Newly diagnosed

[Judym]

I was surprised to be diagnosed with type 2 on Thursday with a reading of 51 for my HbA1c. I'm confused about quantities of carbs I can eat. I was given a pack to take away and read and am waiting to hear about either a dieticians appt. or group appt.. No medication for the next 3 months then reevaluate. I would be grateful for any dietary advice as I want to try to control this myself if I can. How much bread/potatoes/pasta can I eat? Thanks all.

[MEJones]

Hi Judym

I’ve been type 1 for 22years so it’s sligtly different as I have to take insulin but carbs have the same affect on blood glucose levels.

The amount of carbs you can have really is Hugely varied from person to person. To start with it’s going to be a lot of trial and error. Do you have a blood glucose machine, to test your bloods on? If you don’t I would recommend asking your GP for one or buying one from boots/ a pharmacy. This will help as you can eat your food, then test 1-2hrs later to see how much your sugars have risen by.

As a rule I was told anything with 5g of carbs or less is negligible, so no insulin needs to be injected, this means your sugars should also stay pretty stable with this amount. Obviously though potatoes, rice, bread are high in carbs so it’s slightly trickier to manage.

You might want to try going very low carb to start with and substituting rice for caulirice, potatoes for sweet potatoes and having smaller pieces of bread (kingsmil no crust 50/50 small has 8g of carbs per slice) things like actual or Greek Yoghurt and good as they are low in sugars, A 115g pot ot Danone free & light only has 5-6g of carbs per pot. I would recommend lots of green veggies to bulk out meals and to fill you up, if you like eggs then these are also high in protein & low in carbs. Quorn & plain chicken breast can also bulk out your meals whilst keeping your sugars relatively low.

It’s going to be a challenge but it’s 100% manageable, the important thing to remember is not to beat yourself up when things go a little but awry as it’s a huge learning curve.

I don’t personally follow it, by often see lots of positive testimony from diabetics online about the LCHF diet. (diabetes.co.uk/diet/low-car...

Good luck with everything, it’s an adjustment, but after a while it will become your new normal. If you’re lucky you may even be able to reverse your diabetes, which is the ultimate goal for most diet controlled type 2’s. x

[Judym in reply to MEJones]

Thank you so much for all of that and your time, it's a great help. It's the bread and potatoes which are going to be a challenge for me and giving up choccies ,cakes and biscuits (I have a really sweet tooth ).I do like sweet potato and didnt realise it was lower in carbs than normal potato.I have a lot to learn and it all seems rather confusing at the moment. Do you have any suggestions for snacks eg nuts etc.I will certainly look into buying a monitor also.Thanks again.

[MEJones in reply to Judym]

Hi Judym

Diabetes is a massive learning curve and only time really makes things easier & it’s great that you’re trying to hard to get it right!

Snacks wise I adore hartleys 10 calorie Jellies as they only have less than 2g of carbs and are sugar free + sweet and filling. Things like cheese strings or little squares of cheese usually come in at under 1g and should have no impact on blood Glucose. If you eat meat things like a little pack of fridge raiders roast chicken flavour have less than 1gof carbs per pack. I’m a vegetarian so I use Quorn instead as that’s also low in carbohydrates.

Nuts are great like you suggested and roasted and salted almonds (if you don’t want plain) only have 5g of carbs per 100g or about 1.25g per 25g portion. Others such pistachios, peanuts and cashews (salted & unsalted) all have less than 5g per 25g portion (make sure they aren’t coated though e,g barbecue or sweet chilli covering)

The sweet tooth is more of a difficult one to get around and I’m not a huge fan or advocate of sugar free/ diabetic chocolate but this bar tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/p... is EXCELLENT & actually tastes likes chocolate!! you can buy it in most supermarkets + per 100g it only has 18.4g of carbs and to put that in to perspective, per 100g dairy milk has 57g. Chocologic also do a milk & hazelnut bar too. tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/p... tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/p...

If you like dark chocolate then a couple of squares shouldn’t have too much of an impact on your sugar levels as the cacao content is higher and they contain less sugar.

If you fancy a biscuit then something like a rich tea only has about 6g per biscuit or Tesco’s finger rich teas have about 3g.

Fruit can be a nightmare especially tropical fruit as it will spike your blood sugars so opt for berries. Strawberries & raspberries are perfect as both contain less than 6g of carbs per 100g and are a nice sweet hit, you can also top them with extra sweetener or a little blob of cream. There are so many options now that there’s a sweetener for everyone, if you like something more natural I’d recommend truvia but supermarket own brands are great.

If you have sugar in your tea or coffee obviously the first step is to replace it with sweetener or sweetener tabs and make sure all drinks such as fizzy pops and squash are now sugar free options. Please be aware that coffee shop drinks are full of hidden carbs and can really raise blood glucose so best to stick to plainer drinks such as Americanos or filter coffees or always choose small lattes if that’s what you like.

If you like eggs, then hard boiled are a good snack option as they are low in carbs + things like cucumber sticks, & celery sticks have no impact on sugar levels and you could always add some houmous for flavour as it has about 5/6g of carbs per 50g or sour cream and chive dip has about 4g.

It seems really overwhelming and like you have to deny yourself all the things you love but if you track your blood glucose, you’ll soon learn what impacts you and what doesn’t. In the long run changing your diet and potentially reversing the diabetes will be so much more rewarding, type 2 isn’t an easy condition and the media are guilty of making light of it, as a type1 I would always support type 2’s as even though we are different a lot of what we go through is the same (it’s a roller coaster).

The best advice I can give you is to check the carb content when you can on the back of packets and to note down as Best you can the carb content of every meal, this means you have a record to look back on to see how it affected you. Weigh things like potatoes & pasta when they are cooked so you know how much you’re taking in, it’s laborious but It soon becomes second nature. As you never know, your body might be able to handle 50g of pasta but not 60g.

I count & weigh all my carbs as I have to match my insulin to my intake and having a record is really helpful.

But honestly, more than all the technical stuff, just be kind to yourself and try not to worry when you have a blip. Sorry for the long winded reply. X

[Judym in reply to MEJones]

Once again thank you so much for your time.That information is really helpful -I've taken notes from it! My next plan is to purchase a blood sugar monitor, another minefield! I'm still confused about carbs v sugars on food labels hope my dietician appointment comes through soon in the meantime your advice is invaluable - thanks .

[MEJones]

Any blood glucose monitor should do the job relatively well, because you’re not adding insulin to your body it won’t matter too much if the numbers are a little bit off (no monitor is 100% accurate)

I would highly suggest trying to get one for free & getting the testing strips on prescription if you can, some Gp’s Are great and are happy to oblige but others can be difficult, it annoys me so much as type 2’s need to test to stay healthy and I thinks it’s awful that they can be denied the essentials. If your Gp does say no then before you buy a monitor look up what strips it uses (wil say on the box) and ask your pharmacist the price as some can be very very expensive per pot (I once ran out on a weekend & had to pay £50!!! for 1 pot) some are much more reasonable so it makes sense to enquire.

On the carbs v sugars issue, it’s always CARBOHYDRATE you need to be looking at.

This is important as something like pasta has very high carbs but has a very low sugar content. This would mean that you’d assume it would be fine for your sugar levels, but actually would cause a huge rise because the total carbs are so high. This is usually the case for other things such as potatoes and bread which contain low sugar but high carbs.

If you click the link & look at the nutrition for this pasta, you’ll see what I mean. tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/p...

It’s good to be aware of the sugars as the more “of which are sugars” a product has the quicker the rise in glucose levels, but also the quicker the drop as your body burns these quicker than more stable & complex carbohydrate. Complex carbs on the other hand produce a much slower rise and tend to stay in the blood longer. E.g if I ate 100g of Apple at 11.9g of carbs I wouldn’t give myself insulin as it’s all sugars which means my bloods would rise and then crash quicker due to how quickly my body would burn the sugars.

I use the carb counting method like most type 1’s these days where we add up the total carbohydrate and then inject varying levels of insulin based on the number. If you keep an eye on the total carb content it will serve you better than just looking at sugars.

I really hope you get your appointment with a dietician soon and they can give you more advice and help you on your journey. Until you get to see one, id recommend lots and lots of veggies such as broccoli, asparagus and lower sugared options, alongside plain fish fillets, plain chicken (use chilli, garlic or curry powerder as opposed to sauces) or Quorn/meat substitute. The Mediterranean variety of cauli rice is also nice as it has more flavour than the plain.

Really good luck x

[HOBIEONE]

As leased as possible ? Low cabs is best, not if you are running Marathon every week but look up the "Newcastle Diet" by Prof Taylor. Good for T2

[Midspur]

If you’re type 2, look up the Mike Morris 8 week blood sugar diet.

It’s very low calories and low carb- no starchy carbs like bread , pasta, rice and potatoes.

It really works. If you’re overweight you will lose loads and stand a very good chance of reversing the diabetes.

I lost nearly 4 1/2 stone in just over 8 weeks and no longer have to take insulin.

I’m pushing harder now to come off all of my tablets. It will happen.

Please look this diet up, it will change your life.

Good luck.