Really bloody annoyed with pre diabetes/diabetes!! What am I doing wrong???

[icantwaitforsummer]

I am so pissed off with my pre diabetes diagnosis in November.

Nothing is working and I feel like I am heading toward diabetes and feeling really deflated. Can someone tell me what I am doing wrong, feel free to be really honest as I am getting so bloomin sick of it.

Yesterday I had a salad for lunch just chicken and leaves, for dinner made shepherds pie, full of veggies, celery, carrots, peas and made a thin layer of mash on top. With a side of broccoli, peas, cabbage and kale and gravy.

Walked on the treadmill, fast pace for 15mins straight after dinner. At 9pm I had a cup of tea with 1tsp xylitol sugar.

By the morning my blood sugar was 8.1!!

Tonight before dinner my blood sugar was 6:9. Had a roast with mounds of broccoli, kale, cabbage, some roast chicken from the air fryer and 1-2 small roast potatoes. Gravy.
Had 4 squares of chocolate after dinner. Ran on the treadmill for 16 mins. My blood sugar 2 hours after is 8.9!

I cannot get it below 6. I don't eat breakfast, I only drink green tea and water, very occasionally have a cup of tea or coffee with almond milk. Sometimes sourdough with avocado, mushrooms, egg, chia seeds. I feel like I live on salad and vegetables, celery, hummus and occasionally Greek yoghurt with nuts, but nothing is working!!!

I don't drink, don't smoke, since diagnosis I have lost a stone and will try to lost another 5-7lbs. But my weight is in the healthy range now.

After 3 months I feel ready to give up. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong?

My mum is going through the same thing, we are reading the sugar content on everything when doing her online shopping, avoid anything that says low fat because they increase the sugar content instead. Don't believe anything that says low sugar, I have seen things that still have 38g of sugar per 100g labelled as low sugar. Cook from scratch, try carrot & turnip mash instead of potato, try to eat 10 portions of veg per day if you can, at least half your plate should be veg, a quarter each of carbs & protein.

I would up the exercise and get fat off your middle/reduce body fat. People can carry too much weight on their middle while being a healthy weight and this is what raises the diabetes risk. Don't give up potatoes altogether but have one or two meals a day without any bread, pasta, rice or potatoes. Also blood sugar is affected by all sorts of things, not just food. Sleep, stress and exercise make a difference.

Also track all your food on something like Nutracheck. It's hard to know if you have the right nutrtional balance otherwise. Eating a healthy diet my sugar intake is always below the amount allowed for in Nutracheck and most of it comes from plants rather than bread or cake. The only time I have too many carbs and sugar is when I'm travelling for work, eating out and having a couple of glasses of wine. But that's not very often - it's quite interesting to see the difference between that and my normal eating.

Instead of salad, particularly if you are bored of it, how about having veg sticks with a dip instead? I find it more crunchy and satisfying and easier to eat more portions of veg than in a salad. Also easier to take to work.

The awful fact is that some people cannot get their blood glucose under control just by diet and exercise alone. If you take out potatoes and check the carb load of the veges you are eating and your overall carb intake is low (I aim for about 50 grams a day which isn't particularly low) and your bloods still remain high it might be worth asking your doctor for a trial of metformin.

A previous poster said 8 isn't particularly high--if I get a high over 8 that is still that high over 2 hours after eating, I know I need to review what I ate. Someone else said to ignore your daily blood glucose as it is the HbA1c that matters. You're hardly going to get a decent Hba1c if your bloods are out of control in the previous 3 months! Both matter.

I'm type 2.

I used a continuous glucose monitor for a couple of weeks just after diagnosis and that was interesting. For me bananas caused a spike.

I follow two rules.

1. eat protein for breakfast

2. eat low carb but not no carb.

So I rarely have potatoes. I top shepherd's pie with a mix of sweet potato, carrots and swede all mashed together, they are moderately carby but better than potatoes.

Check the veg you are eating, not all veg are low carb, you are eating sweetcorn and peas which are not low carb veg.

Everyone's body is different so try changing the veg you are eating.

I’m no expert but your diet sounds very low in protein and high in carbs?

Also I see you say you don’t eat breakfast, is that recommended? I’ve heard that for balanced blood sugar you need a high protein breakfast? Some scrambled eggs etc…

I’m pre diabetic and wore a glucose monitor for a couple of weeks.

Sleep and stress certainly made a huge difference in how my body handled food. Keep an eye on both those… (sorry about that as you seem very stressed at not losing the weight 💐)

So woke up at 7:45am this morning just drank water, I've eaten nothing, went on the treadmill for 30mins, some fast running in that too.

Just did my bloods 7.1

There is no formula that works, everything is so contradictory, even in these posts people say avoid carrot as it's a starchy carb then someone else says replace mashed potato with mashed up carrot and sweet potato. Those are both stretchy carbs?

It makes no sense, I hate this because I'm the sort of person that needs clear guidelines and rules. I need to know how to get it right and everyone says different things it's driving me insane. I feel so angry about it.

I am eating protein bars ate more toast chicken yesterday than I normally would, not a bit fan of it, but how can a dinner that was 60% kale and broccoli and cabbage with some chicken and 2 tiny roast potatoes about the size of 2 grapes be doing this to my body?

When my husband can eat, ice cream and cake and custard and bread and his blood sugar is pretty much 5 all the time?!

Aaarghhhh I'm annoyed at my stupid body. And the fact that everyone in family has diabetes and I thought I would be able to avoid it.

I think family history has a lot to do with it. My belief is that genetically if you have had a lot of poverty down the generations it affects how your body handles food. So if the diet has been predominantly carbs and sugar with little protein ( as in Irish families during the famine), it sets up a sensitivity to these things. Just as alcoholism is a genetically programmed predisposition due to family history. Drinking grain based alcohol, eating potatoes and a lot of bread etc predisposes later generations to diabetes. There is a lot of diabetes in Asia due to the amount of rice eaten there .

You made that up, i have half mediterranean heritage / half welsh. Both sides have diabetes despite us having more of a mediterranean based diet. It is genetic but nothing to do with ancesters eating bread , i think you have taken some research and misunderstood it.

There is no formula that works, everything is so contradictory, even in these posts people say avoid carrot as it's a starchy carb then someone else says replace mashed potato with mashed up carrot and sweet potato. Those are both stretchy carbs?

You have to work out what works for you, what makes your blood sugars spike. There are genersl rules about sugary, carb-rich food, but you need to work out what works for you - I can be okay with new potatoes like Jersey Royals, but floury baked spuds less likely. Tropical fruits are more likely to be sugary than berries or apples here, but varieties can also make a difference. Carrots may be okay for you - but maybe steamed rather than honey-roasted.

Most foods will raise your blood sugar- it's how high and how long it stays high is the problem.

Exercise really does make a difference- the days I have an aquafit or yoga class really shows in mu blood sugars. I do yoga most days, but there's a big difference between 20 minutes and a 90 minute class.

Op I know you mentioned walking on a treadmill but do you do any strenuous exercise? (I'm talking 30 minutes of quite high exertion) as well as being generally active.
What's your acv step count per day?

No I haven’t made it up.

Stop fixating on your fasting BG and eat some breakfast- cottage cheese or yogurt with seeds and nuts, that sort of thing.

My morning BG levels will not come down unless I have something to eat, yours might be the same.

Why are you skipping breakfast?

I’ve just googled it and skipping breakfast can actually increase your risk of prediabetes. Study here;

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9992887/#:~:text=In%20other%20words%2C%20the%20disruption,i.e.%2C%20the%20risk%20of%20prediabetes.

Has someone advised it?

How old are you op? As women age and lose muscle mass, they need a lot more protein than they think they need. I’d say you need to be lowering your 60% veg/carbs and increasing your meat/protein even more. That seems like a lot of carbs despite them being veggies.

Some people spike from exercise. Not everyone but a cgm
would tell you if you are one of these people. Checking bloods straight after exercise might not be best. I think you can get a free trial from Abbott of the freestyle libre 2/3 cgm for a two week sensor

Potatoes!!

I had gestational diabetes and potatoes and bread constantly sent my blood sugars over! I had to cut them out completely

Exercise without food can cause spike if your system starts releasing stored sugar to handle a drop / need for sugar to power your muscles ?

Avoid protein bars / UPF

Also, you need to not be so strict following other diabetic's guide lines and fine out what is or isn't working for you

I was told that what made my blood sugars higher might not make another's higher and vice versa so even though I got recommendations of what to avoid. It didn't necessarily mean that worked for my blood sugars so the consultant I worked with advised that there would be a lot of trial and error to my new diet

bread for instance - It was recommended to swap white bread for brown bread, yet the brown still also sent my blood sugars extremely high

I don't think you are eating enough fat. You've mentioned the Glucose Goddess... have a look at her instagram. She shows the spikes you get with certain foods and then again those foods when eaten with a type of healthy fat (nuts etc). The fat always reduces any spike.

I'd strongly recommend reading Spoon-fed by Tim Spector. Its totally changed how I eat.

Also, exercising will cause an increase in sugar levels, your body is releasing stored glucose to fuel your muscles. Don't check your sugar straight after exercise!

Get yourself a CGM OP. You will learn an awful lot about how your body deals with all different kinds of foods. I truly believe every adult should wear one - they're eye opening! You can get them from Amazon.

Could you provide a link please?

This worked for me - a coherent explanation of the issue and lots of recipes

https://www.wob.com/en-gb/books/mark-hyman/blood-sugar-solution/9781444760569

@icantwaitforsummer I was hovering around pre-diabetes. I got myself a blood glucose monitor so I could see in real time how foods affected me. I identified that alcohol and potatoes in any form blew my readings out the water and they stayed that way for far too long. That said, it doesn’t mean the same foods will trigger you.

In the AM there is a syndrome called Dawn Phenomenon which can raise your blood glucose even without food. When we have too high blood sugars it gets stored in the liver, fat and muscles and gets released if we need energy. Strenuous exercise can also raise blood sugars.

Insulin and diabetes I find is a complex area to fully understand. There are a few conditions that can cause raised blood sugars. The NHS, diabetes.co.uk and British Heart Foundation are all good informative sites. NHS also offers a Diabetes Prevention Programme.

By eating fresh vegetables, salad, beans, fish, chicken (some red meat) and healthy fats Ive managed to reduce my HbA1c to 5.2 which I’m pleased and relieved about in equal measure.

I hope you soon get sorted.

PS Stress can also raise your numbers! So try not to stress and get good quality sleep 👍