What diet do you recommend?

I want to do a diet which do you recommend…ATKINS, MEDITERRANEAN, SUGAR BUSTERS, ZONE, Shakeology, Herbalife>>>>> do you have one that is not listed? I have decided that I really want to be healthy. I have notice in the pass several years a down grade in my health, mental alertness, physical structure. I would like to get off the insulin and meds.

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I worked out my diet by testing 2 hours after meals and working out what caused a spike if there was one.
That food was then eliminated from my diet. Basically I eat low carb high fat, but each diabetic has an individual response to food, so rigidly following a diet plan is not very helpful. Good Luck.

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Just a reminder that diet is a personal choice. We have members that have made very different choices and had success with a variety of diets. I would encourage everyone to do their own research. Try to make decisions that are informed with science and evidence. And to be open to the idea that what works for you is an individual thing. Just two weeks ago I posted on research that suggested that different people had different glucose responses to various foods. Personally, I follow a low carb high fat diet that I prepare mostly myself from whole foods. But I’m not necessarily recommending it. I recommend everyone make their own personally informed and tailored choice.

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As @Brian_BSC you really can only find out which diet works best for you through trial and error. In the years before my diabetes diagnosis, there were times when I wanted to lose weight – I tried nearly every major “diet” out there and found that THEY ALL WORK (for weight loss) and THEY ALL FAIL (for long-term weight management). For me, completely eliminating something from my diet tends to leave me feeling deprived and leads to ultimate failure in the long term. I need a a diet based on a subset of the foods I like in moderation, with plenty of flexibility, as warranted. That worked well for mr and allowed me to maintain a healthy weight for years prior to my T2D diagnosis. Since then, I, too, have been experimenting to find the right combination in my new reality. I have been doing pretty well (A1c in the low 5’s), but still have a way to go to get the right balance overall.

It is said here often: Diabetes is a marathon, not a sprint. You have to experiment to find what will work for you for the long term – and every one of us is different and has a different personal journey.

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Hello everybody and thank you for the replies… I do understand that a “diet” is a personal choice and very individual. I just wanted to know which diet that people tried first. I am leaning toward the Beachbody diet because of another diabetic that I know from the web. So I just wanted to field out any opinions on either official diet.

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I do a combination of several low carb diets. I eliminated the food that spikes me. I try to keep my after meal bgs close to 120 or under if possible. So any food that spikes me higher I avoid. I have found LC bread that keeps my bgs around 100-110 after, so I don’t have to restrict my diet too much.

https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/insulin-resistance-good-t2d-7/

This is an interesting post and makes me happy I chose LCHF and intermittent fasting. Works for me, mostly, but is not for everyone.

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Insulin causes insulin resistance.

It makes a lot of sense. Why is this an under-appreciated concept?

Hi Christalyn–nice to hook up again. Here’s a blog about what works for me, but I absolutely agree with everybody who says you have to experiment and test a lot to see what works, eliminating the “spike-makers” as @Pastelpainter said…

Reflections on Low Carb Living Since 2007

Good luck and do keep us posted. You may find, as I did, that whatever works for you, you’ll gradually stop thinking of it as a diet, but rather just as the way you eat now…Blessings

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Profit and greed?

Malcolm Kendrick posted “A high blood sugar level has many different causes, and is the underlying causes that we should be interested in, not the lab test. Forcing blood sugar levels down with drugs, then claiming we have cured a disease, is another of medicine’s idiot concepts. You have ‘cured’ nothing. There was no ‘disease’ to cure.”
(Found that quote here: Thinking about diabetes once more | Dr. Malcolm Kendrick)

I think more research needs to go into why the blood sugar gets high, why the pancreas can’t keep up. It’s like saying someone with an infection who has a headache can be cured by giving them tylenol to treat the headache - the underlying cause has not been addressed.

To tell people they can bolus for anything they want to eat and that eating standard American diet is okay, that is wrong. More insulin does not necessarily make things better. Just more complicated.

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I had very nice results on the BeachBody diet, although I also did T25 and trained for a 1/2 marathon (this was in 2013, a long time ago!! LOL). The first time an oblique popped out, I thought I had cancer “OMG, a lump!” but then I saw one on the other side and thought “ABS!”. I think the notion of targeting 50/30/20 is practical but get burnt out pretty easily on the cans of tuna, multiple eggs, piles of chicken, etc. to hit it.

Re diabetes, for me what I think has helped the most is my willingness to be consistent or “boring” in that I often will eat the same things for breakfast and lunch during the week overandoverandoveragain. Part of it is being lazy but if I know how the food is, whether it’s a sandwich or something nudging more towards the proteiny side of the food spectrum, it makes it much easier to nail decent BG for 1/2 the day, 1/4 is the evening, when I have more time to wrassle with it and then try to be relatively flat overnight. This kind of happened as I was losing weight a few years ago (some of which I’ve subsequently found…eek!) but I’d find something that seemed to help and repeat. After doing that for a while, I got a pump and then CGM and stuff fell into place. I don’t know if that is quite as applicable to T2 Meds but I suspect that consistency would also be a useful analytic tool for T2.

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The concept that there exists a diet that is suitable for all diabetics is a dangerous myth.
Questions that need to be asked and answered before settling on the best menu plan include:

  • Are you a newly diagnosed diabetic with an hba1c just over 7.0?
  • Or are you a veteran who has dealt with type 1 or type 2 diabetes for years and now is experiencing steadily increasing BG levels?
  • Are you overweight (bmi 25-29) or obese (bmi over 30) or is your weight normal or even on the low side for your height?
  • Do you follow a regular exercise program, and if so is it vigorous or moderate or low key?
  • Do you take oral medications and/or insulin injections in order to manage your blood sugars?
  • Do you have other chronic health problems in addition to your diabetes?
    I’ve been asking myself those question now in preparation for a new and energized management regime for my type 2 in the new year and for anyone interested I’ll share the answers I’ve come to and what they suggest and later I plan to share how my management plan works out…
  • I am not new to this disease but have dealt with it for years (type 2) and recently my blood sugar levels have been increasing steadily with an hba1c of 8.5 and frequent random tests - post-meal and pre-meal - in the 220 to 250 range.
  • I am overweight with a bmi of 27.5.and with my height I could do well to lose about 20 lbs.
  • I used to spend two hours a day walking but after a cardiac arrest and some leg problems I fell behind so do little exercise today.
  • I do not inject insulin but I take two x 500 mg metformin daily
  • I have hereditary hemochromatosis which results in iron overload and potential problems if I eat high iron foods like spinach and red meat.
    My goal is twofold: lose 20 lbs and bring my hba1c down to 6.0 or less.
    My plan is also twofold: Replace my current regime of regular bread, potatoes and pasta with low GI, slowly absorbed carbs like rye bread, barley, beans and squash, replace all red meat with fish like sardines or salmon, or chicken, and substantially increase the amount of green, low carb veggies in my diet. Go for a brisk 45 minute walk immediately following two of my three daily meals: breakfast, lunch or dinner.
    It all starts on January 1, 2016.
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I was put on Mediterranean Diet by my endo as a start. I found (as mentioned before) that you will find certain foods that spike you, so you stay away – I also found foods I could eat in the beginning of the day and yet I don’t eat for dinner. I also tried the Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet – similar to Adkins or any of the other lo carb/no carb diets. I liked the book because they explain a lot of the science in an understandable way. When all is said and done, I found the key was in finding the right combination of carbs for me. Unfortunately, I have to limit my carbs more than most people. But, that’s me and its been worth it to feel better. I look at something I shouldn’t eat and remind myself I want to have a good day tomorrow. There are still great food choices and recipes out there.

Good Luck finding the right diet for you!