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TuTusweet

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On 7 November I stopped eating bread except Ryvita,I have no pasta, no pastry, no potatoes, no added sugar, no rice. This was because my GP saw a reading of 139 and with no talk of diet or metformin put me straight on half dosage Eucreas tablets.
I have decided to go the diet route.

Twelve days after my last blood test gave 139 BG my latest reading was 120.

In 23 days I've lost nearly 8 pounds weight. I bought an exercise bike. I had never sat on one before. I am totally nonathletic.
Now I cycle 4.5 Km at least once a day.

Next stage will be finishing off all the sugar laden jars of pasta sauces. I do not want to throw out good food ---it will probably just not be replaced. And I have a trick to eat very little but still taste it.

I've become a keen jar label reader. I used to eat half a jar of Mango chutney with curry I used to make about every 5 weeks. Half a jar is 77 GRAMS OF SUGAR. Thailand made Sweet Chilli Sauce is basically pure liquid sugar with crushed chilli flakes suspended in it. That will have to be thrown away.

The attention to detail needed is high I find. I had a full English fry up the other morning. 2 eggs and sausages and bacon plus Tomato plus mushrooms plus hash brown toast and a tube of brown sauce was my reward for my reading of 120. But I ate less than half the hash brown and brown sauce and a quarter of the slice of toast. This was my intake reduction system. I cannot believe i have such self control.

Please if anyone has a comment I will be grateful. Can I realistically expect to keep lowering my BG ? Are there any problems with a carb free (almost ) diet. I think I prefer to cut it all out instead of trying to reduce it . I just cannot face testing all the time . But I worry if i should worry about spikes. I don't understand that business really.

Thank you for reading.
 
Hi, TuTuSweet, and congratulations! You've put yourself on a low-carb diet and experienced the first few weeks of fast weight loss. It will continue if you keep off the carbs, but it will slow down gradually.

Your "full English" is a very good low-carb meal, without the hash browns, toast or sauce! Stay off the baked beans, too, unless you can limit yourself to very small portions. Lunch and dinner can be salads or low carb veg, with fish or meat. Collins do a "Carb and Calorie" guide which is very useful for checking how many carbs there are in any particular foods. Work out how many carbs you want to eat in a day, and get most of them from vegetables - you need those for the fibre, and also for the vitamins and minerals they contain.

My favourite low-carb book is "Atkins Diabetes Revolution", written by Dr Mary C Vernon and Jacqueline Eberstein RN, based on the Atkins Diet. For weight loss you start on 25g carb per day; losing the weight means you lose internal body fat, which is one of the things that can cause your pancreas to malfunction. Giving the pancreas a rest with low carbs, and removing the smothering fat, will ensure your blood glucose readings improve. As you lose weight, so you can increase your carbs a bit until you find the level when your blood glucose readings start to increase again.

A number of people on this forum have low-carbed for years, with no ill effects, so don't worry about that.

A tip for using up your sauces - though do watch the carb content, or you'll undo all the good work. Use cauliflower as a substitute for rice and pasta - it works very well.

Have a look at the "Low Carb" section of this forum for tips and recipes. The Atkins diet I use is a "Sticky Thread" somewhere on there.

[mod]Here is the link - viewtopic.php?f=18&t=18803[/mod]

Keep going as you are - it will work.

Viv 8)
 
Viv thank you for your reply. I think your cauliflower tip is very intriguing. Luckily I love the stuff but then I love every thing except idiot food as I call it---like chocolate covered cockroaches and fried ants.

I will admit I'm trying to play games with carbs now. I've just had cod in batter with salad and mushy peas. One third of the batter was left.(-33%) No mint sauce out of a tube/sachet was used in the mushy peas.(-100%) Only one tube of salad cream not three (or even four !!) (-up to 75%) only two tubes of tartare sauce on my fish instead of 6 or 7.(_66%) Not massive but it did represent proportionally a very big reduction in the sugar laden items. A further game (when I have the second burger of the year) will be to leave the bun. Simples.

I will stick to this now and get a test at the chemist in about three weeks. Fingers eyes and legs crossed. And if anything goes wrong I still have Eucreas in reserve. Christmas will be a challenge. But i have a plan. I will scoff mince pies while peddling my exercise bike --that should work.

Many thanks.
 
I wonder if every body is blaming every ailment that they get on there Diabeties. I was diagnosed about two years ago type 2 after I should have had a wash out on my knee. I have never felt ill in my life apart from the odd cold and have never spent one night in hospital. Since being diagnosed I kept to my reshime on medication and still notfeeling ill.
I listern to my SDN and my doctor who should know best, I have no trouble getting test strips or Insulin. I test three times aday, I
would like to get in the target zone, below 8 but I cant. Not bad for a seventy one year old. Good luck to every one and have avery merry Christmas
 
TuTusweet said:
Can I realistically expect to keep lowering my BG ?

Yes. At the start of the year I was in the 9s and 10s and now I am in the 4s and 5s, no medication, just diet and exercise.

We only differ in so far as I eat low GI carbs such as brown rice and rye bread.

Your readings will probably fall further as your body adjusts ans as and when you get rid of the surplus packets and pots. Who knows what lurks within.

Cycling is excellent. Just believe, try your best and you will certainly continue to see improvements.
 
TuTusweet said:
Christmas will be a challenge. But i have a plan. I will scoff mince pies while peddling my exercise bike --that should work.

Its all a question of how many pies and how much peddling.
 
Yorksman said:
TuTusweet said:
Christmas will be a challenge. But i have a plan. I will scoff mince pies while peddling my exercise bike --that should work.

Its all a question of how many pies and how much peddling.


imagine doing the peddling without the pies, how good would that make you feel in january?
 
TuTusweet said:
Christmas will be a challenge. But i have a plan. I will scoff mince pies while peddling my exercise bike --that should work.

Yeah,good luck with that theory
 
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