i know there are a few people here who control their type 2 diabetes without medication, using only diet and exercise. if they see this post and feel like answering, i would like to know how they do it specifically. also, i am prediabetic and taking metformin. for those people controlling type 2 with only diet and exercise, why not take metformin? thanks.
It’s for sure I was never someone that could control with diet and exercise. I have hung out on this site for quite some time and have noticed that those that can have a laser like focus when it comes to D & E. The real truth to the matter is that not everyone can even if they have laser focus.
T2 is extremely variable, it is thought to be more than just one condition with many different causes. The saying that YDMV (Your diabetes may vary) is especially true with Type 2.
We should all strive to be our best with diabetes but we should not beat ourselves up if we cannot match the accomplishment of someone else. If we have done our best we should hold our heads high.
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i agree. and to do my best, i need to try out strategies that have been successful for others.
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I applaud your determination, I wish you much success.
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I’ve been without meds for 8 years now; A1cs ranging from 6.5 at dx to 4.9 to 5.3 and 5.6…I was dx at 57 and the transition was difficult, but I had been a dancer for 40 years until fibromyalgia crippled me in 1996, so re-inventing myself was at least a familiar, if enraging and exhausting process…
When I found TuD, I also discovered mentions of Bernstein’s low-carb approach. Once I made the transition, I never looked back. It is a way of eating that suits me and with which I am now comfortable.
But make no mistake: @Stemwinder_Gary is completely correct. T2 is incredibly complex. And, at 65, I am finding it gets even more complex. While I am still not interested in changing how I eat, exercise gets more difficult as my arthritis worsens, periods of sleep deprivation mess with my metabolism, the beginnings of COPD complicate the landscape (I was a smoker until 9 years ago), thyroid and hormonal changes continue to evolve—etc. In short–aging will probably bring an organic end to this way of dealing with The Scourge of D.
But that’s life, isn’t it? When the time comes, it is my intent to go right to insulin—if insulin is what I need, I see no reason for any other intervention with a whole separate menu of side effects. I wrote a blog specifically about eating lo-carb that may be helpful. I’ll see if I can get a link in here…Blessings
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When I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 1998 it took me a few months to get a handle on what that meant and what I needed to do about it. The recipe I came up with allowed me to manage without medications for 16 years. At that point, following a cardiac arrest and a stay in the hospital, my hba1c had crept up to 7.2 and my doctor recommended starting on metformin.
The recipe was quite simple though it required a lot of self discipline to stick to it.
- Eat a balanced diet with an ample amount of carbs, but stick only to carbs low on the glycemic index. These include sources like rye bread, Uncle Bens converted rice, squash, barley, whole wheat fettuccini, boiled nugget potatoes and green beans. All baked goods made from wheat, as well as potatoes and most kinds of pasta and rice are out.
- Go for a 40 minute brisk walk immediately following each of my major three meals during the day.
- At least three or four times during the week replace one of my regular walks with stair walking - up and down the nearest stairwell, for half an hour.
It worked for me - after six months hba1c was down from 8.6 to 6.1 and after a year it was in the low 5’s…
Of course, I was fortunate as I had my own business and could manage my time so that I could do those walks. It also meant going to bed early and getting enough sleep, but it worked.
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judith, i have hot flashes at night from perimenopause. i am 50. i also think there might be a glucose regulation component to the hot flashes. i’m off during the summer as i am a teacher. i always have better numbers in the summer, i can get more sleep, and i have fewer/less severe hot flashes during the summer. recently i got my ob/gyn to prescribe metformin for me. i thought it would allow me to be a little less strict with carbs. i started eating slightly more carby and i had worse numbers for me as a prediabetic- 140s - 160s one hour post prandial. i would go back pretty fast to a good number because i would take a bike ride etc. but on those days with relatively larger fluctuations in bg, i would get worse hot flashes at night and wake up dragged out. i’m wondering if you experienced anything like that.
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Good question, good responses on this thread.
I REALLY aimed to control with D & E. But I was diagnosed w/ an A1C of 14. I needed metformin!
metformin has also been associated with anit-cancer properties, so that’s another reason i am taking it as my genetic tests and family history show i have a relatively higher chance of colon and breast cancer. i have had no diarrhea or any other side-effects with metformin so far. i have been taking it all summer. i will really see if it makes a difference once school starts in september. that is when my bg is over 100 pretty much everyday even with moderate carb and exercise.
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judith and administrators, when i click on the recipe links in judith’s 2007 post, i get The page you requested doesn’t exist or is private. how can i access those specific recipes in her post?
let me know what recipes you’re looking for, and I’ll see if I can recover them. We lost links when we migrated to the new platform.
As @MarieB noted some links were just broken after the transition. Fortunately “search” is so much better on this site. You can almost always find exactly the topic you want just from the link. The link (i.e. https://forum.tudiabetes.org/topics/carb-reasonable-stuffing) contains the title of the old topic, which in this case was actually “carb reasonable stuffing recipes.” So if you go to search and just look for the terms “carb reasonable stuffing” then BLAMMO, there is the topic you want. This should work for basically everything that has become disconnected.
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That’s Gerri’s stuffing recipe. Here is mine…
Try again:
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I just remembered a post I did here after the transition that included a bunch of the recipes I like. Let’s see if I can get this one to show up here:
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