Well, a couple of weeks down the track and after carefully
evaluating all advice and suggestions, I have managed to
cut daily carb intake to under 20 gms. The last few days it
has been under 17. Lots of egg dishes with small quantities
of lo-glycemic/lo-carb vegs, fish and lean meats. A
frittata with smoked salmon and cheese is very tasty and
very low carb.
It has worked, my BGL is right down, fasting around 5.8 -
6.5 and 1 & 2 hour post prandial at 6.9 and 5.9 approx.
I ended up buying a copy of Kathleen's Diet Planner, and
although there are some minor bugs, design omissions from a
diabetic point of view, it is an excellent program for food
tracking. The problems are mainly to do with its search
engine (it has a thirty-five thousand plus food record
database) as the engine will not accept wild cards and is
very slow. You can however load all commonly used food items
into another "favorites" database and get faster results.
The program also tracks and graphs BG, BP, cholesterol,
ketosis, Meds, exercise, and records all daily nutritional
data, including calories, fat levels, carbs, protein, etc.,
both by weight and by calorific breakdown to give running
totals for meals, snacks and whole days, weeks etc. It even
creates shopping lists and has a recipe database.
I recommend it to anyone looking for management software. It
is very quick and simple once set up. If I want a snack, or
a cup of tea/coffee, glass of red wine etc., I only have to
use a couple of mouse clicks to select what I am having from
a list of commonly used items and it adds those values into
that day's totals.
BTW, Alan, a lot of those remaining carbs are from red wine.
😉
Using the program, and eating every three hours or so during
the day, (six small meals) I have managed to get my carbs
heavily reduced and spread fairly evenly through the day. My
readings are good, back in the normal range, but I am
lacking in energy, and exercising is more difficult.
Although I have strong carbohydrate cravings my appetite is
actually reduced when only able to select from a low carb
menu. For my weight, height and exercise level, I should be
eating 2300-2500 calories per day, but I am not going much
over 1600-1700, and forcing myself to do that in order to be
able to continue exercising.
I have had two variations in reading, one deliberate, one
accidental. I went out with a friend a couple of days ago
and had a couple of beers and a meal with steak and chips.
My post prandial readings nearly doubled and they didn't
fully come back down for another day. The other, accidental
spike was with diet jelly. Looking for some lo carb variety,
I bought some packets of diet jelly, rated at zero carbs and
less than ten calories. The same as with the beer and chips,
my readings doubled. I had a two hour dinner reading of 5.9,
had the jelly as a late snack an hour or so later, and my
bedtime reading a couple of hours further on was 8.1. I
might as well have been eating jellybeans. Has anyone else
had a problem with diet jelly?
I intend talking to the manufacturer tomorrow.
Oh, yes, I am losing weight as well, although I was not
really overweight to start with. I am losing about kilo
every three days. I guess that with the very low carb
intake, lower than normal calorie intake, and the exercise,
walking and riding, I am burning up what few carb induced
calories I have in my system and am burning body fat, a sort
of de facto Atkins result. If I do a five kilometre walk
after meals my BGL always drops far more rapidly than if I
sit in front of a computer or read a book. The exercise
makes a very noticeable difference.
Thank you everyone for all the advice that has been offered
on these groups. Much of it has been very valuable.
Regards
David