My Big Plan to lose some weight with Type 2 Diabetes

fosters123

no advice. Just wanted to wish you good luck and well done. :T

DS4215

Sounds like you have two problems:

1). Diabetes
2). Weight.

Changing your diet will help with both, and you might find yourself on tablets for the diabetes. Cut down your portions slowly and switch foods to lower fat/sugar/carbs alternatives to help with both and aim to do more exercise. Even a gentle walk 2-3 times a day will help you to start with. If you can get a calorie deficit of 500 per day it works out as losing 1lb of fat a week.

Can you go for a walk at lunchtime? - doesn't need to be far - just 1.-2 miles will make a massive difference.

margaretclare

DS4215 wrote: »

Sounds like you have two problems:

1). Diabetes
2). Weight.

Changing your diet will help with both, and you might find yourself on tablets for the diabetes. Cut down your portions slowly and switch foods to lower fat/sugar/carbs alternatives to help with both and aim to do more exercise. Even a gentle walk 2-3 times a day will help you to start with. If you can get a calorie deficit of 500 per day it works out as losing 1lb of fat a week.

Can you go for a walk at lunchtime? - doesn't need to be far - just 1.-2 miles will make a massive difference.

Yes, but the 2 problems are linked!

Look at the DiabetesUK website: https://www.diabetes.org.uk

Also look at https://www.weightlossresources.co.uk

HTH

Silver-Cat

Fortunately where I work is about a 20 minute walk. I try not to carry cash on me these days so not tempted to use the bus.
But when the weather is miserable or its been a tiring day and all I want to do is get home then unfortunately the temptation of catching a bus is very strong!

Being totally honest I really don't eat a lot but from the sounds of it, it is the wrong items.
Main items I eat are:
bread, rice, potatoes - mashed or jacket although not often chips, mince meat either in lasagne or chilli.
a lot of cheese and especially in the lasagne if I have that as I make my own white sauce purely out of melted cheese. yummy but I guess this has to be a no no.
quite a lot of crisps through out the week, but certainly no more than one pack a day,
most lunches are soup - usually the heinz big soup ones but the smaller tins,
I rarely eat takeaway food.

Today so far I have had: pear, tin of chicken and veg heinz big soup, several cups of tea and squash. Thats not really a lot is it?
This is typical for me during work week with an odd pack of crisps in here and there.
Tonight I had planned to have a 1/4 chicken with rice and spicy peas (nando style).

Aout two years ago most of my lunches were the packet supernoodles that you add hot water too (not pot noodle) and I think this has caused a lot of the weight gain on top of no exercise. I won't be eating them anmore!

Silver-Cat

from reading other forums / threads my problems / issues do seem quite common so hopefully any progress I make and help / advice I am given will help others.

I am still in total shock even though I have done this to myself but having now recognised there is a problem and I can help myself does make a difference. Its the where to start that gets me.

On friday I have my doctor's appointment to start the tablets which will control the diabetes as I only got the results by phone recently.
I'm lucky that my doctor is sympathetic and supportive but also encouraging on what I can do which is really needed right now.
I'm also supposed to be seeing a nurse / dietician so hopefully that will give me more answers and help but it s the not knowing right now with the worry which is what prompted me to post on here about it.

margaretclare

You mean you were just told over the phone that you have diabetes? This is absolutely awful.

Seeing your GP to start tablets - before you do any of this you need to have a one-to-one consultation with a diabetes nurse specialist. Sit down and talk it through, not 5 minutes in and out with your GP.

You could get through to DiabetesUK on the phone and talk it through with them. There's far more here than meets the eye.

Ask DiabetesUK about a low GI diet, or look at this: http://www.the-gi-diet.org/

Eating low GI foods gives your stomach the chance to digest the food more slowly and release insulin slowly. High GI foods - a lot of processed foods containing white flour and white sugar - give a 'spike' of insulin and then a 'crash' which leaves you hungry. Your aim, as a newly-diagnosed Type 2 diabetic, has got to be to keep your blood sugar as stable as possible i.e under control as far as possible. Breakfast cereals are the very worst, apart from porridge. For breakfast, protein is good - a boiled egg and a slice of wholemeal toast would be far better than any of the 'breakfast cereals'.

HTH

rachbc

All the very best of luck to you. A few things strike me about what you have posted so far...

1 - no breakfast
2 - very little fresh food during the day

YOu need to create some new habits - this can't be a diet but a lifestyle change - a healthy filling breakfast with whole grains and portein (porridge, whole grain cereal with ss milk, poached or boiled egg, yoghurt and fruit...)

Healthy snacks to replace the crisps - nuts, oatcakes with cottage cheese or even pnb!

Fresh soup - make a big batch at the weekend then freeze in portion sized containers for the week - lots fo fresh veg and maybe some beans/ chicken etc for portein. And have with a wholegrain roll and some lean ham if the soup is a veg one... protein helps you feel full and therefore stop snacking.

Lower the fat content of your evening meal, reduce the processed carbs and have lean proteins add lots of fresh fruit and veg and you will probably find you are eating more quantity with fewer cals....

CL

Hi Silver-cat. I lost 30 lbs 2 years ago to go from size 12-14 to 8-10 (just had a baby so now in the middle of this range!). The best tips I have are:

1 Portion control. We ate good food, just too much of it. We bought digital kitchen scales and weighed out a correct portion of pasta, rice, cereal, etc and we were eating double the correct portion of carbs. We always weigh our carbs now.

2 Walk for one hour a day if possible. I hated the gym, but loved walking with a friend or DH and having a chat.

3 Take a packed lunch to work and replace white bread for granary as it is much more filling.

4 Snack all day on low calorie fruit like fresh melon and pineapple.

5 Have a treat at least once a week so you have something to look forward to.

Good luck!

Pee

The sores on your legs are also probably related to the diabetes. My legs can chafe a bit in hot weather if bare i.e. wearing a skirt, but I think the diabetes stops it healing.

Anyway, just wanted to wish you the best. I think Slimming World is recommended with diabetes. You should eat breakfast as I think with diabetes it's important to eat regularly to keep blood sugar level.

Can you discuss this with a nurse at the doctor's surgery? Could you be given a prescription to exercise? I had this once and it meant free swimming for me which was really useful.

MrsWoolfe

Hi Silver Cat,

I was in a very similar position too- late Jan this year I was diagnosed and it completely threw me....BUT there is light at the end of the tunnel, it does get easier I promise!

to start with I read up as much as possible, looked up everything and anything to do with diabetes and then went over these with my doctor and nurse. Although my results came in "just" at the point where they usually tell you to control with life-style and diet I was put straight on meds due to family history and my own- prev problems with kidneys and went into hypertensive crisis back in Nov...it's scary at first but I started tackling one thing at a time and I feel so so so much better now.

For me, it has made me focus on my health and I am determined that I will say good-bye to my 20's in the healthiest and fittest state I've ever been. I've managed to lose almost 14% of body weight since I started- the nutritionist I saw said that to see the health benefits and feel better I would need to lose 10%- and she was spot on, lots of the little niggly things I was ignoring- aches, trouble sleeping, stomach pains etc etc etc have simply faded away with the weight. It's hard work and I've still got a long way to go but I feel better than I have done in years.

For me the thing that works best is focusing on eating low GI/GL foods as much as possible, I started doing this mainly because it helps to keep your blood sugar regular and because of all the food-related advice out there it seemed to make the most sense to me. I didn't think about cutting anything out at all- my focus was completley on "how can I get more low GI/GL foods into my diet" and I think that is why is has been working-

I started adding things gradually into my normal diet, breakfast was the biggie, like you I rarely if ever ate anything and found it really hard to eat early in the day- I'm normally out the door by 7.15 which doesn't leave much time, my nurse suggested that eating/drinking anything no matter how small was the way to go and gradually adding/increasing this would be good. So I started with eating a yogurt first thing- even if that meant I didn't have time for a cup of tea- then took something to work to eat as soon as I got a change that was more substantial- cereal bar/bowl of cereal etc. I then added cereal to the yogurt in the morning a little at a time- I made my own museli mix using things I knew I liked which helped.

It takes a while to get your head around it, but once you have a good idea of the things that will help gets much easier- just adding pulses to your lasange will lower the GL of the meal- my husband has been known to jokingly refer to me as "The Pulsifier" but luckily for me he is on board and very supportive...just have to keep an eye on my museli mix as it can "dissapear" quickly!

I have the added complication of not being able to do very much that is high-intensity because of the blood pressure issues and the crisis I had in November...which stumped me at the start, natural instinct for me was to want to go at it and do the sorts of things I had done before- circuit training, kickboxing etc but those things are off limits for now...instead I can go some gentle cycling, walking etc I also do some careful strength work, I've been trying to cycle 5/10 miles every couple of days on a stationary bike and doing strength work in between and seeing great results- fallen off the wagon a bit recently but I'll get there.

One thing I will say though, it's tough, really tough. So if you're Human and you slip up now and then- don't stress/get down/be ashamed just re-new your promise to yourself to keep trying to tackle this one step at a time.

You are not going on a diet you are changing your entire lifestyle which is huge and it's going to take a little while to get there...but the rewards are incredible and so worth the effort. For me a big part of it is feeling like I am in control not the disease, learn as much as you can about what is happening, understand the risks and the dangers, and then fight back- do everything you can- no matter how small- to improve your health: A walk after dinner? A longer walk on a Sunday with you BF? You can take a picnic packed with good food- you'll have a lovely day together and get moving too...

small steps make it easier to deal with, and making sure you track how you are doing helps too- I use sparkpeople but there are lots of different sites which do the same thing. I find it helps that I can measure how much I've changed and how much I've acheived when I'm feeling down/finding hard.

Sorry it's been a long one but I hope it helps, and feel free to PM me if there is anyway I can help!

MrsWoolfe