I was just dx’ed yesterday after an A1C. I have quite an involved and complicated medical history and appreciate anything you can tell me that will help. My result was 6.5, which I understand is mild/borderline. I have a lot of weight to lose, due to several medical issues over the past ten years or so that piled weight onto me. Everything has been dealt with and controlled except my candida, but I have started apple cider vinegar and already notice an improvement, so I’m hoping to get the T2 under control once the candida is. I’m not on med yet and hope to avoid it because I already take a lot for other things.
My main concern is what to eat. I’m completely gluten-free, so I have to incorporate that, whatever I do. I’m also a voracious researcher, so please feel free to suggest any reading that will help a “dummy.”
If I were you, I would get a blood glucose meter and discover what various meals do to your blood sugar levels. Your biggest research project should be to discover how your blood glucose metabolism responds to food. Carbohydrates are the main driver of post-meal blood glucose. Get a meter, test strips, a notebook and start writing down what you eat, when you eat, how much you eat, your blood sugar numbers before you eat and 1 and 2 hours after eating. Also check your blood glucose level when you get up in the morning and before you go to bed at night.
There are a lot of good books on living with diabetes. To get you started, check out this Blood Sugar 101 website. There’s a lot to learn and you have a long time to learn it. Don’t be overwhelmed. You will get through it.
Come back here with questions, You will get lots of help. Good luck.
One thing I found helpful when I was new to diabetes was to log everything I ate onto the FitDay website. That way I could see at a glance how many carbs I was getting in various foods and make changes as I saw fit. Others have found other similar websites that include good carb and other nutrient counting to be useful, too, so you might also want to check into others. I also found it helpful to initially log before and 2-hour after meal blood sugar readings on a spreadsheet with time and date and brief notation of foods eaten, so I could refer to it later if I’d forgotten what kind of response I’d had from certain foods.
Carbohydrates are the main foods you’ll need to keep under control as a diabetic. If you are gluten-free, that already takes care of a huge amount of foods that initially were a problem for many of us, all the breads. Now you’ll also want to be aware of other starches, such as rice, legumes, corn and the like, as well as fruit, which is high in natural sugars. It isn’t that you will necessarily have to eliminate them entirely, just keep the quantity down to what your particular body can handle. And your meter will help you to figure that out. Some of us can handle more than others.
Thank you both so much! I’m trying not be overwhelmed. This is just the latest in a long list of dxs I have had in the past 10 years.
My endo’s partner dx’ed me. I like him, but she’s moving back to her old office which is much closer to me, and I’ll see her in April. He told me to check my sugar once a week. My level was 130 at my appt.
I’m trying to get into a positive frame of mind and know that getting the weight off will help immensely. I’m treating both the causes aggressively, so we’ll see. It helps that my sugar cravings are way down with my treatment!
Welcome to the club no one ever asks to join. You’re A1c is not too bad, so you’ve found out fairly early. They ought to give you a better chance to keep diabetes in check/under control. Just remember that Type 2 diabetes is a progressive condition, so it is possible that you could do “all the right things” and still find it gets more difficult with time. That’s what happened with me – should that happen, don’t discount your efforts until then – you will still be healthier and probably more fit for your efforts!
Meanwhile, I’ll echo what @Terry4 and @Uff_Da said – carbohydrates are what you have to watch, food-wise. It can be easier when you have less carbohydrates in your die - though you have to find what works best for you. Get a meter and use it to see how food, exercise, stress, meds - everything - affect you. Every PWD (person with diabetes) is different and reacts differently to things. I can eat food safely that send others’ BG soaring, and things that make me go high might be just fine for you. You can only know what works for you by experimentation.
Be active here – there are a lot of people with a lot of different experience here. Though, you will be different, asking questions and taking advantage of the experience of others will help chart your journey. As they say, diabetes is a marathon, not a sprint. You will have good days and bad – you have to look at the long-term picture. Sometimes things will go wrong, true, but, as a good friend here once advised, when something goes wrong, think about it for 17 seconds - if you can figure it out, learn from it and correct whatever happened, otherwise, just move on and do what you have to do.
By the grace of God, my sugar cravings are way down, probably from the apple cider vinegar I’m taking to kill what’s left of my candida. That will make this much easier! I still have a lot to learn, so don’t worry about offending me. Any suggestions you all have for things to eat will help. I saw Atkins mentioned earlier (not here). Is that worth pursuing?
Hi. Paleo / primal/ low carb-moderate protein and fat to make up calories are all an, approach.
Controlling carbs will definitely be a major part of control. Learn to eat to your meter (once a week testing is not good advice).
What to eat?
unlimited: green and leafy vegetables, meats, eggs, healthy fats
moderate: other noon starchy veges, nuts, full fat umsweetened dairy, cold weather fruits, dark high cocoa chocolate (use your meter to see how much)
Avoid / limit: all sugars, tropical fruits, fruit juice, soda, grains (depend on your meter fur how much grain you can tolerate).
Ideally fasting blood sugar should be in the 80s. Post reading peak <140, even better if less than 120 or even 100.
You’ve received a lot of really excellent advice so I won’t repeat any of it. I’ll just respond to this:
There’s a lot of really good information out there, and an abundance of total snake oil (i.e., crap) that can have you running around in mental circles if you’re not careful. But there are some really superior books out there that can give you plenty of really useful help. Here are a few of the very best ones, in no particular order:
Richard K. Bernstein, Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution, 4th. ed. (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2011)
Gary Scheiner, Think Like A Pancreas (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2011)
Gary Scheiner, The Ultimate Guide To Accurate Carb Counting (Boston: Da Capo Press, 2011)
Jenny Ruhl, Blood Sugar 101: What They Don’t Tell You About Diabetes (Turners Falls: Technion Books, 2013)
This is great! Thank you! I appreciate the “snake oil” ref, too. I have several health issues and have come across such things before. Thanks again, David!
One of the things you will run into nearly everywhere is, “take this supplement to reverse your diabetes”. Cinnamon is a common one and there are many others as well.
David, does cinnamon help at all? I know it’s an anti-fungal and use it to treat my candida along with apple cider vinegar pills.I think the candida is a main reason for the T2.
There is no shortage of anecdotal claims from people who think it helped. But I have seen zero hard data. Many (most?) of the “studies” that claim to show a beneficial effect are from third world countries, not peer reviewed, not reproducible, or some combination.
In any case, even if you choose to believe some of this “evidence”, the demonstrated effect is mild at best. The difference between food supplements and real medications is the difference between a toy cap pistol and a 7mm magnum rifle. As a friend’s doc once put it, if “alternative medicine” worked, they’d just call it “medicine”.
They might call it medicine if doctors appreciated the value of some of it, too. I’m sure there’s a lot of snake oil out there, but had I not done all I have to the severe systemic candida I’ve battled for the past 7+ years, I would not be here now, plain and simple. Coconut oil, apple cider vinegar, and progesterone have all saved my life. I can’t even begin to tell you how sick I was. All that’s really left now is the weight, and that’s coming off, too–at last!
Your lucky that your just starting out…the main thing to keep in mind is NOT to get complacent and remember this a lot of endo’s say things once you have got it controlled to the point where YOU appear cured to say things like…Your only a little bit diabetic or your no longer a diabetic…Please take this from me there is NO such thing as cured treat it as if your in remission because too many get that 'Your cured or your not a diabetic and go back to there old habits and soon are far worse then they ever were before…my dad was one and others I know have been through this…including me my Endo said, "Wow your at 5.5 your just a little bit diabetic I looked her squarely in the eye and said,
"That’s like telling a pregnant lady your just a little bit pregnant, you are or your not.’
I realize I may seem a hard head here but my medical issues have made me go from being nearly perfectly controlled by diet and herbal supplement for it to now having to be on insulin which isn’t working well for me…Please remember once a diabetic your always one…yes you can be Normal but only if you keep from falling back into the ways that got you here. Books are good they teach one well but staying on top is so important good luck to you I know you’ll do well.
