Finding it difficult to limit carbs
Options
Replies
-
I am (or was; probably not anymore but we'll see at my next annual) pre-pre diabetic. Blood glucose 102 or 103 or something. Here is what the doctor told me, verbatim. I remember it verbatim, because it had a huge impact on me and changed my life.
"You aren't diabetic, but you are going to be, and not that long from now. If you want that not to happen, you need to lose a lot of weight."
"Should I watch my carbs?"
"You can watch whatever you want. But you have to lose weight. That is what will prevent you from getting T2D. Everything else is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."
This is essentially what my wife's doctor told her. All of the priority is on losing weight with zero concern for carbs. She has adopted a moderate carb lifestyle like me but it was her choice.
With that said she is not a heavy sweets eater and her eating before starting moderate carb was generally under 175 per day with a decent amount of fiber to offset. If she were eating a very high carb diet that might be a point of concern.5 -
psychod787 wrote: »
What parts about what I said about physiology are wrong?
The way you tell your muscles to upregulate their insulin receptors is to crash your insulin levels on a regular basis (by avoiding high-glycemic-index carbs) and deplete the muscles of locally-stored glycogen by exercising. Use every tool in your arsenal to do those things and you can reverse 'pre-diabetes'.
Don't believe me, look it up in Harrison's Principals of Internal Medicine.
I'm a licensed physician. Bite me.2 -
psychod787 wrote: »
What parts about what I said about physiology are wrong?
The way you tell your muscles to upregulate their insulin receptors is to crash your insulin levels on a regular basis (by avoiding high-glycemic-index carbs) and deplete the muscles of locally-stored glycogen by exercising. Use every tool in your arsenal to do those things and you can reverse 'pre-diabetes'.
Don't believe me, look it up in Harrison's Principals of Internal Medicine.
I'm a licensed physician. Bite me.
I think the real issue (at least how I felt when I read your post) was mostly not understanding OP's needs. When someone says they find limiting carbs difficult, that's the place to start. How to make weight and carb management doable (if carb management is even needed since she is not diabetic), not to suggest extra restrictions. People with full-blown diabetes are able to manage their blood sugar without avoiding grains, so why would someone who isn't even diabetic and could most likely manage through caloric restriction alone need to be told that their life is in danger if they eat bread? Wouldn't working with them to find a strategy they'll actually follow work better? Blowing things out of proportions to the point where they go "this is not doable, I guess I will have to accept my fate" (actually happened to a relative I know) is less helpful.16 -
psychod787 wrote: »
What parts about what I said about physiology are wrong?
The way you tell your muscles to upregulate their insulin receptors is to crash your insulin levels on a regular basis (by avoiding high-glycemic-index carbs) and deplete the muscles of locally-stored glycogen by exercising. Use every tool in your arsenal to do those things and you can reverse 'pre-diabetes'.
Don't believe me, look it up in Harrison's Principals of Internal Medicine.
I'm a licensed physician. Bite me.
Lol.. mama said, "breads the devil!" Oh, btw, MOST M.D.'s have little in the way of dietary training. Oh... oh.... I also work for doctors. I can tell you... some of the things I have heard them say and do.... whewww!🤣7 -
psychod787 wrote: »
What parts about what I said about physiology are wrong?
The way you tell your muscles to upregulate their insulin receptors is to crash your insulin levels on a regular basis (by avoiding high-glycemic-index carbs) and deplete the muscles of locally-stored glycogen by exercising. Use every tool in your arsenal to do those things and you can reverse 'pre-diabetes'.
Don't believe me, look it up in Harrison's Principals of Internal Medicine.
I'm a licensed physician. Bite me.
Oh, current research shows that inside a mixed media meal. G.I. means very little. The G.I. was made using single food types. Your a "little" behind the times Doc. Catch up. Opps... that has sugar In it, cant have that... see what i did there?8 -
WinoGelato wrote: »Hannahwalksfar wrote: »I’m just going to tell myself that all the woos mean the people love my advice
More likely people are reacting to your sensational and unwarranted comment that the OP’s life is not worth bread...
I see. To clarify I meant that the op’slifeisnt worth risking eating bread and making themselve’s sick. So their life is much more valuable than the bread they want to consume.7 -
Hannahwalksfar wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Hannahwalksfar wrote: »I’m just going to tell myself that all the woos mean the people love my advice
More likely people are reacting to your sensational and unwarranted comment that the OP’s life is not worth bread...
I see. To clarify I meant that the op’slifeisnt worth risking eating bread and making themselve’s sick. So their life is much more valuable than the bread they want to consume.
Ok.... read post above, bbbuuuttt, I will break it down for ya. Say i have a plain baked potato, high G.I. carb btw, with a steak and broccoli with a little butter on it. The fat in the meat and butter and the fiber in the veggies will SSLLLOOOOWWWW the release of glucose from the potato...😘5 -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29629761
Google "re-heat" with "resistant starch". A lot of carby foods will spike blood glucose much less if they are cooked in water, cooled and re-heated. This is a way of converting simple carbs into resistant starch which decreases digestibility of starchy foods. Pasta and rice can be simply cooled and re-heated. For bread, freeze and toast to get the same effect. I am not sure there is a similar technique for potatoes but try googling for studies.
I would recommend confirming tests on yourself with a blood glucose monitoring kit. The kind where you can test blood glucose by pricking your finger tip. Available in drugstores.
4 -
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29629761
Google "re-heat" with "resistant starch". A lot of carby foods will spike blood glucose much less if they are cooked in water, cooled and re-heated. This is a way of converting simple carbs into resistant starch which decreases digestibility of starchy foods. Pasta and rice can be simply cooled and re-heated. For bread, freeze and toast to get the same effect. I am not sure there is a similar technique for potatoes but try googling for studies.
I would recommend confirming tests on yourself with a blood glucose monitoring kit. The kind where you can test blood glucose by pricking your finger tip. Available in drugstores.
Yup, they change the structure of the polysaccharide chains... you are good btw. Can I friend you?2 -
LIFOtheparty wrote: »Thank you everyone for your replies! To clear up a few things - my doctor did not specifically tell me to do keto, he simply said "eat mostly meat, vegetables, and eggs and limit bread to once a week". I had tried keto in the past and asked him if I should do that again - he said that would be fine. But I didn't really get any more specific guidance than that, which is honestly why I'm a little confused now.
I thought you sounded a bit confused about how to implement the advice, which is why I think a referral to a registered dietitian would be a good idea if possible. It's usually covered by insurance if the doctor will refer you. That would give you a lot more guidance and let you talk through things that you think would be difficult for you.I have started to incorporate exercise into my lifestyle, which is apparently a good way to control high blood sugar.
Yes, it is.In terms of food, I never really ate a ton of refined white carbs to begin with, so it's not really a matter of just switching to wheat bread or brown rice. But it sounds like limiting carbs to maybe 100g per day would be a good place to start? It would certainly be more sustainable for me than doing keto. Thank you all for your help - getting a diagnosis like this is scary and it's nice to hear from others who have had the same experience.
There are others longtime posters here who have controlled T2D with diet (hope one shows up). It seems like it's common to work with a certified diabetes educator (your dietitian could be one of those).
Anyway, I think there's some variation on what foods trigger you -- I have a friend with T2D, and he found white rice, even with fat and protein (maybe especially with fat) was one of the worst things for his blood sugar, he basically had to give up the Chinese take out he loved.
That aside, as I understand it, it's about limiting carbs per meal and making sure that you get a good amount of fiber and also protein with it -- a mixed meal. If you can't get a referral, maybe something like that, so 100 g or so of carbs a day, about 30-40 g per meal? And for weight loss, are you using MFP to set a calorie goal and count cals? Weight loss alone often addresses insulin resistance.
But I am not a doctor or an RD, and I think the dietitian option is the best one.
I'm formerly T2D and was morbidly obese. Controlled both glucose and weight, among a variety of other severe cardiovascular health risks, with a calorie deficit and a focus on reduced carbs (around 50-150g/d).
The horribly oversimplified explanation is that your fat cells are nearing their capacity to store fatty acids and your pancreas is having trouble signaling more insulin to meter those fatty acids in a controlled manner. Insulin is also responsible for shuttling glucose for use or storage, so fast-digesting carbs create more glucose than your insulin can handle since it's busy trying to keep fatty acids in check. Hence, insulin resistance.
You would need to be mindful of carbs and their quality to control glucose, but you don't need to do keto unless you want to. Your doctor giving the okay for keto is probably more along the lines of "if you think you might have trouble controlling carb intake, then eliminating it completely may just be easier, mentally." Not that I'm a doctor, but it seems logical to me why you may not have heard anything else beyond that.
Just keep your diet simple. Place a priority on protein, nutrient dense fibrous sources of carbs, reduce hyperpalatable refined carbs within your calculated calorie deficit, and exercise (emphasis on strength training, though any activity is better than none). As you lose fat and stimulate muscle for growth, your body becomes more efficient at shuttling incoming food to their proper place and you should see better lab readings.4 -
LIFOtheparty wrote: »Thank you everyone for your replies! To clear up a few things - my doctor did not specifically tell me to do keto, he simply said "eat mostly meat, vegetables, and eggs and limit bread to once a week". I had tried keto in the past and asked him if I should do that again - he said that would be fine. But I didn't really get any more specific guidance than that, which is honestly why I'm a little confused now.
I thought you sounded a bit confused about how to implement the advice, which is why I think a referral to a registered dietitian would be a good idea if possible. It's usually covered by insurance if the doctor will refer you. That would give you a lot more guidance and let you talk through things that you think would be difficult for you.I have started to incorporate exercise into my lifestyle, which is apparently a good way to control high blood sugar.
Yes, it is.In terms of food, I never really ate a ton of refined white carbs to begin with, so it's not really a matter of just switching to wheat bread or brown rice. But it sounds like limiting carbs to maybe 100g per day would be a good place to start? It would certainly be more sustainable for me than doing keto. Thank you all for your help - getting a diagnosis like this is scary and it's nice to hear from others who have had the same experience.
There are others longtime posters here who have controlled T2D with diet (hope one shows up). It seems like it's common to work with a certified diabetes educator (your dietitian could be one of those).
Anyway, I think there's some variation on what foods trigger you -- I have a friend with T2D, and he found white rice, even with fat and protein (maybe especially with fat) was one of the worst things for his blood sugar, he basically had to give up the Chinese take out he loved.
That aside, as I understand it, it's about limiting carbs per meal and making sure that you get a good amount of fiber and also protein with it -- a mixed meal. If you can't get a referral, maybe something like that, so 100 g or so of carbs a day, about 30-40 g per meal? And for weight loss, are you using MFP to set a calorie goal and count cals? Weight loss alone often addresses insulin resistance.
But I am not a doctor or an RD, and I think the dietitian option is the best one.
I'm formerly T2D and was morbidly obese. Controlled both glucose and weight, among a variety of other severe cardiovascular health risks, with a calorie deficit and a focus on reduced carbs (around 50-150g/d).
The horribly oversimplified explanation is that your fat cells are nearing their capacity to store fatty acids and your pancreas is having trouble signaling more insulin to meter those fatty acids in a controlled manner. Insulin is also responsible for shuttling glucose for use or storage, so fast-digesting carbs create more glucose than your insulin can handle since it's busy trying to keep fatty acids in check. Hence, insulin resistance.
You would need to be mindful of carbs and their quality to control glucose, but you don't need to do keto unless you want to. Your doctor giving the okay for keto is probably more along the lines of "if you think you might have trouble controlling carb intake, then eliminating it completely may just be easier, mentally." Not that I'm a doctor, but it seems logical to me why you may not have heard anything else beyond that.
Just keep your diet simple. Place a priority on protein, nutrient dense fibrous sources of carbs, reduce hyperpalatable refined carbs within your calculated calorie deficit, and exercise (emphasis on strength training, though any activity is better than none). As you lose fat and stimulate muscle for growth, your body becomes more efficient at shuttling incoming food to their proper place and you should see better lab readings.
This^^! I was diagnosed prediabetic 3.5 years ago. I reduced carbs to the 100gr to 150gr range, ramped up vigorous exercise and lost 20 lbs. All numbers dropped into healthy ranges and have been there ever since. Not only my A1c and BG numbers but all my bloodwork, cholesterol, triglycerides, ratios, everything.
I am 68 , at a healthy body weight and exercise regularly and still eat the same way. It's become my habit now and the way I prefer to eat.4 -
I used to be a full blown type 2 diabetic with an HBA1C of 10+. After losing weight I got my HBA1C to down to 4 which is the bottom of the normal range and have stopped all medication.
Have a look at this study which essentially says that insulin insensitivity from normal Type 2 (not adult onset Type 1) can be reversed by losing belly fat surrounding liver and pancreas.
https://www.ncl.ac.uk/magres/research/diabetes/reversal/#publicinformation
Vigorous exercise, especially high intensity interval training reduces glycogen in the muscles which will also suck glucose from blood into glycogen stores. Google "high intensity training" with "blood glucose" for more information.
3 -
T2 dm here as well....0
-
Hannahwalksfar wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Hannahwalksfar wrote: »I’m just going to tell myself that all the woos mean the people love my advice
More likely people are reacting to your sensational and unwarranted comment that the OP’s life is not worth bread...
I see. To clarify I meant that the op’slifeisnt worth risking eating bread and making themselve’s sick. So their life is much more valuable than the bread they want to consume.
Still overly dramatic for the situation....
7 -
WinoGelato wrote: »Hannahwalksfar wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Hannahwalksfar wrote: »I’m just going to tell myself that all the woos mean the people love my advice
More likely people are reacting to your sensational and unwarranted comment that the OP’s life is not worth bread...
I see. To clarify I meant that the op’slifeisnt worth risking eating bread and making themselve’s sick. So their life is much more valuable than the bread they want to consume.
Still overly dramatic for the situation....
Ok. 😊0 -
you can tweek the food around to reach a diet that you can stick to and lose weight, but if you neglect the exercise the chances of fixing the insulin resistance component are much lower.0
-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29629761
Google "re-heat" with "resistant starch". A lot of carby foods will spike blood glucose much less if they are cooked in water, cooled and re-heated. This is a way of converting simple carbs into resistant starch which decreases digestibility of starchy foods. Pasta and rice can be simply cooled and re-heated. For bread, freeze and toast to get the same effect. I am not sure there is a similar technique for potatoes but try googling for studies.
I would recommend confirming tests on yourself with a blood glucose monitoring kit. The kind where you can test blood glucose by pricking your finger tip. Available in drugstores.
I’ve read this but haven’t noticed it having enough of a real-world effect to be measurable. I frequently get take-out spaghetti which I eat in three portions, one fresh and two reheated, and there’s no difference in blood sugar afterwards. Same with bread - our humidity makes bread get moldy more rapidly than I can use it, so after a few days it goes in the freezer and is then toasted. No discernible difference in blood glucose. There may be a slight difference which isn’t enough to be noticed without carefully measuring portions, tracking variance over time and observing the statistical spread, but there’s definitely no difference great enough to be worth going to special trouble to freeze and reheat bread or pasta for no other reason than creating resistant starch. In my case, anyway.
If the OP were full-fledged diabetic, I would agree with your recommendation for a testing kit, but it seems excessive for someone who had a single, barely high, fasting reading.
In fact all this hoopla over a single fasting reading - NOT an a1c which tracks glucose over several months - seems a little loopy to me - since a minor illness or stress or slow digesting meal or just a funny strip could easily cause a reading of 103. For goodness sake, a study found the accuracy of all available blood glucose testing strips was only within tolerances of between 10 and 15% which would mean 103 could really be a perfectly normal 93!8 -
Hannahwalksfar wrote: »Hannahwalksfar wrote: »It’s like doctors shouldn’t even exist according to the majority of posters here. Bit concerning really.
Not really. But what is concerning is people who think that doctor's words should be taken as gospel and everyone should follow them no questions asked.
Most doctors recieve very little nutritional training. Nutritional advice is not their areas of expertise. That is why we have registered dieticians. The truth is even with years of medical training, most areas of medicine are not any particular doctor's area of expertise, because the field of medicine is so vast. More than you think, doctors rely on Google like the rest of us.
And they also beleieve plenty of wrong information. My dad's endocrinologist told him he needed to stop drinking diet soda because "your body doesn't know how to process it and it all gets stored in your gut." That's not a real thing that happens. It's not true just because a doctor said it.
Medical errors are the third leading cause of death in America. The world is undoubtedly better off because it has doctors in it, but people would be bettter served by not putting their doctors on a pedestal, and questioning advice that seems suspect.
My doctor saved my life so I’ll trust doctors over internet people. Especially when it comes to potentially life-threatening issues like diabetes.
Trusting doctors unconditionally is a really bad plan. While I have had a lot of very good doctors, there was also one who could have killed me on accident had it not been for a pharmacist who questioned what he had prescribed. And yes, the doctor had a full and up to date list of all of my meds. As a result of that unfortunate decision on the doctor's end as well as various other doctor related blunders, I ended up with a very nasty kidney infection to go along with the bladder infection and needed IV fluids (because I couldn't keep anything down, water included) along with IV antibiotics.
Better that than a potentially deadly drug interaction though.6 -
rheddmobile wrote: »In fact all this hoopla over a single fasting reading - NOT an a1c which tracks glucose over several months - seems a little loopy to me - since a minor illness or stress or slow digesting meal or just a funny strip could easily cause a reading of 103. For goodness sake, a study found the accuracy of all available blood glucose testing strips was only within tolerances of between 10 and 15% which would mean 103 could really be a perfectly normal 93!
Good point.
My guess is the doctor was more focusing on the weight loss and had anecdotal awareness or personal knowledge with low carb success, plus current demonization of carbs, plus assuming that someone overweight has a poor diet and eats lots of refined carbs (usually with fat too) -- which OP has said is not actually the case.
Given all this, although I still think a visit to a registered dietitian could be helpful if possible, I think the main thing is finding a sustainable way to eat for weight loss and increasing activity/exercise (which OP has also mentioned doing already).2 -
Hannahwalksfar wrote: »WinoGelato wrote: »Hannahwalksfar wrote: »I’m just going to tell myself that all the woos mean the people love my advice
More likely people are reacting to your sensational and unwarranted comment that the OP’s life is not worth bread...
I see. To clarify I meant that the op’slifeisnt worth risking eating bread and making themselve’s sick. So their life is much more valuable than the bread they want to consume.
There is content and there is tone, and people react to both.6
Categories
- All Categories
- 1.4M Health, Wellness and Goals
- 391.4K Introduce Yourself
- 43.5K Getting Started
- 259.7K Health and Weight Loss
- 175.6K Food and Nutrition
- 47.3K Recipes
- 232.3K Fitness and Exercise
- 390 Sleep, Mindfulness and Overall Wellness
- 6.4K Goal: Maintaining Weight
- 8.5K Goal: Gaining Weight and Body Building
- 152.7K Motivation and Support
- 7.8K Challenges
- 1.3K Debate Club
- 96.3K Chit-Chat
- 2.5K Fun and Games
- 3.2K MyFitnessPal Information
- 22 News and Announcements
- 921 Feature Suggestions and Ideas
- 2.3K MyFitnessPal Tech Support Questions