I bought some turkey bacon just to try it. I eat turkey sausage all the time and like it. The bacon just doesn't look right. I know DH won't even try it, and he's the one who usually cooks breakfast. I will have to try it separately.

EDIT: Hmm. DH just brought me my breakfast. He cooked some of the turkey sausage. He surprised me, but we don't have any other in the house so I guess he decided it was better than nothing. It's pretty good! I've never cooked it at home. Only had it in a restaurant.

I am ready to quit eating altogether to get this blood sugar to come down. I hope I haven't burned out my pancreas cells.

Ok, I fried up some of the turkey bacon just to try it. I've never been a real big fan of bacon. I liked it, and surprise, surprise, DH tried it and said it tasted just like bacon to him. He is so not for fake foods. It is much lower in fat and calories, but it still contains nitrates, which is the cancer causing part of bacon, so it's not something I would eat on a regular basis. Just something for once in a while.

My fasting blood sugar has been over 200 every day, even when I feel that I'm eating low carb. I'm getting scared for my pancreas. I took double meds today to try to get it to drop.

Boy! I feel like this is my own personal journal, here. I ended up doing so well with my food yesterday. Slightly over 1000 cals and 54 grams of carb. My fasting blood sugar is finally down below 200...at 155. Thank God. I was getting worried. Now to keep it that way. I have become very carb sensitive. The least little bit spikes me, and then doesn't want to come back down. I was taking so much extra meds to get it down. Now that it's down I have to space it out a bit so it lasts me until my next refill. And my weight is down 2 lbs, too. Probably water, but I'll take it! Onderland, here I come!

Hi Everyone
 

My 1st day was yesterday. I am not diabetic but have diabetes in the family and on the road there. A friend of my sister went on The Diabetes Miracle diet and has found a way of eating that he has been able to maintain for more than 5 years. I know it sounds one more of those fad diets but it is a program for life. I hate to even call it a diet bc that gets me into that diet mentality that doesn't do me any good. So for today I will just say I am eating healthier.
Hope is ok to post here for support I checked out many posts and seenms to be a supportive active thread.
I am off to the store to get some friendly food. I need to get a low carb bread....anyone have any favorite that they can recommend?
Have a great day!

Hi Sharon. Welcome to our thread. We like having new posters hang out with us. Sometimes it gets very lonely here.

I googled Diabetes Miracle and believe I may have read that book. I agree, it's not a diet, but a WOE (way of eating.) I read a review of the book and it gave these 3 points.

Step 1: Eight weeks of a lower-carb diet to “rest and rehab” the workload on your pancreas. This first step also educates you about the “base” of your diet with proteins, healthy fats, and vegetables. She’s also included what she calls the “5 gram carb choice” at all meals and bedtime.

Step 2: This step is about learning how to incorporate healthy and “gentle” carbohydrates into your diet. You learn what types of carbs have the greatest impact on your diabetes and your body overall, and why.

Step 3: The final step is about reaching and achieving your desired weight, seeing improved control in your blood sugars, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels.

It sounds like a very good book for newly diagnosed diabetics to read.

I know what I should be doing, for my diabetes and my weight, but I have great difficulty staying compliant. It's a daily struggle. That's why I keep coming back here, to get support and encouragement from others who are having the same struggles. Part of me wants to be able to eat whatever I want, then there's the part that knows those days are over.

Right now, DH is making waffles. Lord, help me!! LOL

Giving up potatoes
 

It has been many years since I participated in a weight loss support thread, but my diabetes is giving me incentive to finally get control. It looks like you could use some company here so I thought I would butt in! :D

I have had Type 2 diabetes for several years now, and my partner has a much worse case for over 10 years. We are getting close to retirement, and I want to get my act together before then. We are planning on moving to Portugal for retirement, and I want to be able to enjoy the more vigorous lifestyle we hope to have there. We want to live in Lisbon and there are hills everywhere!

So, back to the potatoes. I have a work friend who told me last year that she gives up potatoes every other year. I have tried to control my carbs in the past, and even lost some inches (I measure for sewing clothes and can't argue with the numbers) but I have gained it back. My weight is very steady within 5 pounds, it is too high of course, but after years of weight cycling and Weight Watchers, I am aiming for just not gaining any more. Losing would be great, but not my main goal. I have a serious problem with potatoes, the french fries, and hash browns, and mashed, and potato chips come creeping back into my eating until before I know it, I am eating potatoes more than once a day! I gave up cigarette smoking cold turkey, and I came to the conclusion I need to do the same with the worst of my carb addictions: potatoes.

It is day 10 so far. I'm working up to carb counting again. My bs is too high also, way too many sweets during the holidays. I work on a college campus and we are on break, so the cafeteria is closed and I have to bring my lunch. That is one of my current challenges.

Well, my lunch hour is up. Hope this wasn't too disjointed! Thanks for listening!

Welcome Madame Wu. We are always happy to have new posters here. I don't know how helpful we are with out struggles, but we try.

My DH eats potatoes every day. All different ways. I call him Mr Potato Head. He has never had a weight problem, although recently he has gone up a few lbs. He told me you will never gain weight from eating potatoes, and I tell him, "No, YOU will never gain weight from eating potatoes." There are some things I can just keep out of the house, but potatoes are not one of them. So I have to deal with cooking them for him, and eating a bite or two of them here and there. I think they are not the worst thing you could be eating, if you can control the portions. Much better than eating sweets and baked goods which have no nutritional value.

It has been said that 95% of the people who lose weight will gain it back. But that should not stop us from trying.

I hope you get to move to Lisbon, and enjoy living there. In the meantime, continue to come here and chat with us.

Yesterday in Dollar General, a bag of Bugles jumped into my cart and came home with us. I ate the whole bag. 3.5 oz. I don't know what caused that. I have not had Bugles since 1984. I had forgotten how good they were. I still lost 1 more lb overnight. I think God decided to cut me a break and not make me pay for my indiscretion. Thank you, I promise never to do it again. At least not with Bugles.

By the way, I did NOT eat any waffles. I packaged them up and put them in the freezer. Now he can take them out and pop them in the toaster or microwave when he wants. Yay, on no waffles. I could have done a lot of damage with them.

I ordered a new RX of meds. I have a funny feeling that my Doc is going to require an appointment and bloodwork before he renews the RX. I sure hope not. Waiting for the call from the pharmacy, did he or did he not agree to filling it?

Hey Carol, you are not totally on your own here,,,sorry life's been busy with helping my daughter with 3 babies now...
This week I started going lower carb seriously once again. I will re-start as many times as it takes.
Carol have you tested after you eat and keep a food journal? it may give you answers as to why the high sugar readings.... I know myself just one reading a day dosnt give the whole story.

Welcome to the 'newbies'
Sharon I will check out that book but reading the steps it sounds the way I'm eating theses days
Madamwu,,,,I can eat a few baby potatoes without rising my bs,,,I still test after eating though just to make sure. But each of us is different in how our bs reacts...

p.a. I test about 5 times per day. Always AM and bedtimes, and then several times during the day. Oh, I know exactly why the high readings! Eating carbs I should not be eating! But now they're coming down below 200 and I hope they continue to drop as I eliminate the carbs. I can do it. I just don't want to.

I imagine your daughter is very busy with 3 little ones, now. They sure keep you on your toes!

Hi Everyone, I'm still here. First WELCOME TO THE NEWBIES.

Sharon Wise move to start taking care of yourself before and hopefully so that you do not become diabetes. Prevention is much better. And yes you are very welcome to join us. The Diabetes Miracle Diet is very good plan and I do believe it will work. I did it for a while, but it just took more work than I had time for when I did it. Not sure if I still have the book or not. I understand about calling anything a diet. I told my new doctor that I wanted a way to eat so that it could become a lifestyle rather than a diet bc a "diet" implies it is something I can stop when I reach goals. I have done that too many times myself and got back where I had started too often.

Madamwu As long as I stay within my calories/carbs/sodium, I am able to eat potatoes. I've just had to learn not to eat them all the time however, my DH and I who is also diabetic love chips so we go to Sams and buy a box of 1 oz packages of them. I have a tendency to think I have to eat the whole package so by eating out of a 1 oz package which is a serving, I don't eat a whole big bag. We allow ourselves 1 pkg a day and I actually had a day last week when I only ate half. I hope I will be able to make that a habit.

p.a. I'm sure you are enjoying helping with those babies. It is so much fun to be a grandmother. It is work but the rewards are worth it. I am experiencing great grandchildren and it is just as rewarding not to mention my sweet nieces, nephews and great nieces and nephews. I love being back in TX so I can see them more often.

Carol Sue I am so sorry you felt abandoned. You won't believe the all we have been through with our DD. The cardioversion didn't work. So this past Thursday they put in a pacemaker. We have spent what feels like forever living in ICU. We haven't, but it feels like it.

He is back home and doing well. Heart is still not completely in rhythm but they seem to think the pacemaker and meds will cause it to convert on its own. We brought him home yesterday and I am here now. I spent the night as someone has to be here round the clock for 2 or 3 days. My baby sister and her husband are coming in sometime today from MS and they will be here for 2 weeks and she plans to stay with Daddy and take care of him to give DS and me a break. However, we will still be taking him to doctor's appointments etc. Our baby sister worked in hospitals giving out meds etc besides the fact that she and I worked together in nursing homes as nurses assistance.

DD and I are having coffee now and he is watching the news. He had a good nights rest. He said he hadn't slept that good in 40 years. LOL. I'm sure he feels that way with all he has been through. He is doing great. I am amazed at how things have changed since DH Mother had a pacemaker. The pacemaker has a memory that can be read by a monitor and when he goes to the cardiologist they can read it. They sent a monitor home with him. It works on radio waves and it reads what is going on with his pacemaker. It sends a reading to some pacemaker center once a week. We don't know the day as the lady who set it up and talked to us about it didn't know. However, if something isn't right with his heart it can pick it up or if he doesn't feel exactly right, he can push a button and it will read it to check it out. Depending on how much it works, the pacemaker can last up to 10 years. My cousin told me DD brother lived 11 yrs with his. We laughed and told DD that he could live to be 103. :)

Carol Sue I'm glad you got your bs back down to 155. Those few 200s readings I had and DD situation with sodium, sure made me take a look at what I'm doing. I have done fairly well with all that is going on. I actually saw a 125 yesterday morning and didn't get to check again before I ate at lunch. My bs is usually in low 100 by then around 105 to 110. Yesterday was hectic with Daddy coming home. I didn't eat enough calories yesterday and I'm surprised I didn't have a low as I've been having a lot of hypoglycemia experiences with the bs going so low although it isn't in the 90s or 80s. I think it was just my body adjusting to the lower numbers. My FBS this morning was 135 so long fasts may not work with Trulicity. I journaled my meals for yesterday and I only had 996 calories and didn't go over my carbs or any other numbers, so makes you wonder why I didn't get a better reading, but I did do it earlier than usual. This bs stuff is confusing. One good thing that came out of my meeting with the dietitian is that I learned to just do what you know to do and don't worry about it as it will work out eventually. Also, she reminded me that dealing with DD health issues the way I am will cause my readings to be a little higher. So hopefully as he gets better, so will my bs.

Yes, we know what to do Carol Sue and sometime we eat something maybe we shouldn't, but we perfectionists have to learn that we are never going to be perfect because we are human. Face it, pick our self up and go back OP at the next meal or snack. If we learn to do that we will be successful and lose weight and get out bs under control and we will learn how to maintain.

I do the meds for my DD so I had to be alert with everything yesterday at the hospital. DH takes a copy of the med sheet on the pc and prints it out so that it can be read easier and shows what DD is taking it for so DD can see what and why he is on it. The hospital loved the way he does them. The hospital pharmacy took his meds and were supposed to set it up noting on the bottles any changes for us, but DH found a discrepancy so we have to have the nurse check on it for us when she or he comes today. He has home health care 3 days a week. They have a nurse who will come out today to check him.

Sorry this is so long, but I just wanted to check in. I've missed being here. Hopefully Daddy will continue to improve. If he continues to rest as good as he did last night and get up as alert and active as he is this morning, he will be doing great and driving and taking care of himself without us having to be here. He got up this morning and did everything for himself even made his own cappuccino. So thank God we are going to keep him longer. Had a few moments even the doctor wasn't sure, but we saw the doctor and his nurse in the parking lot as we were going up to see him yesterday and what a thrill to hear the cardiologist tell us "He has made a great come back". His nurse stopped and talked to my DS, DH and me to tell us that even though he was still in Afib that now he has the pacemaker they expect him to convert with that and the meds and "he will be fine". Praise God!!!

Promise not to talk so long next time. Y'all have a great weekend.

This is all good news about your Dad, Trish, even with the pacemaker. My MIL had a pacemaker for a good many years. She didn't want it, but had to have it, and once she had it, it was like she didn't even realize it. You have really been busy. I'm so glad your Dad has home health care. It is just good that he has medical personnel checking in on him now and then. I had it daily for 6 months after my surgery, and they started to feel like family after a while.

I was told once that you can get hypoglycemic symptoms when your blood sugar is in the process of coming down, even when it's not really low. They say to be aware, but not to treat it as a true low. It will adjust itself.

I was starting to lose and then today I'm back up three pounds. I know it's probably a water fluctuation but it's so depressing. I have just had enough of this already. Something's gotta give. My calories have been around 1000-1200 and I don't feel hungry. It seems like it's just right for me, but somehow it just doesn't seem like enough. I don't want to go lower. I just want this gone.

My glimiperide rx expired and the pharmacy called the DR for me to renew. I thought he was going to say I needed to come in, but he renewed it and gave me 3 90-day supply refills, so I'm actually good for another year. That's really not like my doctor, but I'm glad. I would like to work on getting my readings down lower before I have to get another A1c. I am going to have to go back to mail order because this year I have a $15 copay at the retail pharmacy. It's more convenient to be able to run to the store if I start to run out, but it's also nice to have it come to my doorstep.

Carol Sue Don't get discouraged because of the 3 lb gain. It may just be a fluctuation. Dietician and the diabetic educator told me not to worry so much about that. Your calories are good for you and you know you are doing good food wise; you are not hungry so just keep doing what you are doing. She said not to measure by the scale # as much. She said go by your glucose #. She said that it will begin to work together. I know it is frustrating, but as long as we do the right thing for the bs, I think from what I learned from the diabetic educator the weight will follow.

I'm glad your DH liked the turkey bacon. You know, I didn't think to check the nitrates. That junk is even in what they claim is healthier for us.

I came home to change close and freshen up. Going back to Daddy's to take lunch that he wants and also take the new updated med list. I hope my baby sister gets there soon as I want to talk to her about what the nurse told us when she came by and what to watch for with Daddy. I really don't expect any problems but we do have to be cautious. As for the discrepancy with the one medication, the nurse told us to use the whole dose as the hospital was doing and said she would have the regular nurse call the doctor Monday to be sure that is what we are to do. She thinks because of a couple of the other meds he is on that he probably wants him on the whole dose rather than half. That is why home health care is good to have when you first come home from the hospital especially for something like this.

Thanks for sharing your MIL experience. It really helps us to know how it has worked for others. I told the nurse today that from the moment he got back to his room Thursday that it was like he had just come to life again. We truly believe we have experienced a miracle.

Carol Sue Hang in there. You are doing great with your eating and I believe you will be rewarded.

BBL

Ooo sorry Carol I misread your post, I thought you didn't know what was causing the highs,,,
Trish I'm glad your DD is doing better,,,so stressful for you
My gd is here for the night,so I'm off to read and bed early,,,she gets up early!

I was showing a nice loss for the week and got into popcorn last night,,,the bought kind. So much for my loss!! Ughh I will learn

p.a. I love popcorn. We have the old fashioned kind you cook in a pot and shake the pot. LOL I forget about it for a while, but then when I remember it, I want a big bowl. I don't add butter and I only lightly salt, but it is still carb. I keep reverting back to the old rules, which said that 2 cups of popcorn was an acceptable and preferred snack. Preferred over what? LOL

Oh, I very well know what is causing my high blood sugar readings. LOL

I don't know if Sharon is still posting here. I started reading The Diabetes Miracle and right away saw some things I didn't like and set the book down. Not for me. Examples are, eating first thing in the AM and last thing in PM and eating every 5 hours. That goes against the intermittant fasting I've been trying lately. After I thought about it, I realized that IF is not giving me great results. I am still not able to lower my bs or weight. So I picked the book up again this morning and started reading from the beginning, only skipping those parts that are repititious for me, like how I got my diabetes. That is water under the bridge at this point. I've got it, and it's not going away anytime soon, so why read about it. LOL I am seeing some things in the book that are explained in such a way that makes sense. The only problem I see for myself is by eating more often, I tend to want to eat more. Usually the longer I go in the AM without food, the less I eat throughout the day. But I think I am going to continue reading, and will probably try this. My other things aren't working, and doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity, so I am going to try it. First of all, I am not going to worry about weight or blood sugar for the first 2 weeks. The book says that the higher your blood sugars are running and the longer you have been an uncontrolled diabetic, the longer it will take to see changes. In the past, when a plan hasn't produced changes in the first few days I've stopped. This is a healthy eating plan, not a fad diet, so I don't see that I will be doing any harm. It can't really get much worse than it is now. I still need to read more to see exactly what I'm supposed to be eating. So far it looks more like timing is going to be the biggest change for me. This plan seems to be very similar to the plan they put me on in the hospital, which brought down both my weight and blood sugar. The main difference is that it seems to be much lower carb than the hospital was giving me. So for the next two weeks I will be posting, but probably not saying much about my BS or weight. After two weeks, I will expect to see improvements in both.

From reading a couple Low Carb Forums, I have found that it seems that there is a trend toward eating either OMAD (one meal a day) or very long term fasting. Days at a time. It's like it a contest to see who can do the longest fast. The longer you can go, the more honorable you are. That's just not me. Also, I don't see a lot of people reporting great losses, and some just drop out of the threads, probably because it cannot be sustained long term. I don't want a diet. I want to change my way of eating long term....do something that is not uncomfortable or painful, but enjoyable and successful. I want to be able to sit down to eat when other people are eating, and make choices from regular food that are suitable to me, without standing out as doing something weird.

Onward and downward. The saga continues....

One of the things the book says is that at 5 hours after a meal, our livers are programmed to release glucose, because the brain thinks it's not going to get any. This is why blood sugar starts to rise even though you haven't eaten, such as with the Dawn Phenomenon. It even says you can eat something in the middle of the night if you happen to wake up. Sounds like an eating disorder. LOL These are the same things they taught us when we were diagnosed, but we've been trained to believe that they were wrong. The difference is the amount of carb. The ADA tells us to eat all these meals thoughout the day, but they are including carbs, which they told us were necessary. This plan only allows a small amount of carbs, or none at all. Your choice. You can't save the carbs and have them all at one meal. Either have them at the meal, or don't.

From my experience with some of the other plans, such as IF, Keto, I am starting to believe that the body of a diabetic works differently from a non-diabetic, and what works beautifully for them, fails for us. Maybe not all of us. We are still not one-size-fits-all, but I definitely think that's the case for me.