Needing help

Meat cheese and eggs. Quest Protein Bars. Premiere Protein drinks. Crustless quiche. Most pickles are carb free.

Drink your water! Sugar free water flavorings make it easier (check to ensure they say less than 1 g of carb though. Some have 5-7 and they add up fast)

I was pre-diabetic also 7 months ago. I lost 55 pounds doing low carb and I'm not pre-diabetic any more. Also got to come off Blood Pressure meds. Stay after it.

It's hard because ALL carbs are sugar. Now, with that in mind, not all carbs/sugars are created equal. First off, for the first time ever, the FDA has included a set percentage for added sugars in the diet. Added sugars should not be more than 10% of your daily calories, so, if you're eating 1500cals/day, then 150 can come from added sugars. The reason for the limitation is that added sugars provied you with energy, but they have no nutritional value. Meaning, they carry no vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, etc. Sugars/carbs in fresh fruits and vegetables are often molecularly the same as many added sugars, but the food item comes with a host of other nutrients that are important for reaching nutritional balance.

It goes beyond fruits and vegetables though. When selecting grain choices, look for labels that are whole grain, not mulitgrain. Often times multigrain (breads, crackers, etc) are made to look like healthier items but are still made from enriched flour. Pepperidge farm makes a 15 grain bread that I love and is quite good for you. Rice is another one. A lot of people say there's no major difference between white and brown rice and that's simply not true. Minute rice makes a rice blend that i enjoy. I think it has brown rice, red rice, and quinoa.

If you are pre-diabetic and want to get a handle on your sugar, it really comes down to thinking about what you're picking up in the store. So many previously nutritionally dense foods get stripped of their nutrients and packed with sugar because that's what we love to eat. It's about taking those foods and bringing them back to the least processed form. Oatmeal for example; it now comes in packets filled with sugar and "fruit". I swap that for plain oatmeal with a little stevia and whatever fresh fruit I feel like having that day. A big thing though is potatoes... around 50% of all vegetables americans eat are potatoes... and half of that is in the form of a french fry. Potatoes (and other starchy veggies like carrots and peas) are not great for diabetics. Starch is glucose linked into long chains and our bodies are very efficient at breaking down starch into pure glucose.

Hope this helps you some! Feel free to add me
p.s. if you want to limit your carb intake overall then meat and eggs are your staples. Most dairy is out as lactose is the milk sugar. Stick to mostly green veggies; kale, spinach, lettuce, broccoli etc.