PreDiabetes recommended Daily Sugar and Carbohydrates intake

Posted by m188213 @m188213, Jan 29, 2019

I am a 64 year old 265lb male who has recently been diagnosed as being "prediabetes" and need to know how much sugar and carbohydrates i must limit myself to daily so I can make certain not to exceed.

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@retiredteacher

@jk Thanks. I have seen so many articles and ads that I just think they are scams. Of course, they always have some magic exotic herbal concoction for the cure. I just always think that isn't true; it's just an ad to sell a product. I have an appointment with my endo in a couple of weeks. I'm going to ask him. I know he will say absolutely No cure!
I have developed neuropathy in my feet in the last six weeks or so. It has really added to the difficulty of having diabetes. It seems that no matter what I do, I get more problems. I am really tired of all of this. I gave up food I enjoy and going out to eat and friends because I always had to turn them down because I can't go out to eat anywhere. I am paranoid on contolling what goes in my food. Diabetes is just a lousy disease.
I'm just down in the dumps today.
Carol

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@retiredteacher Carol, I will be interested in hearing what your endo says. I googled because somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered reading something about eating a very low calorie diet could reverse diabetes. I asked my PCP about it but he said that I did not weigh enough to do that, and had already lost so much.
I was talking to my future daughter-in-law this evening about this and she said that she has heard that it is possible to reverse diabetes. When she heard my numbers she was very surprised that I am still considered to be diabetic.
JK

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@mickj

@m188213 I feel bad for you, as you are getting some confusing input in this thread. The fact is that you can certainly reverse your Type 2 symptoms through lifestyle changes. I learned about this after being prediabetic (undiagnosed) for years and then being diabetic post liver transplant. I was determined to not be diabetic, so I set off to learn as much as I could about it and living the best I could to make it go away. And lo and behold, it went away.

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@mickj as the articles that I included links for say, it is reversible with major weight loss and life style changes. I doubt that this happens frequently though.
I’m happy that you are no longer diabetic. Did your endocrinologist tell you that you are not diabetic any more and no longer need to be monitored for it, or does he/she still want to keep an eye on you?
JK

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I credit my diabetes with saving my life. I was a Type II diabetic for 5 years. I had it controlled with metformin, diet and exercise. When my glucose levels went out of control, my PCP ordered a CT scan. He discovered I had pancreatic cancer. After surgery where most of my pancreas was removed, I became a Type I diabetic. I am alive today because they found my cancer before it had spread very far.

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@contentandwell

@mickj as the articles that I included links for say, it is reversible with major weight loss and life style changes. I doubt that this happens frequently though.
I’m happy that you are no longer diabetic. Did your endocrinologist tell you that you are not diabetic any more and no longer need to be monitored for it, or does he/she still want to keep an eye on you?
JK

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No one keeps an eye on my blood glucose or HgA1c anymore other than me. I would have have no idea whether or not any of my doctors considers me diabetic, and quite frankly, I don't care. HgA1c of 4.6 and fasting glucose of 85 ... that's a long way from diabetes.

I think a common misnomer is that obesity causes diabetes. There's certainly correlation but not necessarily causation. Yes, you are 2x more likely to have diabetes if you are obese, but a large chunk of obese people do not have diabetes. They have high subcutaneous fat but low visceral fat. They are metabolically healthy. The bottom line issue for most people is insulin resistance/sensitivity, which can be improved through diet and exercise.

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@mickj

No one keeps an eye on my blood glucose or HgA1c anymore other than me. I would have have no idea whether or not any of my doctors considers me diabetic, and quite frankly, I don't care. HgA1c of 4.6 and fasting glucose of 85 ... that's a long way from diabetes.

I think a common misnomer is that obesity causes diabetes. There's certainly correlation but not necessarily causation. Yes, you are 2x more likely to have diabetes if you are obese, but a large chunk of obese people do not have diabetes. They have high subcutaneous fat but low visceral fat. They are metabolically healthy. The bottom line issue for most people is insulin resistance/sensitivity, which can be improved through diet and exercise.

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Thanks @mickj for opening up this discussion. I wonder why doctors do not tell patients that diabetes can be reversed. I've never seen a book that is How to Reverse Diabetes. The books are about controlling it and what all you have to do. If every person who was pre-diabetic and diabetic stopped all the medicines and dieted to the right weight and exercised, then many doctors would be out of a job, and many pharmacies would not make the big bucks on medicines. I can't wait to ask my endo and see what his answer is.
It seems that people who have had a transplant of liver or pancreas are the ones who found it worked. I guess if the old organs couldn't work, then the donor organs took over and worked correctly again; thus, the reversal. This just fascinates me because I have had no fun fighting this disease and I have changed my lifestyle completely. Some people have had diabetes for decades and are still battling it. If everyone could erase diabetes from the medical books, we'd all be a lot happier.
Carol

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@mickj

No one keeps an eye on my blood glucose or HgA1c anymore other than me. I would have have no idea whether or not any of my doctors considers me diabetic, and quite frankly, I don't care. HgA1c of 4.6 and fasting glucose of 85 ... that's a long way from diabetes.

I think a common misnomer is that obesity causes diabetes. There's certainly correlation but not necessarily causation. Yes, you are 2x more likely to have diabetes if you are obese, but a large chunk of obese people do not have diabetes. They have high subcutaneous fat but low visceral fat. They are metabolically healthy. The bottom line issue for most people is insulin resistance/sensitivity, which can be improved through diet and exercise.

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@mickj If you were to eat a relatively high amount of carbs would your own insulin still handle as it does with a person who has never been diabetic? I try to limit my carbs but it would be great if that wasn’t necessary. My treat is often a piece of very dark chocolate and that is fairly low carb. My diabetes is minimal enough that I have been I told that I do not need to test more than a couple of times a week, after eating. It might be interesting to cheat and then test my blood sugar. I too lost a great deal of weight, and of course have a new liver. I do know that after my transplant, when I was on a higher dose of prednisone I had to use insulin for a few weeks.
JK

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@retiredteacher

Thanks @mickj for opening up this discussion. I wonder why doctors do not tell patients that diabetes can be reversed. I've never seen a book that is How to Reverse Diabetes. The books are about controlling it and what all you have to do. If every person who was pre-diabetic and diabetic stopped all the medicines and dieted to the right weight and exercised, then many doctors would be out of a job, and many pharmacies would not make the big bucks on medicines. I can't wait to ask my endo and see what his answer is.
It seems that people who have had a transplant of liver or pancreas are the ones who found it worked. I guess if the old organs couldn't work, then the donor organs took over and worked correctly again; thus, the reversal. This just fascinates me because I have had no fun fighting this disease and I have changed my lifestyle completely. Some people have had diabetes for decades and are still battling it. If everyone could erase diabetes from the medical books, we'd all be a lot happier.
Carol

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@retiredteacher, when my doctor told me I had “full-blown” diabetes, she also told me that with diet and exercise I could make it go away, just like I “never had it.” I followed her instructions and in three months went from A1c of 6.5 down to 5.8. That was over three years ago, and I have stayed under 6.3 A1c so far. I am at A1c 6.3 now because I ate far too much of the pies, cookies, candies, dressing, etc. from Thanksgiving through the New Year and also stopped exercising. My bad. I have to fix it.

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@marvinjsturing

I credit my diabetes with saving my life. I was a Type II diabetic for 5 years. I had it controlled with metformin, diet and exercise. When my glucose levels went out of control, my PCP ordered a CT scan. He discovered I had pancreatic cancer. After surgery where most of my pancreas was removed, I became a Type I diabetic. I am alive today because they found my cancer before it had spread very far.

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@marvinjsturing I know nothing about pancreas transplants, but why did they only remove part of your pancreas?
JK

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@capausz

@retiredteacher, when my doctor told me I had “full-blown” diabetes, she also told me that with diet and exercise I could make it go away, just like I “never had it.” I followed her instructions and in three months went from A1c of 6.5 down to 5.8. That was over three years ago, and I have stayed under 6.3 A1c so far. I am at A1c 6.3 now because I ate far too much of the pies, cookies, candies, dressing, etc. from Thanksgiving through the New Year and also stopped exercising. My bad. I have to fix it.

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@capausz To me you have not actually gotten rid of it if your bg still goes up when you eat carbs/sweets. That is basically just controlling it, isn’t it?
JK

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@contentandwell

@marvinjsturing I know nothing about pancreas transplants, but why did they only remove part of your pancreas?
JK

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@contentandwell My cancer surgery took 8 1/2 hours. The surgeon said it would have taken too long to remove the entire pancreas. In a typical Whipple procedure, they remove the cancerous part of the pancreas and then reattach the remaining part of the pancreas back into the digestive system. My pancreas was so bad that they didn't even connect it to the digestive system.

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