After Covid Diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes

That's a lot to be dealing with but, with time and increased knowledge, I'd expect it to become easier to deal with.

Not being even vaguely medically minded, I wouldn't know where to start, other than to ask a professional. However, I'm going to assume you've done that and have an idea as to what to focus on. My guess, from what you've said, is that you want to lose a few pounds and you want/need to reduce carbs, because of the diabetes. I'm also guessing that that, in turn, will reduce the issues from the pancreatitis.

Regardless of everything, to lose weight you need to eat less than you're expending. You don't even need to exercise, although that's good for muscle tone.

Have you put your stats into the Goals-Guided Set Up page in MFP? If not, do that - and don't select too high a rate of weight loss as, with only 10lb to lose, going slow and steady is far more sensible than trying to shift it all in a month. Track your normal food intake for a week or so, then look at what is high in calories and carbs and consider whether you can significantly reduce portion sizes or swap to something else. Then start reading nutritional info, adjusting portions and trying different things.

My situation was very different, but being diagnosed as Type 2 rocked me. I was determined to deal with it via diet, so I did. What I've learned via this MFP Forum has been life-changing, literally. To start with I reduced my pasta, potato and rice portions, drastically, and increased the amount of veg I served myself. Now, I almost never cook those at home. I found a receipe for sauted cabbage and 200g of finely sliced white cabbage, sauted with a little oil, fills my plate, fills me and is only 127 cals & 8g of carbs vs 286 cals & 56g carbs for a 75g (dried weight) portion of pasta (and back then I'm quite confident that my pasta servings were never only 75g!). The cabbage serving is also higher in fibre than that portion of pasta, even using wholewheat. I cook a double portion of cabbage every few days and use it as my base for meats, fish, curries, bolognese, chilli, almost everything.

I also studied packets - I rarely eat bread anyway but, for when I do, I know which brand has the lowest number of carbs per slice. I studied vegetables and looked at the carbs value per 100g, so now my shopping veers more towards (frozen) broccoli and cauliflower than peas and carrots. I also looked at my lunchtime snacks - I stopped buying packets of potato crisps and swapped them for lentil crisps - they were the same carbs per 100g, but the packets were smaller, so what I consumed was automatically less. I've since cut them out completely, but my point is that I still ate something similar to my regular diet, but in smaller portions or having alternatives that I liked the taste of. I commented on another post, this week, that there's no point me swapping the cheddar cheese on my post-dinner rye crackers for cottage cheese, because I don't like cottage cheese - but I do buy really thin crackers. It all added up, but without me feeling that I'm deprived in any way - and that's what's enabled me to stick to it.

I've never done keto but I'm generally logging under 120g carbs per day, mostly around 100g - Diabetes UK suggests eating less than 130g. I think the figure in the US is higher, but that's possibly because of net carbs vs gross carbs used on packaging.