Does anyone have a list of foods that are good and bad for diabetes?

[icantwaitforsummer]

Hi I'm newly diagnosed with pre diabetes at 40years. Scary as I saw what it did to my nan, mum and dad, (all who are now no longer here.) I have lost weight and now back into the normal range but still struggling with high sugar on the finger prick tests results. 6.5-7 in the morning after fasting. After a chicken salad last night with no carbs 😭

The more I google the more I read conflicting advice.

Such as: stay away from starchy carbs then it says eat sweet potatoes instead of normal potato? That makes no sense to me as a sweet potato tastes so sweet surely it has more sugar?

Don't eat bread, but you can eat sourdough.

Don't eat high fat, then says eat butter?

I just want a trusted list to put on my fridge to help. Does anyone have one?

Thank you in advance

The ‘take the test’ button on here will give you diet advice. There are also diet plans on the site, along with recipes.

https://www.diabetes.org.uk/diabetes-the-basics/type-2-reverse

Also

https://www.diabetes.org.uk/diabetes-the-basics/types-of-diabetes/type-2/preventing

6.5-7 is fine isn't it? I was told to aim for under 7.5 .

I have recently been diagnosed with pre-diabetes and saw a nutritionist. She recommended following a low GL diet, which is based on this book by Patrick Holford.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Low-GL-Diet-Cookbook-recipes-weight/dp/0749926422/ref=asc_df_0749926422/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=310842649900&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16597900126632033187&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046414&hvtargid=pla-465874671511&psc=1&mcid=22dd3335e8cf3c958f408b190f0094c7&th=1&psc=1

I don't have a list of such, but this book has some good recipes which follow this approach.

Diabetic Food List (PDF) - What to Eat & Avoid (thelifestylecure.com)

There's a list of both good and bad on the link.

@Terfosaurus 7.5 when fasting, so before breakfast?

I have read it should be under 5/5.5 for normal and that's what I am trying to aim for I suppose.

Oh ok. I guess me aiming for 7.5 is a start as it's never that low regardless of what I do or don't eat.
5.5 would be totally unrealistic for me.

Protein is your friend.
Brown, seeded or wholemeal bread.
Vegetables

Berries with greek yogurt

Have you been offered an appointment with a dietician?

Just a note to say that everyone is different and so it is a case of working woul what works best for you

For example whilst sone here advocate for high protein low carbs, for many white Europeans ( genetics matters a lot ) a Mediterranean style diet works best to stabilise sugars - and that's relatively low in meat

My morning are never accurate because of dawn phenomenon - they will have a bit of a spike first thing.

worry about your overall hba1c and not the single one/off numbers.

have a check no sooner than 6 weeks and ideally 12 weeks to track your progress

Do the Zoe program. Life changing. Flash glucose monitor will show you EXACTLY how you respond to foods.

You won’t respond though same as everyone else so a list on the front of the fridge isn’t going to cut it. It may help but it won’t give you absolute certainty or personalised knowledge you can use forever.

You can watch this guy to learn more about insulin resistance but remember your results will be different to his and you won’t know unless you monitor your own blood sugar responses. You can buy the monitors from Abbott direct if you can’t afford Zoe. £55 or so. Truly life changing. It’s changed the way I eat completely but that was ZOE and a lot of research on Pub Med.

A list on the kitchen fridge is a bit low input = low results.

What we do now impacts how we age and if we are well or not.

https://www.youtube.com/@insulinresistant1

I have pre-diabetes too. Don't panic!

It is very straightforward. On a typical plate: one quarter protein, one quarter carbs and half veg. Wholegrain cereals like brown rice and wholemeal bread are better than refined/white, and Lidl sells a nice low-GI brown loaf that I buy fairly often. Basmati rice is better than ordinary brown rice for some odd reason. New potatoes are better too, especially if you leave the skins on. You don't have to cut out all carbohydrates, just be sensible about it.

Oh and by the way, your body doesn't know the difference between regular fizzy drinks and ones with artificial sweeteners, your body reacts the same way to both when it comes to insulin resistance. They are best avoided altogether, as is alcohol.

It isn't all about food either, you need to sleep better, reduce stress, and increase the amount of exercise you do, even by a small amount. A 5-minute walk around the block each day is easy.

Just make little changes to your lifestyle bit by bit, until they become a habit.

These are my Zoe scores. Brown bread, brown rice both spike my blood sugar. New potatoes do too. For me it’s best if I swap all carbs for lentils, pulses, beans.

But I wouldn’t know this unless I’d used a flash glucose monitor (and done the Zoe program).

Anything above 50 I know I can eat regularly.

It’s also about pairing your foods.

And the order you eat them in too has an impact.

Low carb works for me, but we are not all the same - while a low carb/low sugar diet will be beneficial, we probably each have particular foods that we react to, and you will have to find out which ones do it for you, be it stewed apple or chips or whatever.

I don't have sweet potatoes, because I don't particularly like them. So I mostly just don't have potatoes at all.

You can eat sourdough (within reason) and should make sure it's limited and not the primary source of food. . The reason you can eat it is because it's fermented for 12-72 hours and this means that the bread itself doesn't spike your blood sugar like normal commercial bread. If you want to carry on eating bread then learn to make your own sourdough, with an autolysed flour to add to your starter and it's a game charger. And it's better for you than any other type of bread and you can use the discard to make crumpets and other things.

I had gestational diabetes so had to learn a lot quickly!

For me, rice, bulgar wheat, grains were fine. Bread was like kryptonite so you have to work out what carbs work for you.

Aim for carbs to be the size of your fist for each meal, really load up on protein and veg. Cheese is also your friend.

Never eat a naked carb - pairing a carb with fat or protein helps to limit sugar spikes.

I got on well with protein bagel thins if you fancied a sandwich.

I found this really helpful when working out root veg portions.

Hi,
I am a type 1 diabetic, and use the carbs and cals book and app,
Have you spoken to a dietician? Or are you under a hospital or GP for this