Type 2 diabetes - diet help please

[tkband3]

DH has just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. It’s no surprise - his father had it, along with high blood pressure and DH has been monitored for progression into T2D for years, since his own high blood pressure was diagnosed about 18 years ago.

He’s not overweight (unlike me), is fit (also unlike me) and eats a balanced diet (as do
I, but mine is supplemented by more chocolate than his). He generally eats yogurt with berries and granola for breakfast and a sandwich (sourdough/rye bread, ham, cheese & salad) for lunch. I cook a wide variety of meals for dinner, largely meat based, with lots of veg. We eat a lot of basmati rice and potatoes and sone pasta.

We have the added complication that our DDs have coeliac disease so all dinners need to be gluten free.

Any help and suggestions gratefully received.

Could try a keto diet. Less carbohydrates, OK to have cheese, butter, full fat yogurt etc. Bacon n egg breakfast. Meat or fish with green vegetables.

My husband is type 2 and rice is really high in carbs for the portion size. He has potatoes, pasta .. or often just a plain flatbread if it’s something like a curry. Can you get one of those carb counting books (easier to see everything at once) then you can work out the relative portion size to sugar/carbs plus any foods that are particularly high eg apple vs strawberries.

Not much advice sorry but joining to see replies as I've just been diagnosed with type 2. So far I'm eating smaller portions of carbs and cut out sweet stuff. Unlike your DH i do need to loose weight as well. I need to get my head round what suits me best diet wise. My DH is lactose intolerant so like you also juggling different needs a bit.

Hope he's doing OK- I'm a bit of an emotional mess about my diagnosis- shouldn't be a surprise as I had gestational diabetes 7 years ago and I'm overweight, but i guess I'd buried my head in the sand. My dad has type 1 so although he is a support it's very different.

all dinners need to be gluten free.

We followed the low carb boot camp here on MN, when DH was diagnosed Type II diabetic in 2006. His doctor was sceptical but DH is now not type II.

The GP was very cautious, only adjusting medication after DH's bloods had shown that he was no longer impacted. They still insist he has an annual diabetic review but no longer needs to take any medicine.

He (DH) has fallen off the bootcamp waggon often eating crackers for lunch sigh but so far (say two years) his bloods (HbA1c over 90 days) have stayed not diabetic.

The NHS has yet to acknowledge that this is possible while https://www.diabetes.co.uk adopted HFLC high fat low carb patterns of eating a good few years ago.

Have a look at the low car. Boot camp threads here. I promise that you won't regret it. All the best.

Better to aviod sugar rich food items and chemical processed food items. Take sugar less food items and doing simple workouts in your daily life. This will helps to balanced your sugar level and also keep your body healthy. Don't take any junk food items, this will also improving your sugar leve. Early morning breathing exercise and meditation will calm your mind activity.

"The NHS has yet to acknowledge that this is possible while www.diabetes.co.uk adopted HFLC high fat low carb patterns of eating a good few years ago."

I think there might be some movement on that, this year my NHS annual check up has included a food list where I must avoid beetroot but eat as much lard as I like!

Low carb is the way to go. Dr David Unwin, Dr Michael Moseley and Kate & Giancarlo Caldesi are all with a look. Cut the rice pasta, potatoes and bread out, along with less fruit and less processed food. You will both feel the benefit.

Quinoa or riced vegetables instead of rice

Little to no bread, biscuits, pasta or actual rice

Watch out for fruit - try to eat more veg.

Have a look at the recipes on Diabetes UK. They are very much are low carb - there is not a lot of basmati rice, pasta or potatoes on there! Plus I've only rarely made one that wasn't nice.

Granola isn't a great choice either as if it is shop bought it tends to sound healthy but be glued together with sugar.

There are a lot of gluten free recipes as they are all avoiding carbs anyway so no flour or other sources of gluten in sight.

Low carb is the only way to go - I was diagnosed pre diabetes but not overweight. Ironically and for some odd reason natural yoghurt spiked my sugar levels despite packaging saying low carb and full fat so I just stopped eating it. This doesn’t apply to most people though.

I only eat sugar on special occasions - it was either that or shortening my life span. I’m at the beach now and family have just stuffed their faces with burgers and fries and ice cream. It doesn’t bother me anymore - way of life

I posted on this thread 6 months ago when i was newly diagnosed and since then I've managed to get my blood sugar to normal levels through diet alone. For me that's meant low carb rather than the extremes of keto ( I've been staying below 100gs a day), so I haven't cut out pasta, bread etc altogether, but I have switched to wholegrain/ seeded / protein versions of things and cut the quantities drastically. I've cut out sweet stuff altogether. Its hard sometimes but easier to stick to than being more extreme.

I attended an NHS dietician group session a few months ago and this was roughly the approach they were suggesting too. He also said he was doing a project for people who wanted to reverse diabetes with very low cal diet, which would involve meal replacement shakes etc. I think 800 cals a day for a few months. So far i seem to be controlling it with more like 1200 cars (crept higher recently).and under 100 carbs so hope it stays that way.

Changes like salad with protein and an oatcake / ryvita rather than a sandwich and crisps for lunch have helped, and one slice of high protein seeded bread eg braces vortigern with egg or peanut butter for breakfast rather than 2 slices of white or cereal. Dinners are mostly the same but with much smaller portion of the carb element and brown rice / pasta instead of white. Lots of nuts / 85% dark choc / cheese etc as snacks.

I found all the people on forums doing extreme low carb with no pasta / rice and hardly and fruit or root veg a bit intimidating and depressing to start with so thought it may be good to hear from someone who has taken a slightly softer line, albeit I know everyone us different and has different needs. I found buying my own blood sugar monitor helped me see what I personally needed to do to keep blood sugar down.

The Caldesis have written 3 or 4 really useful books on cooking proper food, using ideas from their Itslian restaurant. I have been eating carb friendly bread & definitely haven't gone down the coconut flour or almond flour route. I'd rather not eat bread if that was the alternative!

Eating breakfast each day (something with eggs or feta & avocado) has made such a difference, along with cutting out constant snacking caused by blood sugar spikes. I'm tending not to eat anything after 6 or 7pm, whereas I used to constantly graze.

I don't have an official diagnosis but a random blood sugar test was 19.1(!!) two weeks ago. I've gone keto and have dropped to measures of around 7 in the last couple of days.

All carbs are essentially sugar so should be kept at a minimum, I'd recommend easing into it rather than going cold turkey like I did though.

I'm also not overweight, dropped about 7 pounds in the first few days and have stabilised.

I'm newly diagnosed T2 and am eating a lot of salads and protein, or veg and protein. When we ate noodles I used the konjac ones from h&b. I'd say use the opportunity to get rid of the carbs (and thereby becoming more or less gf).

Yea he needs to cut out the carbs as much as possible. Whilst his diet sounds “healthy” in the traditional sense, for a diabetic it’s unhealthy and unsuitable.

To help understand this better I really really recommend trying a Libre 2 week continuous glucose monitor, I think there may be a free trial if you have a diagnosis. Try some of his usual “healthy” food types and see what happens on the monitor. Also notice how it goes up and up throughout the day if not enough time is left between snacks/meals. Then try some alternatives like halving carb portions, cutting them out, increasing fat portions etc