You guys must be rubbing off on me

[Sarbak]

I have been tracking my calories and macros for just under 3 weeks - tomorrow will mark the end of the full 3 weeks. I had already been successfully losing weight on a lower carb diet (estimating I was consuming around 100g a day) since my diagnosis in May, but thought it would be interesting to actually properly track what I was eating every day. It certainly has been an interesting exercise - I'm undecided as to whether I'll continue tracking everything past tomorrow or not.

But, moving on to the point of this post... have a look at my daily carb intake since I've been tracking, which I think was around the same time I joined this forum lol

Day 1 - 127g
Day 2 - 114g
Day 3 - 77g
Day 4 - 105g
Day 5 - 95g
Day 6 - 110g
Day 7 - 108g

Day 8 - 104g
Day 9 - 115g
Day 10 - 106g
Day 11 - 57g
Day 12 - 40g
Day 13 - 56g
Day 14 - 69g

Day 15 - 51g
Day 16 - 84g
Day 17 - 62g
Day 18 - 47g
Day 19 - 40g
Day 20 - 43g
Day 21 - well, that's tomorrow

Look what you've done to me, you rascals!! Somehow, your not so sneaky keto tactics are rubbing off on me ***

 

[Sarbak]

Also, I have my first review with my DN tomorrow - will find out the results of last week's blood test, 4 months since diagnosis. Part of me is hoping I'm back in the normal range and part of me is trying to prepare for disappointment, just in case. Watch this space.

 

[Mauriac]

Also, I have my first review with my DN tomorrow - will find out the results of last week's blood test, 4 months since diagnosis. Part of me is hoping I'm back in the normal range and part of me is trying to prepare for disappointment, just in case. Watch this space.

I hope your result is good but you are being sensible in readying yourself for one which isn't what you're hoping for. Whatever it is, you are certainly on the right track. I've low carbing for two weeks now and manage around 60 - 80g of carbs per day most days. My BG levels from finger prick tests have definitely edged down already but I know there are no quick fixes and it will take a long time to get where I need to be - which I hope I can manage. I hope you can too.

 

[Sarbak]

My BG levels from finger prick tests have definitely edged down already but I know there are no quick fixes and it will take a long time to get where I need to be - which I hope I can manage. I hope you can too.

We can both do it!! I'm not doing finger prick tests yet - waiting to see what I've achieved with tomorrow's results... if it's not good news, I will start testing soon, but if it's good news, testing myself can wait until I've got a job and some money coming in

 

[Mauriac]

We can both do it!! I'm not doing finger prick tests yet - waiting to see what I've achieved with tomorrow's results... if it's not good news, I will start testing soon, but if it's good news, testing myself can wait until I've got a job and some money coming in

Testing is indeed very expensive. I've been testing like mad so far but I'm going to ease off now, partly because of the expense but also because in my case I don't think it serves any purpose to test all the time. I'm 'only' pre-diabetic so still have a half decent response to carbs and in two weeks of testing regularly throughout the day I seem pretty much always to stay within the fairly narrow band of low 6s to high 8s.

I'm not getting any worrying spikes whatever I eat (providing at least I stick within my rule of no more than about 30 grams of carbs at 1 meal and no more than 100 in a day) nor am I in danger of a hypo, so my testing needs to be about trends, which doesn't require me to test 6 or 8 times per day. Two weeks isn't really long enough to positively identify a trend (especially with the inexplicable high and low readings that I sometimes get) but the numbers on the whole certainly seem to be better than when I started.

As I said, I hope your test result is good but it sounds as if you will stay positive even if it's a bit disappointing.

 

[ianf0ster]

Testing is indeed very expensive. .............................

Of course we all have different financial circumstances, but I wouldn't say that testing is very expensive.
For me it was just over £8 per week (using either of the 2 most recommended BG meters) isn't that much =2 test strips per week + 3 or 4 lancettes (assuming 3 meals per day) provides testing before and then 2hrs after first bite for every meal.

Depending on how regularly you eat the same meal (such as in my case 2 boiled eggs for Breakfast) you can cut the test strip usage down even further.:- Once I got fat adapted I was no longer hungry in a morning so I started skipping Breakfast. Once I had say 5 sets of figures for the exact same meal there was no longer a need to test for that meal and so on.

Intensive testing need only for 2 or 3 months - say 4 or 5 months at most!
You only buy the BG meter once, use very few lancettes since unless you are sharing the meter there is no need to change one until it gets too blunt.

 

[Brunneria]

I use a Libre sensor every couple of months (that is £50 every 8 weeks = £6.25 a week
Then I have a Tee2 test meter, which I use occasionally which costs approx £7 for 50 strips
In my current situation I don't test often, because I have already mapped out most of my food reactions, but if I were testing every meal then £7/week for an average of 7 tests a day seems like good value for me - and it is a heck of a lot less than it would cost the NHS if they were supplying strips to me on one of the bizarrely expensive deals that they negotiate with 'approved' suppliers for 'approved' meters.

 

[Sarbak]

Of course we all have different financial circumstances, but I wouldn't say that testing is very expensive.
For me it was just over £8 per week (using either of the 2 most recommended BG meters) isn't that much =2 test strips per week + 3 or 4 lancettes (assuming 3 meals per day) provides testing before and then 2hrs after first bite for every meal.

Intensive testing need only for 2 or 3 months - say 4 or 5 months at most!

Agreed - I absolutely wouldn't say it's very expensive, but I am currently living at a deficit of around £500 to £600 a month, living off of universal credit and my savings until I get a job. Given my HbA1c is now in the normal range, I don't see any urgent need to start chipping even quicker into my dwindling savings in order to work out what foods are triggering for me. Knowing that what I've done so far has been 'overall' good in the last 4 months, my plan is to ensure I utilise testing to work out what can safely stay and/or be reintroduced once the weight loss period has ended, which I would hope to be in maybe 6 months, but if (WHEN - positive thinking) I get a job sooner than that, I'll bring the testing forward of course.