Is cheese a yes or a no for type 2s? I’m wondering because I like to eat it for snacks.
For each person food affect differently. A lot of it is trial and error to find what foods work and don’t work for you. Personally cheese is something I can eat and it won’t shoot my blood sugar up that much. My doctor told me low fat cheese.
I love cheese. I have been eating a lot more since my diagnosis. If you check the carb content you will find that hard, aged cheeses have almost none, and soft cheeses such as cream cheese and cottage cheese have quite a bit. So I don’t eat as much of those. But I can eat as much as I like of the hard cheeses without needing any insulin. Enjoy!
Cheese is my main protein food since I’m not big on meat. I eat hard and soft cheeses. I watch calories, because I’m at the age where I’m a human air plant and can gain weight just walking by food, but with a high fat fairly low carb diet, my HDL is up to 76 and my triglycerides are in the 80s, and that’s pretty much what you need to see to know you’re eating right.
I don’t eat low fat foods because my extensive study of the dietary and health research convinces me that low fat dietary advice is not based on good science… The new Taubes book documents this in intense detail, but people like Dr. Bernstein and the Eades have been discussing the science of this for over a decade, and I’ve seen nothing to convince me they aren’t right.
If you keep your carbs low enough to keep your blood sugar flat, fat is fine. If you are routinely going over 140 mg/dl and staying over 120 for hours at a time, then you do need to change your diet, but the only way you’ll do that is by eliminating the carbs that raise your blood sugar. Cutting out the fat is only going to make you eat MORE foods that push blood sugar up!
Cheese does not raise my bgs, but yes it has a lot of fat which can make your bgs higher later. I tend to ead string cheese which has a lower fat content. A snack I like a lot that I don’t have to shoot insulin for is a handful of almonds and a piece of string cheese. 
I’d be lost if I couldn’t eat cheese. I’m always on the run on the way to work. A slice of cheddar or a stick of string cheese, and a low-carb muffin bar, or part of a high-fiber oatmeal bar is about the best I can do. Some times I manages some fruit, too. On days I have classes over lunch, cheese in individual packaging is handy for eating in the classroom, or at my desk if I miss break or just get hungry.
I agree with Jenny about the low-fat. Years ago my GP told me it was better to eat less of a fat than to eat something substituted for that fat which might not be good for me. And so I’d rather have a teaspoon of real butter than a tablespoon of margarine! 
Cyn,
Taubes mentions in his book that both beef and pork fat are high in the same oleic acid that is found in Olive oil, and which is always touted as a “healthy fat.”
I dropped 30 lbs and improved my lipids enormously eating a diet that was 70% fat and 10% carbs for a year. I was measuring and logging with software so I knew EXACTLY what I was eating. I maintained that weight loss for 4 years on a slightly higher carb diet that is still high in fats. The only problem I ran into was when I stopped taking my estrogen supplementation which pushed up my blood sugar and made it much harder to control for some reason. So I have no doubt that a high fat low carb diet is healthy.
My diabetes is genetic, one I’ve had all my life, not Type 2. People with Type 2 usually get much better blood sugar control than I do when they eat that way because they have beta cells that are able to secrete. (I seem to have gone through life relying on basal insulin alone since my beta cells don’t secrete in response to normal rises in blood sugar.)
Unfortunately, fats (and stress) are triggers for my IBS. I’d given up most fried and fatty foods because of that, and a slightly “enlarged” liver several years before the T2 came on. Every once in a while I push it and then pay for it. Glad to hear it works so well for you, though.
Cyn,
Out of curiousity, have you tried fats WITHOUT carbs. If I eat fat and carb together, I develop gas and heart burn. But after i cut the carbs out the heartburn and digestive symptoms went away. I’ve heard from many people who had similar responses.
Doctors rarely tell people you can cure heartburn simply by eliminating carbs, but it usually works unless you have an ulcer or are taking a drug that inflames the stomach lining.
Probably not. But at this point, I’m not sure I would be willing to risk the return of the 24-hours of painful gastrointestinal attacks to test it. To say nothing of going a whole day without eating or drinking, and then being queasy for another day or two.
It isn’t things like cheese which would hurt me, but fatty meats like bacon, pepperoni and poorly fried fish or seafood, etc. I don’t eat anything that looks like it is swimming in grease, whether it is meats or vegetables, or even soups or casseroles. I also had several medication changes over the years, as my doctor tries to be sure I am not on things which will irritate my stomach. Heck, it may be the arthritis med I was on that started the whole ordeal.
Right now, keeping carbs reduced since my T2 dx is diffcult enough, along with job and grad school stress. My A1C’s have been good for over a year, and my weight has stayed constant. I’d like to lose more, and I could with more exercies, but there’s only so much I can handle right now. One step at a time.