Carb Strategies for Insulin Resistance

Sounds like you are on the right track with the complex carbs. Do you test your blood glucose? Testing is the key to my control, and lets me know what foods I can and cannot eat. That is different for everyone, one person can eat carrots like a rabbit, while I might as well stab myself in the pancreas with it. As I've lost weight, I've noticed that I can tolerate new and different foods as well. I can eat a medium potato now and notice no difference in my post meal glucose. If I hadn't been testing all along I would be unaware of that progress.

My target is the 120's.

While actively trying to lose weight, I try to stay below 100g of carbs a day, splitting them between most meals (so I'm not eating all of my carbs in one meal). I intend to go up to around 150g carbs once I'm in range of maintenance

I try for most of my carbs to come from vegetables and fruit, monitoring and moderating my starches (particularly flour) and refined sugar.

I try to walk appx 1 mile either before or after dinner. (This PBS/BBC special on exercise helps to explain why: http://m.video.pbs.org/video/2364990532/ (though it's only a trailer for the episode) )

Sounds like you are on the right track with the complex carbs. Do you test your blood glucose? Testing is the key to my control, and lets me know what foods I can and cannot eat. That is different for everyone, one person can eat carrots like a rabbit, while I might as well stab myself in the pancreas with it. As I've lost weight, I've noticed that I can tolerate new and different foods as well. I can eat a medium potato now and notice no difference in my post meal glucose. If I hadn't been testing all along I would be unaware of that progress.

Very much this with the testing. It has helped me stay away from some foods that affected my glucose the most, and some times you get a pleasant suprise with something you really like.

I went on a strict 180 grams a day ..and got my a1c down to 5.6 so no more diabetes for me I still test when im feeling off a bit...but so far my a1c is in order everytime...I just know better than to sit and have 2 bowls of pasta and then pizza for dinner etc etc...you have to watch the fruit juice too...that was a big factor for me in the summer months

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The best way to see what you can and can't eat, is to test religiously pre and post meals (pre and post prandial they call it), usually 2 hrs after you have eaten.


Diabetics, or even pre-diabetics are all different, there are some who can tolerate starchy carbs...to an extent, others can't have one small cube of potato salad without it spiking their blood glucose.


It is a pain, but the best and most reliable way to figure out what is best for you is to test regularly, and log everything including your blood glucose results.


I followed an extremely extreme liquid meal replacement diet (the newcastle university study diet) for a month or so after diagnosis and got my bg from 24.8 to circa 7-8... I am not saying follow it, but i am saying go and read about it, preferably from the actual university website and the peer reviewed academic papers... the abstracts of which (at least) should be available to everyone.

The basic idea is that it replicates post bariatric surgery diets/weight loss and it targets visceral fat first allowing whatever insulin you do produce to be more efficient... both of which have been shown to reverse or improve diabetes... the study, found the diet could also reverse/improve diabetic outcomes.


Good luck whatever you do, it is quite the wake up call when the word diabetes is mentioned.

edit: the above info is in relation to type 2 diabetes only.

There is an insulin resistance group and a diabetes support group on the forums here. Lately there have been some interesting journal articles about reversing diabetes through weight loss on the groups recently. Reducing visceral fat (especially fat in the pancreas and liver) seems to be key.

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