variety.. every kind of meat, fish, seafood, green veg, salad all those cheeses cream eggs, butter. The only things you have given up are the tasteless (for the most part) stodge that pads out all the other stuff..
 
I eat a wide variety of tasty foods - curries are a particular favourite. Made with all fresh ingredients, individual spices and tomatoes and onions, served with superb 'pilau style' cauliflower rice - wouldn't swap you for the real stuff. If I'm feeling particularly enthusiastic, can make something approaching a naan bread with coconut flour (recipe from Real Meal Revolution). I await with eager anticipation the new(ish) recipe book from Tom Kerridge, the so called 'Dopamine Diet' -unashamedly low carb and 'lush'. Thai style curries, made with coconut milk are also good, I do those with a stir fried cauliflower rice cooked in coconut oil, with spring onions, prawns and cashew nuts. Courgette 'noodles' - or finely shredded cabbage stir fried makes a good alternative to carby side dishes.

But I only eat when hungry and stop when satisfied, and now there's no peaks and troughs of blood glucose driving hunger, that's less than I used to eat and I never feel deprived..
 
I love meat, cheese eggs and I like salad which is what this ends up coming down to. I do miss Mexican, and potatoes. I feel stifled knowing that my diet is down to the meat group, fats and above-the-ground vegetables. If every single meal is just based on that and the fact that I have to restrict protein to the usual small amount per day which I understand is like two decks of cards of meat then the rest is just a bunch of salad and fat. You even have to restrict cheese and nuts. And fruit is restricted to just berries. This leaves me eating salad whenever we are out. I'm not that much of a salad fan especially in the winter. I like it sometimes, but other times it just gives me this kind of cold lonely feeling in my stomach which sounds crazy but that's how I feel. I'm cooking all kinds of stuff soups, turnips cauliflower this and that, zucchini noodles. I hate cauliflower and turnip and don't care for zucchini but I'm eating it all instead of potatoes. If the diet allowed potatoes fruit and legumes I'd be totally happy. I'm happy to give up sugar and Grains but the rest is really really hard. Let's say there was unlimited cheese and nuts and berries maybe that would be okay. But stuffing myself on salad, zucchini or cauliflower and turnips is not my idea of a good time. I'm also finding all this food prep while I'm dealing with bipolar depression extremely hard.

Sorry for the rant, I'm having PMS which makes Cravings really hard.
 
I do also enjoy epic foods such as Thai foods and curries from India and that helps. I'm buying many many cans of coconut milk that's for sure
 
The aim to be be in the 4-7 range before meals and less than 8.5 two hours after eating. You can eat what you like provided it does not spike your blood sugar. Otherwise you run the risk of diabetic complications long term. You need a glucose meter to check the effects of your food. I found that porridge caused a reading of 10 two hours after eating it, so I have given that up.

There are a lot of options for eating LCHF, but I think it takes a while to research them and incorporate them into your diet plan. If you are overweight, then the LCHF diet should help. I like a few strawberries with double cream.
 
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I have found that I didn't get a spike after eating refried beans or homemade Curry coconut beans and I was pretty happy about that
 
Have you tried reheated potato. Mine doesn't spike. Test and see?
 
ickihun said:
Have you tried reheated potato. Mine doesn't spike. Test and see?
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How were the potatoes cooked the first time? I have had potato skins with bacon, cheese and sour cream and that works, I assume this is because there isn't much potato left and there is a lot of fiber plus the added protein and fat.
 
Have you checked on the amount of protein you can eat or just going by the 'restrict protein' advice? It is just that as long as I eat fat with it, I don't see any increase in BG levels. People vary a lot in their reaction to foods, so I just go by the meter levels.
 
Yogamommy5 said:
How were the potatoes cooked the first time? I have had potato skins with bacon, cheese and sour cream and that works, I assume this is because there isn't much potato left and there is a lot of fiber plus the added protein and fat.
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I reheat cold mash potato in a frying pan, til hot.
About once a week, normally from sunday roast mash.
 
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