New here - T2 diabetic

[comedy]

I was diagnosed last November with Type 2 diabetes following a high fasting blood glucose in my regular blood tests. The doctor gave me the standard diet sheet from Diabetes Australia and I went shopping for low fat food, came home and threw out all the butter, full fat cheese and fatty chops.

Felt terrible and my fasting blood sugar stayed high. I had heard that some people with diabetes were eating a high fat diet, so I went looking, found some websites that advocated LCHF for healthy eating and to reduce blood sugar in diabetics, and as that is the sort of food I like to eat, I decided to give it a go. Went shopping for the butter, cream, full fat cheese and fatty meat I'd thrown out a few days previously, came home and threw out all the low fat junk I'd bought and hated.

Within a couple of weeks my fasting and post prandial blood sugar readings were down at normal levels. My first HbA1c result came back at 6.7. My 3 month was 5.6 and my 6 month was 5.5. My fasting BG ranges between 3.8 and 4.6, and a pp of 6.2 now makes me wonder where I went wrong.

I've been ketogenic for several months and really enjoy having lots of energy. Just wish I could lose my weight a bit faster. My biggest downfall is eating too much protein at times. Like last night, when I had cooked four grilled chicken wings and ate all four of them for dinner. They were yummy, but my protein was way over the 72 grams I'm allowed per day under the rules of ketosis.

Love walking in the parks around here - north of Brisbane - but I still put off doing it more often than I should.

So that's me. Coping with my D quite well, but far from perfect.

Also not sure where to put this post - Introduce Yourself or the Diabetes forum. If it should go in the D forum, please move it for me. Thanks.

[Sherrie]

Welcome Comedy!

You sound like you're doing really well, I love hearing about people with type 2 having success with low carb but why a limit of 72g protein? You can eat more then that and be in ketosis just fine! People on Atkins are usually around the 100g mark, some particularly males, may be even around 150g. At the end of the day, your limit on protein really should depend on how it effects you as an individual.

[comedy]

Welcome Comedy!

You sound like you're doing really well, I love hearing about people with type 2 having success with low carb but why a limit of 72g protein? You can eat more then that and be in ketosis just fine! People on Atkins are usually around the 100g mark, some particularly males, may be even around 150g. At the end of the day, your limit on protein really should depend on how it effects you as an individual.

Thanks for the welcome, Sherrie!

As a T2, I need to limit my protein to avoid the excess being converted to glucose and swimming around in my bloodstream. According to my research, the optimum is .8 - 1.0 grams per lb of lean body mass per day. My body composition scales tell me my percentage of fat (soooo depressing, ), so I have a spreadsheet that calculates the minimum and maximum protein I can eat for the day to avoid this. The same spreadsheet tells me my ketogenic ratio for the day depending on what I've entered into CalorieKing. I need to keep that above 2:1 to be sure of staying in ketosis.

I don't count calories, but try to keep my F:P:C ratio around 75:15:10 and if I keep my carbs below 30 and my protein around 72-73, then the only macronutrient I have to worry about is fat, and I can add or subtract that to balance it all.

Actually, since you prompted me, I looked at the spreadsheet just now and today it says I can have 74.5-93.13 grams of protein. Very surprising after my protein gorge last night. Bet I pay for it tomorrow or the day after. My scales are totally unforgiving and my glucometer has already expressed its displeasure, FBG up from 3.8 yesterday to 4.3 today.

I think the Atkins diet is probably good for non-diabetics, but it's too high in protein for me, I've discovered. And I can't do a weight-loss diet and change to a maintenance regime afterwards, because Diabetes is for life, so I have settled on the ketogenic ratio and low carb, medium protein, high fat. Love the food I eat, and am enjoying cooking for the first time in decades.

Oh and I should have mentioned that I am managing my diabetes with diet and exercise only. Sorry, I do know this makes a difference. :/

[arcticgirl]

Welcome Comedy

It was so inspiring reading your story!!! I am so glad for you. I wish more doctors would get their eyes up for Atkins/LCHF in treating diabetes. Actually, in Scandinavia (where I'm from) LCHF has been taken up into the diabetes guidelines, which I hope will happen here too eventually. I come from a long line of type 2 diabetics myself, and when I started to see the signs of metabolic syndrome in myself, I knew that my turn was up soon too... I turned to LCHF as kind of a last resort for losing weight, thinking it was totally "silly" since everyone knows we should eat low fat and lots of complex carbs... But then I read more and discovered that it would be the perfect way of living for me, with my family history. The weight has come off, and STAYED OFF for more than a year now! I'm never going back to any other way of eating, and I feel quite confident that I will never have to suffer the same destiny as my grandmother (blind, leg amputation)
I've got a blog with LCHF recipes, if you would like to have a look there.
The link is in my signature.

I'm in the Brisbane-area as well.
Cheers,
Arcticgirl

[arcticgirl]

Forgot to mention, my fasting blood glucose is about 3.9 as well. I eat pretty similar to you, try to stay on around 70-80 % fat and between 20 - 50 g of carbs daily (even though I don't count any more)

I started a thread about LCHF, here it is:
http://www.apinchofhealth.com/forum/...ead.php?t=9742

[comedy]

Wow, you're a wonderful example. And I love your BMI! I'm still hovering around 30, with one brief dip into 'overweight' instead of 'obese'. Such a huge difference in perception for 0.1...

Thanks for the link to your blog, I'll go and have a look at your recipes.

[Sherrie]

When you eat something like 4 chicken wings is the glucose hit from the protein noticeable? I guess you could trade in some carbs for extra protein on those times you want more as the 10% ratio leaves plenty of room. E.g. Atkins by memory carbs are around 5% but again even for type 2's peoples tolerances for protein won't be the same imo

Is it as noticeable if spread out evenly across meals, e.g. more noticeable if you have a larger protein portion in the one meal and if you put more fat or fibre with it does it help at all?

I'm not type 2 but I notice some proteins will make me more cravy which I put down to less fat and fibre.

Asking these question as we have a few type 2's here so good for you guys to share experiences

[comedy]

When you eat something like 4 chicken wings is the glucose hit from the protein noticeable? I guess you could trade in some carbs for extra protein on those times you want more as the 10% ratio leaves plenty of room. E.g. Atkins by memory carbs are around 5% but again even for type 2's peoples tolerances for protein won't be the same imo

Is it as noticeable if spread out evenly across meals, e.g. more noticeable if you have a larger protein portion in the one meal and if you put more fat or fibre with it does it help at all?

Yeah, everyone's different. I didn't do any post meal testing last night because I knew exactly what I'd done wrong and as I'm in my first year of D, I have used a lot of strips, working out what I can eat and what will spike me. I'm pretty sure I'll need more than my allotted 900 discounted strips for the year, so right now I'm only testing more than once a day if I eat something totally new.

I believe that the conversion of excess protein to glucose is a lot slower than it is for carbs, but honestly don't know what the timeframe is. I do know that eating anything with any of the sugars in it seems to change my insulin secretion for a couple of days until it settles back into its usual pattern, but as I can't measure insulin and our meters aren't the most accurate instruments around, it's all a bit of a guess. It all makes eating out a bit of an adventure, even when I question the staff in restaurants and cafés.

[Sherrie]

Do you get cravings when you do the wrong thing? or when you eat a meal that doesn't have enough fat etc find you crave more at the next meal?

Haha I'm not diabetic but I relate with the strips when I think about when I first went on Atkins and developed quite a fascination with keto sticks for a while there hehe

[comedy]

Do you get cravings when you do the wrong thing? or when you eat a meal that doesn't have enough fat etc find you crave more at the next meal?

Haha I'm not diabetic but I relate with the strips when I think about when I first went on Atkins and developed quite a fascination with keto sticks for a while there hehe

When I first went low carb, one of the instant benefits was the disappearance of gastric reflux and indigestion (I'm sure others have reported this here, I just haven't finished reading the older threads yet). So whenever I've been tempted, this stops me indulging. Thus I never get those cravings. But I always add 'just a bit more' butter to everything I use it for. And I get through 3 cartons of double cream a week, all on my own. Mostly in coffee...

So I can walk past a bakery without a twinge, no matter if I am hungry, and I am sometimes when I do a grocery shop on my way home from a brisk walk. Winter, I find, is having its usual effect of making me more hungry than I was in the warmer weather. Hence the 4 chicken wings in one meal.

LOL on the keto stix! That fascination is good, I think, as it helps us continue with the changes as they last into the habit phase.