Ruby2shoes
Active Member
- Messages
- 31
- Type of diabetes
- Family member
- Treatment type
- I do not have diabetes
Thank that's really helpful
Think he'd fall for cauliflower rice? No carbs, similar versatility as actual rice. The breakfast options (wheetabix, banana etc) were very carb-heavy, so far as that goes coffee was accidentally a good choice, as the others would have spiked his sugar. But the metformin might not agree with him if it's taken on an empty stomach. If he complains about food being dry; he can have fats! That's not a problem. (It's the carbs that make us overweight, actually. Low carb got me and many with me off statins, my cholesterol is fine now. And I dropped 20 kilo's). There's a konjac pasta with little to no carbs, you just have to thorougly rinse it before use or it'll taste/smell fishy. I dunno... He has to want this too. I have a feeling he's in the denial stage, and as long as he is, there's only so much you can do. I know it's frustrating, and very scary, but just educate yourself, check out diets like low carb/high fat, Mediterranian, Newcastle and Scandinavian, check dietdoctor.com for recipies... Learn what he won't, and you're ready for when he comes around.
Thank you really helpful advice, I've commented again separately as I didn't realise you could reply individually until now! Yes if he doesn't like something I cook it will go in the bin and he'll reach for the takeaway menu or just make toast or something.!@Ruby2shoes Welcome to the forum. Tagging @daisy1 for the welcome pack. We are here to help so please keep posting.
You are in an almost impossible situation.
He is in denial and almost certainly scared to death so he is pushing everything away as too difficult, not enough time, don't like it. If he ignores it then it won't happen.
You can't make him eat properly, he has to accept that he needs to change. Probably the more you push him the more he will resist.
Metformin is fine on a very low carbohydrate diet. You don't need carbohydrates in your meals because it is the one food group that you can live without. The main problem is that carbohydrates are very addictive, and also most of us have been brought up to believe a meal isn't a proper meal without carbs.
I had a quick look at the Michael Mosley web site and I couldn't immediately find a recommendation to eat carbs throughout the day, just a low carb Mediterranean style of eating. There is plenty of information on this site about low carbohydrate eating.
In your first post you said "First problem this morning he doesn't eat breakfast (unless it's a cooked one) but mostly he can't stomach eating first thing before he goes off to work. I got him up earlier this morning so if he wanted eggs, bacon or toast he could, he then claimed he didn't have time. I got him out weetabix, toast, yoghurt, apple and banana and said have one of these instead then and he said he couldn't face it and just had a cup of coffee."
Couple of points:
All you can do, I think, is to make sure that only healthy food is available at home and see if he eventually adjusts, What does he do if you make a meal that he won't eat? Does he cook for himself or order a takeaway? If you do all the shopping then if you make sure there aren't any easy carbohydrate heavy snacks in the fridge or larder (that includes bread) then he will either have to shop and cook for himself or eat what you cook.
- the cooked breakfast is wonderful. Fills you up and stops you snacking. Weetabix and a banana is seen as healthy (advertising) but for a diabetic it is crammed full of carbohydrate so that is a breakfast to avoid if you are going low carbohydrate.
- His tactics seem classic denial. If you try to give him something to help he makes excuses and just has coffee. I would bet money that as soon as he is out of the house he is thinking of where he can get a breakfast. He probably knows every cafe and fast food joint to and from work and accessible from wherever he is during the day. I doubt he got to 23 stone on what you have been feeding him.
One small gain you might make; there is a current theory about Resistant Starch. where if you cook pasta, chill it in the fridge, then reheat it then there is a lot less carbohydrate available. This could make pasta meals a lot healthier. You can do the same with potatoes; boil them (preferably new potatoes which aren't as carby), chill them then cook them again. I would be tempted to slice them thinly and fry them (lard or olive oil) to get more fat into them. Fat is your friend, carbohydrate is your enemy.
If you feel like making a point about his mother dying at 51, you could always insist that he gives you money every week to go into the funeral plan because he has only 6 years to go and funerals are very expensive. £15 a week should build up to £4,000 over 6 years, especially if you put it in an ISA. In your name so he can't spend it. Perhaps £25 a week just in case he doesn't last that long.
Otherwise you may have to wait until he is off work with a heart attack and/or damaged eyesight before he starts to take notice.
You know he is being wilfully stupid but you can't force him to be sensible.
For your daughter, what does she eat, how tall is she and what does she weigh? She may be perfectly healthy but just look emaciated compared to her father. Low carbohydrate and high fat (if she likes the food) can also be good to maintain and gain weight.
Have you considered that her reluctance to put on weight may be a direct result of the death of her Granny and the illness of her father? Is she willing to help you by joining you in healthy eating and making the low carbohydrate meals the normal food in the household? Obviously you need to eat what you are asking him to eat.
Massive sympathy for your position. Don't worry about not being diabetic yourself The forum is for friends and family as well.
Thank youMichael Moseley's Blood Sugar Diet would be a great place to start. The NHS guidance on carbohydrate levels is outdated and if your hubby chooses the NHS path he will end up on more and more drugs and finally on insulin. The longer we can avoid extra medication the better and this can only be done by addressing diet.
All carbohydrates turn into glucose once eaten and it is the high levels of glucose long term that do the damage. Get your husband a glucose meter and start testing at home. You may be told that this is unneccessary but it is the only way to keep a check on which foods will raise blood glucose levels.
May I ask what the result of your husband's HbA1c was? If you are not sure then a printout from your surgery will yield a lot of information. By the way, I have never heard of anyone being given a time limit (you said six months) for Metformin. This is a widely used drug and though it is not a magic bullet it will help.
Welcome to the forum, tagging @daisy1 for the info pack offered to all newcomers. It is full of valuable links that will let you get your head around this diagnosis. Have a wander around the forum and ask as many questions as you like.
As has been said, your husband cannot afford to ignore this diagnosis, the complications can be horrendous but with thought and care and hard work he can become a healthier happier man.
Thank you I'll take a look, that's brilliant well done you must be so pleased with those results.Hi Ruby and welcome to the Forum. First let me tag in @daisy1 for a really useful info post.
I agree with the others, i don’t think you’ll nag your husband into it but it’s lovely that you’re trying to help. He needs to come round to it himself. Have a read of the Success Stories and Testimonials sub Forum. Try and get hubby to read some of those posts. My own is among them. In a nutshell I was diagnosed 11 months ago and by low carbing, self monitoring and Metformin I have lost 5 1/2 stone, got my blood sugars down to normal levels and feel like a different person. I hadn’t realised how poorly i felt til i I started feeling better. I was diagnosed on a routine blood test for high BP like your hubby. Oh and btw my BP is now normal and I’ve managed to drop one of my BP meds
EDIT for typos
Yes you are so right I know it's hard not to try and control the situation as I don't want to sit by and watch him self destruct but thank you for the advice.This is a difficult one but I can tell you that there is NO way I would be getting a fully grown adult up earlier for his brekkie and then producing a variety of items he can have. He is not your child, he is a fully grown adult behaving like one. This may be controversial but I would be ignoring his tantrums and his accusations of nagging. I would not be poring over what he can have for his dinner either, it is one thing you both deciding what to have for your tea but quite another to assume total responsibility for what he puts in his mouth. As others have said, what was he eating before diagnosis? If it was the obviously bad carbs (sweets/pies/pizzas/take aways etc) then just cutting these out first of all should have a big impact. Going cold turkey (!) from the off is hard for anybody never mind a 45 yr old man set in his ways.
I would take it more slowly, encourage him to cut out the obvious rubbish which probably accounts for 50% of what he eats, to begin with have less of the 'healthier' carbs such as pasta rather than cut them out completely (by which I mean a tiny amount of pasta for example with a lot of low carb meat sauce), so that it doesn't seem like a strict diet for him and slowly up the yummy low carb stuff like bacon, eggs and meat etc. He will barely notice a difference!
I imagine he is overwhelmed at the task ahead but going from a to z in one day won't work. We are all the same, if we think we are being deprived of what we love, we get stubborn. Good luck.
Thank youdaisy1 will reply when she’s on line.
I drink diet fizzy drinks, a lot of diabetics do. Make sure you have the sugar free varieties of squash in the house. I too was offered gastric surgery at my GP first appt! I was shocked but it is a way to deal with weight loss and Diabetes. I declined straight away and am now at too low a BMI to qualify anymore!
I think the best approach at the moment is to make small changes to your home cooked meals, change the balance of high carb foods to lower carb foods. Try celeriac mash instead of potato mash, cauliflower rice in place of rice. Have a look at:
https://www.dietdoctor.com/low-carb
for more ideas.
I've just watched the video I'm anazed! Thank youI was in denial until I came across a video on 'butter makes your pants fall off' website - I couldn't get my head around food/pain/weight relationship concept by just reading about it. Once I saw the before and after pictures and watched the video I 'then' wanted to know more and more. So far I've lost 20lbs and my hba1c is down to 43 from 65. If your hubby won't read, he may have time to watch a short eye opening video. Good luck.
Hank you. Yes I think he possible is a bit depressed but again won't admit it and does get very irritable with me. I'll see how he responds over the next couple of weeks and if no joy in his behaviour changing I'll try talking to his aunt about it. I think he has got used to seeing himself this far even clothes when he buys the largest sizes aren't fitting him and he'd look at me as if to say it's the clothing manufacturers fault rather than accepting it's his shape. I will follow all the advice here until he can begin to take his own responsibility.It sounds to me like he is embarrassed about his size and his diagnosis and possibly feels that he has brought it on himself. We know that isn't true but the media doesn't and prefers a bit of fat shaming. I know there is some.research around about insulin resistance causing obesity rather than the other way around. I agree with everything said so far about him needing to take control himself and as long as he keeps his head in the sand he's not helping himself. You can only do so much and it sounds like he gets quite irritable when you try to speak to him. Is there a friend or other family member who might have more luck, sometimes that works better. Is he depressed? I think your only answer for now is baby steps and like others said educate yourself around carbohydrate and begin reducing what you can bit by bit? It might help you to know roughly how many grams of carbohydrate he eats in a typical day so you have a starting point. If you or someone else could encourage him back to slimming world that may help him. Once he starts to lose a bit of weight he will see his blood sugars start to improve and will feel a bit better about himself which could be the trick to encouraging him to carry on. But he has to want to do this. Lifestyle is such a hard thing to change and so much depends on the person themselves. It is very early days for him so give him.time to get his head around his diagnosis too. Good luck!
Huge sympathy for you, it sounds like you got a lot to deal with and it shouldn't be all you. Give him a good kick up the b***. I think he needs to realise it's not just affecting him.Ok sorry one more thing I'm now really confused! The stuff I've read about reversing type 2 by weight loss suggests a low carb diet but I've just read the literature on the metformin which says continue to follow dietary advice your gp has given (Michael Mosley) and should make sure that you eat carbohydrates regularly throughout the day. If you are overweight you should continue with your energy restricted diet.
You really are a sweetheart. Holland and Barrett to Slim rice/pasta/noodles. You and your daughter eat the normal stuff, he gets the other and it all looks the same and he won't know the difference unless you tell him. Plenty of sauce.Hi sorry I feel a bit guilty being on here as I don't have diabetes. However my husband has just been diagnosed with type 2. He is 45 and almost 23 stone and about 5'9 in height. He has had high blood pressure for years and at a recent BP check when it was higher than usual the GP sent for blood tests. Last week he came back and advised he has to go on to metoformin tablets. He tells me he only has to be in them for six months if he can lose weight. However I'm so worried about his motivation. I've noticed lots of different health complaints due to his weight and he's been saying for years he needs to lose weight but refuses to do anything about it. He said following the prescription right that's it I've got to do this now but Last year he went for a retinal screen and was warned if he didn't change his lifestyle he would end up diabetic and did nothing about it. A few years ago he joined slimming world and lost 2.5 stone then gave up and put it all back on again. I can't seem to get him motivated to change his lifestyle despite this diagnos I still don't think he'll change. His mum was diabetic so he knows full well the implications and she died at 51. Therefore it will be down to me to cook for the family and watch what he eats and I don't think it's fair he needs to take responsibility but every time I try to make positive changes for him he say I'm nagging him and keeping on about it. I admit I have nagged him because I could see this coming and I only care about what happens to him. I want the man I married back. He says he "hasn't got time" to go to slimming world, he is self employed so he does have time, then he says he can't afford it, he could get a 12 week referral from the doctor but he won't ask for it! The doctor has given him the name of the Michael Mosley diet to look into together with an NHS diabetes well being x-pert course dates programme. When I asked him about this he said he can't go as they're all stupid times in the day, I pointed out that's they do evening sessions for those who work and he said the doctor said he didn't have to go or follow that particular diet she just has to tell you about that info! I don't believe this. He said he said to the doctor that he just has to cut down his portion sizes and exercise more and she agreed! True if he will do it but he won't! I've looked at the Michael Mosley diet which looks good but he wouldn't read it. I could start cooking the recipes but my problem with him is what to substitute for carbs? I'm happy to cut his portions down and provide more veg but if we didn't have pasta, rice or potatoes with a meal he's unlikely to eat it! I know you can make thinks like courgette strips for spaghetti but he just wouldn't eat it! Same with bread! I bought the smaller 400g brown loafs other than the 800g as I know this is what slimming world recommends and he said it was ridiculous he wasn't going to eat it as it's horrible (it's not) so this is what I'm up against. I've also got a 16 year daughter whose the exact opposite and needs building up as I also work full time it's going to be hard juggling so many meals. He deferred picking up his prescription he was given Thursday until Saturday then was going to take the first tablet this morning. He has to take one a day after breakfast then two per day after the first week. First problem this morning he doesn't eat breakfast (unless it's a cooked one) but mostly he can't stomach eating first thing before he goes off to work. I got him up earlier this morning so if he wanted eggs, bacon or toast he could, he then claimed he didn't have time. I got him out weetabix, toast, yoghurt, apple and banana and said have one of these instead then and he said he couldn't face it and just had a cup of coffee. I'm sorry for the whinge but I just do not know how to help him. I'm also trying to plan tea I'm thinking chicken breast and roasted Mediterranean vegetables but I'm stuck on what to have with it, he'd say it was too dry and needed a sauce! And this is only day one. Any pointers on how I can motivate him and meal suggestions or diet books that would suit the whole family and avoid the problems and barriers he will inevitably put up please would be welcome. Thank you.
It's so sad you're carrying his burden and he's taking no responsibility. Virtual hugWow thank you for all the useful advice so far. I'd love him to Join the forum but he won't look at anything like this as you say I think he is denial. Interestingly he doesn't want me to tell anyone about (that he has it)! I asked hi I feel he was diabetic or was this ore diabetes and that's when he said if he loses weight hes only got to go on them for six months so I didn't get a truthful answer. I imagine he wouldnt have been given tablets if he didn't actually have it would he? I asked him what type and he said type two so I'm guessing he does indeed have it. Also he told me the doctor offered him a gastric band! He said held lose the weight instead but that was shocking to hear.
Just to clarify his mum died of a blood clot in her lung she had MS which basically progressed quicker because of her diabetes but none the less you'd think it would be a big red flag to him. I've said all the stuff about worried about him dying too young and leaving us or him ending up disabled and how I couldn't afford to give up work to care for him and he'd lose his business he's self employed sole trader but it all falls on deaf ears. He comes shopping with me most weeks trouble is I'm not very creative he's actually a better cook than me but of course when he cooks it's all the unhealthy stuff he likes. Crisps and cheese breas are all his downfall. He loves a good breakfast but only at weekends when he has more time but again he'll go the whole hog fried bread the lot! He gets up as late as possible before he has to go to work then says he doesn't have time to eat/ can't face it. That's how he's got to the size he is now. He's not a big drinker in terms of alcohol, but insists on drinking fizzy drink he thinks if it's diet is ok but I'm sure it's not we've had many an argument over that one. The rest of the time he drinks coffee or squash.
I don't know what his Hba1c was he doesn't give too much away, I suspect it was a lie about the six months on tablets he says he doesn't tell me things as I worry too much and keep on and on!
How do I tag @daisy1 for the info pack please?
As for my daughter I hadnt considered that about not wanting to get fat, she didn't know her nan but it's a good point. She's 5'4" and is a little over 7 stone. She's not anorexic and does eat but just looks very thin. I'm 5'2 and weigh about 8.5 stone so you can imagine what our family pictures look like. He was born a big baby at 10.5lb which is when his mum first got gestational diabetes. When i met he was about 14 stone. He's relatively inactive too although has taken up golf again recently and I've told him he needs to walk the dog with me more ( I do all the walking) go swimming etc but again excuses keep coming from him. BUt your right he is out in his van all day long easy to pull in somewhere and buy snacks when I'm at work and have no control over what he's doing.
I know he needs to be scared into doing this for himself I am just terrified that something bad will happen before he gets to that point and am trying to do what I can in the meantime to prevent it. I've looked at those portion control plates are they any good? I'm also thinking about getting one of those skipping ropes he could use that at home would that help? I'll get a Michael Mosley book and follow that then I'm used to following slimming world as I joined myself once just to encourage him to eat healthy i didn't have much to lose but that didn't work either clearly!
<snip>
As for my daughter I hadn't considered that about not wanting to get fat, she didn't know her nan but it's a good point. She's 5'4" and is a little over 7 stone. She's not anorexic and does eat but just looks very thin. I'm 5'2 and weigh about 8.5 stone so you can imagine what our family pictures look like.<snip>
Any pointers on how I can motivate him
Wow really powerful video thank you for sharingI haven't read through all the posts, so these may already have been suggested:
It seems a psychological problem, probably denial as suggested. Have you told him you want the man you married back?
Have you tried both the extreme negatives (what will happen if he doesn't change and how soon it is likely to happen) and the extreme positives (examples such as those on this forum of people who were very ill managing to turn it around)? If he's in denial then I guess either extremes won't work, but it may be that he responds better to positives than negatives or vice-versa. If you've focused on one in the past, how about focusing on the other.
One thing I think may be very useful for people in denial, or just not taking it seriously enough:
I like that video because it's so matter-of-fact. I don't think your husband will feel either nagged at or encouraged by that video - he'll just see it as an insight into the reality of T2 for people who don't take action. Including one man who's just had a foot removed who warns people to take it seriously.
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