How am I supposed to eat?

[MySillyEagle]

I can't get my sugar levels under control.

I'm type 2, I have recently bought a cgm as I constantly feel crap. Now I know why.

On a typical day, on waking I'll be 12. After breakfast and getting to work I'll be 15. By lunch I'll be 9. Mid afternoon 13. By dinner I'll be 6. Bed I'll be 5.

8am ish Breakfast would normally be toast or banana.
Midday ish Lunch chicken salad with fruit
8pm ish Dinner veg, meat, potato.

No dessert. No snacking. I drink black tea and lots of water. I'm on metformin, and I'm just so worn out with it all.

Please help me.

To add,

Yes, I'm menopausal
No, I'm not losing weight

I'm so stressed out with food, I'm constantly nauseous and I have a family to feed.

No, there's no other adult in the home to help.

I'm no expert but toast and a banana surely are terrible for blood sugar control? Greek yogurt with no sugar granola, or eggs, or anything with some fat and protein would be better I think.

Eggs or Greek yogurt with chia seeds and berries would be better than toast or a banana. Which fruit with lunch? Definitely no to any sweet fruits - dp will only eat berries. Drop the potato with supper and have more protein/ veg (not root veg)

Dp had to ditch all carbs to get his under control. He’ll make waffles out of cheese and egg - lookup chaffles for the recipe or make egg muffins to have for breakfast. For supper he’ll have veg with meatballs instead of pasta etc. Cauliflower rice has been useful, he makes a decent ‘Paella’ with it or he’ll have salad with eggs and chicken instead of just one protein to fill him up. Snack on a few nuts or home made pork scratchings or a hard boiled egg/ cheese, crudités etc

There are lots of books on diet and diabetes, with meal and snack suggestions.

Your GP should be able to recommend some, and you should ask for a referral to a dietitian if you are finding it hard to keep the blood sugar under control.

A banana and toast are completely wrong choices for a diabetic!

Eat keto.

Its basically a diabetes reversal diet.

www.dietdoctor.com/diabetes

You could be more “aggressive” with your diet to further limit carbs, which others have suggested. You should also ask for a meds review, as it may be helpful for you to adjust your metformin dosage or start another medication alongside it.

living with type 2 diabetes is hard, and it shouldn’t be that you have to abstain from carbs forever - the medication is there to support you to live a healthy and balanced life. Your menopause may also be impacting things, and it could be worth considering HRT if you haven’t already.

please know that these blood glucose readings are not scary high, and actually show relatively controlled type 2. It is more concerning you feel crap all the time, you don’t need to be OP. Sending a hug!

I highly recommend Michael Mosley’s Fast Keto 800 book. It gives so much excellent information on regulating blood sugar with really good, easy, nutritious recipes.

I’m not on the diet but still use the principals and recipes all the time.

Toast, banana and potato all shout out as quick release carbs. Fruit varies - if it's grapes scrap them, they are just little balls of sugar.

The Diabetes UK website is very helpful for recipes. You very quickly get the idea of swaps on there as it's all veg, fibre, wholegrains, pulses.

I recommend reading The Diabetes Code by Jason Fung

The cgm will help you work out what foods raise your blood sugar. Bananas are very high sugar so I’d avoid, I find whole meal seeded toast is ok if I have it with eggs or peanut butter, but just one slice. Greek yoghurt and berries/seeds (frozen berries are much cheaper) breakfast is good, also have a handful of nuts if you need a snack.

I’ve recently been diagnosed and have significantly reduced my blood sugar by not eating pasta, rice and potatoes - even the brown version of pasta and rice spiked my blood sugar so it’s easier for me to avoid until I’m happy it’s under control. I can then reintroduce them slowly and see what I can tolerate.

Above ground veggies are your friend, as are natural fats because they don’t affect your blood sugar and help you feel satiated.

Intermittent fasting is also good, I usually eat between an 11am - 7pm window, so 16/8, the longer period between gives your liver a change to process the sugars in your system and does bring it down slowly but surely.

By doing that I’ve brought my blood sugar down 8 point in 10 days, and it’s mostly in “green” now. After a few days your monitor will give you really useful information like average glucose across each hour so you can see when it tends to be higher, and will also estimate your hbA1C at your next blood test. I find it really motivating to see the numbers change so I can understand you feeling frustrated.

My gp just said diabetes is complicated. I have to agree.

HRT was out of the question because of a cancer link in the family. Apparently.

A dietician just told me to cut out takeaways, junk food and chocolate. I have never eaten like that. So changes I could actually make were minimal. She offered no other advice.

I eat an apple or a pear at lunch.

I struggle to find the time to sit and eat breakfast. I can eat a slice of toast on the run.

I'm a single mum. I have no wriggle room to buy more meat. Whatever I eat, I have to feed my family. A child with autism and food texture issues is another massive complication.

My life revolves around food. I don't want to spend all my time in the kitchen cooking different meals. I feel constantly nauseous and the sight of food is all so overwhelming.

I just want to feel better.

I found the diabetes uk website really confusing, a fair few of the recipes seemed pretty high carb and, from my cgm, some of the ingredients would definitely spike my blood sugar. It’s worth trial and error though because different people can tolerate different things.

I do second reading either Jason Fung or Michael Mosley to get a contemporary take on diabetes, how it develops and how to get it under control.

Franpie · Today 21:08
I highly recommend Michael Mosley’s Fast Keto 800 book. It gives so much excellent information on regulating blood sugar with

I read his books when first diagnosed but it wasn't conducive to family meals.

And keto is expensive. I don't have the money for that.

In fact, I've had to buy my own cgm, that's expensive.

I'm trying my best to figure this out. But the finger prick testing was expensive too and not as good as the cgm.

I suppose the stress of buying all this testing stuff is an issue too. But I have to be well for my kids. There is no one else.

It is complicated, I too have kids to feed so I make whatever I’m making and replace the pasta/rice with things like broccoli, green beans etc. I found low carb wraps in Tesco for things like fajitas, they’re not cheap but good when you just want something that feels like a more normal meal.

You don’t need to buy more meat, eggs, cheese and Greek yoghurt are good sources of protein and relatively cheap. I also buy turkey mince/steaks as a swap for red meat - cheaper and healthier. I also batch cook casseroles etc so if the kids are having a beige meal I have something I can make easily for myself.

Its very hard because all of a sudden you need to change how you eat, lives are busy and you have other people to factor in to your plans. And you can’t “see” what works or doesn’t which is where the cgm comes in handy. I’m still coming to terms with my diagnosis, it feels very hard to know your health is harmed and the assumptions about type 2 don’t help. You will get there though.

Avoid eating naked carbs, try to always have them with a source of protein, fat or fibre. I had GD which for all intents and purposes is T2 and I could not eat potato (boiled, mashed) because it spiked my sugars but I could eat crisps(!) because the fat coating the potato slowed down digestion. All bread, wraps, anything made of wheat was out of the question, I could tolerate small amounts of brown rice and rye bread.
NHS dietary advice was largely terrible and based on the very outdated food pyramid thing, I had to treat myself like an experiment and see what did and didn’t spike my sugars.
Finally, walk for 20 minutes immediately after eating if you can, it helps to slow down the conversion of carbs to sugar and can reduce spikes.

Did you get a free trial first? That gives you a snap shot without the initial outlay, if not when this one runs out you can get a free one if you want to continue monitoring.

Speak to your doctor. Your medication may need adjusting. Ask if there is a diabetes education group you can join.

I know you’re saying you don’t have time or money and your children come before you. But life won’t get easier through diabetes complications - you could get heart disease, damage your vision. You and your health are important too.

If you have to eat breakfast on the run, make it a boiled egg or 2, with mayo if you like. You can boil them the night before so they're ready. If you must have toast with that, make it 1 small piece of wholemeal, pref with peanut butter (high calorie but also high protein, it will fill you up). Read the label on the bread - many brown-coloured seeded loaves are actually made with white flour. Or sticks of carrot, celery, cucumber, pepper, with hummus - again, you can get this ready the night before.

You need to write down everything you eat over the day and see how your BG readings are 20 minutes afterwards. Then you'll see what's spiking your sugar.

Fruit - the sort grown in the UK are far less sugary than tropical. So apples, pears, berries. Not banana, pineapple, grapes, mango!

Can you bring forwards your evening meal by an hour or two to minimise that dip?

What are you drinking? Obviously you shouldn't be having sugar in tea/coffee, or sugary pop/squash. But fruit juices and smoothies are also terrible for blood sugar.

You have to eat something vegetable first. This costs your stomach with fibre first so the sugar can’t get into blood.

Lots of suggestions, thank you.

I make my own peanut butter and have that on my home made malt seeded bread.

White bread does me in.

I do actually eat the veg first at dinner, a habit from when I was a child and I did what my mum said!!

I can't get home from work any earlier for an earlier dinner.

I long for topical fruits, but I avoid.

I am sick of eggs, plus the cholesterol issue comes into play.

I avoid pasta as that really terrible for me.

I've been T2 since 2020 when I was really ill with COVID. I had several health issues from that that took a long time to resolve. This is the last one standing.

I feel I've asked so many medical people how to cope and I'm getting nowhere.

However, more of your comments are welcomed, I can try and incorporate some suggestions into my life

Sugar isn’t absorbed in the stomach it’s absorbed in the intestine so that is nonsense.

Do you know why you feel constantly nauseous? If it's the metformin, you should be changed to the slow release version which generally fixes the problem.

Are you seeing the GP or the practice diabetes nurse? If it's the GP, you will probably get better advice from the nurse as they handle all the diabetes reviews and do the extra training on diabetes. I am a doctor and would never change someone's diabetes meds without clearing it with our diabetes nurse, she knows far more as she basically does diabetes nearly all the time.

My husband is T1 and basically eats keto. Bread, unless it’s the Lidls low GI one spikes him. Pasta is off the menu. He has plant based milk (think it’s made from peas) or cream as there is too many carbs in milk. He injects long acting insulin in the morning and rarely has to inject the fast acting stuff as he manages to keep his blood sugar at the right level and stable with diet. Yes it’s a faff and expensive but the complications from poorly managed diabetes are frightening. We also have a child with arfid so we can’t remember the last time we all ate the same meal and I do understand how you are feeling