For admonishing DM - diabetes and having cake as a meal

Naughty but nicely, after the cream cake.

As a type 2 diabetic (in remission now), I will say that berating her will lead her to feel bad about herself and may lead her to comfort eat further. Even if said kindly or with the best of intentions.

Your mum probably doesn’t produce the same amount of the naturally occurring glp1 hormone that you do, so she will have cravings and less be satisfied with the food she does consume. It’s more than just willpower. That’s why glp1 medications exist - they aren’t cheating, just levelling the playing field. They don’t have to be about weight loss.

edited just to add, that it’s not always caused by diet either, in some cases it can be hereditary

What a condescending post. PIP is paid because being a disabled person costs more to live.

The NHS would probably save loads if women stopped having babies, or at least stopped having them in hospital. You could just close all the maternity units and let women take some responsibility for their own pregnancy and labour. Sack all the midwifes and health visitors.

My mum had type 2 diabetes from.her 60s, and ate cake and lived pretty healthily until the last few months of her life, and she died aged 85. She managed it well and did try to eat healthily but had a sweet tooth all her life.

Just commented to say that post menopause, my craving for sugar is uncontrollable. Strong and constant. It’s really hard work to not eat the stuff. No one ever told me about it. It was a total surprise. And I’m not 60 yet. I worry about my future eating habits, sometimes.

DMIL (so not a relation, biologically) is the same. I have had to have words with her sons when they castigate her. It’s not her fault (and she’s got forgetful now, too). They just try to make sure that she gets good food into her as often as possible.

I have diabetes. No, she shouldn't eat cake for lunch, but it's useless nagging someone.

My DM does the same thing. She gets very aggressive if you comment on it. I dont appreciate being abused in public so Ive stopped bothering commenting on her shit diet. She has diabetes in her family. Complications of it have killed her mother and 2 brothers, she has been diabetic for nearly 30 years and under the diabetes clinic. She knows having ice cream and cake for dinner isnt healthy. She still does it. Shes terrified of getting dementia or ending up in a home. She still does it. I suspect because its so commonplace in her family she thinks its just something that happens when you age and there's nothing you can do about it. Im paranoid about getting it ( also because I think its inevitable) so have quite a healthy diet. She sees it as almost a personal affront that I havent got it, whereas my dbro has it, and she said ' oh you can get free prescriptions now!' Hes managing it with diet and metformin and also tries to tell her but shes having none of it.

Has she been put on a diabetes course? It can be hard to get your head around the lifestyle and diet changes you need to make. Sometimes a support group is helpful. My doctor put me on 2 courses. One specifically for diabetes, and the other was a healthy living course

Type 1 is completely different and you can basically eat what you want as long as you take the correct amount of insulin. I so, so wish they had different names.

Well raising it when she's enjoying her cake is like raising a sex issue in middle of a shag.

You bring it up later at a neutral time, else she will feel defensive which is counterproductive

Admonished is a very school ma'm choice of word. Are you bossy by nature? It is ultimately up to her, you also have to keep in mind the way she ate on the weekend may not be how she eats day to day.

My relative, probably a similar age to yours, started with toe amputations a few years ago and more recently a leg amputation. All down to the damage done by not taking type 2 seriously. Physically sound of mind and energy but in a care home due to no mobility.

Maybe show her some amputation stats and photos if she doesn't realise what could be her future?

Careful you don't sprain yourself with that reach there. There is nothing to indicate the OP would end up as a carer even if her mother eventually did need care.

She's a grown woman and can make her own decisions on what she wants to eat, and her health in general.

You don't have to like it, but you definitely don't get to dictate it.

but when those 'choices' potentially have an impact on other people, it's very selfish. If her putting her health at risk will force OP into a caring role when this could be avoided, I would say that should not be 'her choice'.

My mum was type 1 and she drank too much whiskey but actually had a good diet. Apart from when she was younger,she often didn't eat enough.I never told her what to do because we didn't have that sort of relationship. I did learn how to help her recover from low blood sugar levels though.If your mum will listen to your advice, then maybe you can help her realise she's putting her health at risk .My mother went on to have a toe amputated due to complications with her diabetes.

Your mother is an adult and as such she can eat whatever she wants to.

YABU

I have type 1 diabetes.
For the poster above talking about their nan with type 1 and eating unhealthily: with type 1 one can theoretically eat anything, including 'unhealthy' things, you just have to know how much insulin to take for it. Some things are more complicated to get the insulin right for than others (pizza is notoriously one of them), but nothing is actually off limits.

Type 1 also means that, to get the insulin dosage right, you have to know how much carbohydrate is in absolutely EVERYTHING you eat. If you get it wrong, you risk having dangerously high or low blood sugar.

And so, because of that, I know that different foods can be quite unexpected in terms of how much carbohydrate they contain. Cake, for example, is often surprisingly low - if you were faced with eating an equivalent weight of chocolate cake and baguette, the cake will have less carbohydrate unless it has a lot of icing as well.

Would you judge her and want to admonish her for ordering pasta? Gnocchi? Risotto? A filled baguette? A baked potato?

Because all of those 'healthier' options would probably contain more carbohydrate than what you described her as eating. Often significantly more.

How about eating a cupcake? Would a sugar free cupcake be better and less worthy of admonishment?
(Because the sugar free one is actually no better at all.)

How about a piece of fruit? It may well contain more carbohydrate than a cupcake.

Don't get me wrong, I think she's doing the wrong thing and long term she is likely to suffer for it, but eating the 'right' food for type 2 is actually quite complex, so restrictive that it is difficult to maintain long term, and is often poorly understood both by the diabetic and those around them.

As someone who has been, against my will, been given all sorts of - usually wrong - dietary advice or judgement from family, friends and strangers for YEARS now, no you should not admonish her.

She is an adult, it is her life, and it is unfortunately also highly likely that what you think are the 'right' options for her are also actually wrong.

This too.

Ive found it’s more the combination of food that matters. Just eating a slice of toast = crap sugar readings. A slice of bread with something high fat and high protein on it and my levels stay much more stable, add a 20 min walk after the bread and my levels stay in range. It’s actually quite complicated figuring out exactly what you should and shouldn’t eat, in what combination and how often in order to be ‘safe’.

I did get 1 freestyle Libre as part of my initial diagnoses pack but after that had to buy my own as they are typically only prescribed for T1 or where poorly controlled diabetes has been diagnosed and the diabetes team are in support of it.

However you can buy the sensors for about £50 on Amazon or direct through the Abbot website. Each sensor lasts 2 weeks, the app is free to download and use and there is an accompanying app that family and healthcare providers can download which can be linked so they get a report and notifications if sugar is going high or low for extended periods. The virtual diabetes team in my Trust used this so they could live monitor everyone on their service and do day by day checks and immediate medication changes which was fanastic.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Abbott-Freestyle-Diabetes-Monitoring-Worldwide/dp/B0FCW8V683/ref=sr_1_8?crid=1EHY5GV6WCZW6&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.YPsaRJYGvmn9AB6rSYThkxKwEUihfnLQ1RZ__PAkcOK7qmwR3R4iLH5MbwtLicGSmgKdyMERoKKVi-zYJhcx5cOWPYa7YfL3yBBfpTpTQZJ5rmikAhS7I-11Q7h081ngbMZr64qnRQUJJTc-az5goQ_Svhd4siMJcw0SljCWjXHCnJYIYNeT3ajcgmmA-YxWx3LPjaZdMcJk_v-GcTBPt1fDFbBxDB6_7aWigdjlyRdvaCpV29yEmHloo6Msc6BA-w_tOayz52xOlqxaOsy2rddze0_ub7s5YrzTbeBM9KM.6APmKBGqpdxyTXfTcfrIM6SS6ZpFrtQfwEXDlLbvqP0&dib_tag=se&keywords=freestyle+libre+2+plus+sensor&qid=1761518100&sprefix=Freestyle+libre%2Caps%2C135&sr=8-8

Make sure you understand what’s good for her blood glucose levels before telling her to eat better. A sandwich is not really any better than a slice of cake, for example.

I think you can admonish your mum up to a point,then you have to accept that her diet is her choice and just let her get on with shortening her life herself.

It’s not your place to admonish your mother. She’s an adult.

If she is just having a treat what's the issue? But, if she's eating it every day it will shorten her life and I understand why you are concerned.

My mum is diabetic, in fact nearly everyone on that side of the family seems to develop it with obesity. Have you introduced your mum to diabetic cakes/jams etc? It's difficult when you go out as cafes/restaurants do not cater for diabetes. But, there are treats available that will be better for her. Just let her know you are concerned, that's all you can do.

Does she properly understand how different foods effect her sugar levels and is she testing regularly? I ask because when I was diagnosed last year, it was wearing a CGM for a couple of weeks that really helped me to see the effect of food. I could see on the graph the rise in my sugar levels and trace it back to exactly what food had caused it.

i was making initial choices that I thought were ok that really weren’t, for example I picked a jacket potato and salad instead of a sandwich, awful choice my sugar level went up to 23 n/mol and stayed way outside of normal range (below 10) for hours and hours, porridge had a similar effect, as did fat free muller light yoghurt. She may be thinking that because the overall calories in a slice of cake is much the same as a full plate of food that it’s ok.

Ive learnt that there are very very few carbs my body can tolerate, and even then only in tiny quantities. If I want to stay in range and not have to take massive doses of insulin then I need to cut carbs down to the very low range and only have them as occasional treats.