Newly Diagnosed Type II and South Beach

  • I was newly diagnosed with type 2 and i started checking sugars 6 times a day..but...i started on south beach and as soon as i started it , my blood sugar started going back down to normal..i have been able to control it through south beach diet..and no meds..which is awesome..cause im slowly losing weight and gaining my life back..and feeling healthier.
  • wonderful
    Quote: I was newly diagnosed with type 2 and i started checking sugars 6 times a day..but...i started on south beach and as soon as i started it , my blood sugar started going back down to normal..i have been able to control it through south beach diet..and no meds..which is awesome..cause im slowly losing weight and gaining my life back..and feeling healthier.
    YOu must be so pleased, you have every chance of reversing your diabetes, and keeping it away. We are behind you all the way!
  • Well it certainly works for me! I can hardly wait for my next HA1C results.
  • I was just diagnosed on 2/14/11. I have my first appt. with the diabetes educator on Tuesday 2/22 when I will get the monitor and learn how to take my blood sugar.

    My question is how long did it take you for your blood sugar to go down after your diagnosis with South Beach? I need to lose about 50 pounds.
  • Mamaduck, it took years to develop diabetes and has taken a couple of years to get my HA1C down to "controlled" diabetic level. It IS going down a bit every test though. It's a slow process. Be patient and it will happen. Weightloss will help and South Beach certainly helps that.
  • Thank you!
  • This is all very encouraging. One question though. I have been doing a lot of reading too and have read how people have 'cured' diabetes. But is it it really a cure, or avoiding the symptoms of diabetes? What I mean is, if you give up carbs (or most of them - especially simple carbs), then your blood sugars don't rise as fast - for a diabetic. In someone not diabetic, their insulin would keep the sugars from spiking. I did it with gestional diabetes - got it totally in control with diet. Went from first morning glucose levels of 120-150 to around 70 and never spiking during the day either as I was eating no simple carbs.

    But, if this is all controlled by diet, what happens, let's say, your son has a birthday and you have a piece of cake? For a normal person, their insulin takes care of it. What happens with someone who has been eating low carbs to control diabetes? Do they get a spike in blood sugar? or has their insulin started working properly again and can handle the occasional simple carbs (and I mean occasional - once a month or less kind of thing)? Because, if it doesn't, then the diabetes is still there, right? Just that it's controlled by diet. Or am I missing something?
  • February 2010, I discovered by accident that my blood sugar levels were quite high. I had gone to a free health fair in our area and I had missed the free test so my hubby (sweetheart that he is) was buying some other things at Walgreen's and they were having a sale on blood glucose monitoring kits so he got me one.

    Now, I have a very strong history of diabetes in both sides of my family, and you can see from my ticker I am medically obese. I knew that I would probably eventually get diabetes unless I lost the weight, which I have not been doing well with.

    Well, I found out that my average morning fasting blood glucose was 146 mg/dl. I bought an excellent book "Complete Guide to Diabetes" compiled by the ADA. I read it over a weekend. You deserve to really educate yourself about the disease and how to manage it. That is the first thing. There is a lot of misconceptions surrounding this disease.

    Your concern is what most people ask: will I be able to have a "normal" life? Yes, within certain perimeters, you will. This is what worked for me. I want to qualify that it may not work for you but it does work for me.

    1) eat a balanced food plan. That means eating whole, non-processed foods the majority of the time. I do not avoid any food group but incorporate all foods; wheat flour based carbs like bread and pasta, no added sugars in any of the foods I eat, fresh fruits and vegetables, minimal amount of fats and oils, reduced sodium.
    2) exercise! I have found that exercising and having a more active metabolism will burn off that extra sugar in my blood which is also a great way to manage your sugar levels.
    3) at first monitor your blood sugar multiple times a day. Think of this as an opportunity to get to know how your body handles food. For example, I have found out that if I have mashed potatoes and bread or roll with my evening meal my blood sugar takes about 2 hours to resume "normal". I feel real sleepy and it doesn't take much for me to now have that Thanksgiving "want to take a nap" feeling even if it doesn't seem like I have eaten all that much.

    Now, that I have the first two points securely in place I only monitor once a week. Would I say that I am cured? No! I would rather think of it that I have controlled it very well. During the holidays I neither exercised nor ate "healthy". Right after the holidays, I took my blood glucose and it was 126 mg/dl. However, it only took a week for me to get it back to the normal range, whereas before it took a full month.

    However, as we get older, we aren't as active (well in theory we aren't) so at that time I may develop full blown diabetes. I would like to think that in the meantime, I am staving off the more serious complications of this disease. I had a mother who did not understand the disease even though she was working with a nutritionist and a doctor. It is a serious disease but managed well, you can "have your cake and eat it too!".
  • Just did some searching on another site and as I thought. It's not a 'cure' for diabetes. You are just controlling it. Even if I lost all the weight. Even if I ate low carbs and never allowed my blood sugars to spike, having a slice of cake would mean I would spike my sugars. My body has forever become resistant to insulin.

    Strangely, I'm OK with that. I don't need to be eating those things anyway and I'm not missing them for the most part. I'm realizing now how icky those simple carbs were making me feel!

    But I am going to get a glucose meter. I need to know better where I'm at. Although I haven't been diagnosed with diabetes, I could have been and probably am. What does having a low reading mean at my next blood screening? it means I'm controlling it, but if I get a spike after eating sugar? it means I have a problem with sugar, right?
  • Quote: This is all very encouraging. One question though. I have been doing a lot of reading too and have read how people have 'cured' diabetes. But is it it really a cure, or avoiding the symptoms of diabetes? What I mean is, if you give up carbs (or most of them - especially simple carbs), then your blood sugars don't rise as fast - for a diabetic. In someone not diabetic, their insulin would keep the sugars from spiking. I did it with gestional diabetes - got it totally in control with diet. Went from first morning glucose levels of 120-150 to around 70 and never spiking during the day either as I was eating no simple carbs.

    But, if this is all controlled by diet, what happens, let's say, your son has a birthday and you have a piece of cake? For a normal person, their insulin takes care of it. What happens with someone who has been eating low carbs to control diabetes? Do they get a spike in blood sugar? or has their insulin started working properly again and can handle the occasional simple carbs (and I mean occasional - once a month or less kind of thing)? Because, if it doesn't, then the diabetes is still there, right? Just that it's controlled by diet. Or am I missing something?

    For some people, when they lose the weight and have kept their sugars in good control for a while, their test results will return to non-diabetic levels.
    For others, this will not happen, so don't see it as a win/lose thing, if you lose weight and control sugars and are still diabetic, (react to sugars etc) it is not your fault, but will mean staying in control. It may be partly genetic etc.
    BLood sugar 101 has a good discussion of this.