[annsrum]

Okies I am newly diagnosed about one week ago. a1c was 7.2 with average of 156. They want me to try diet and exercise for three months.

So far I have been attempting to eat less carbs. I've eaten salad (boring), veggie based soups (boring), and anything I can find with low carb if at all possible.

I have started walking and lifting light weights several days this week.

The lowest I have seen my blood sugar all week was 114. Mostly it seems to like to be around 150 even when I haven't eaten anything for hours and hours and have exercised.

Does it take awhile to get all the sugar and insulin levels down or something? What in the universe does it take to get my sugar to go any lower? Magic?

 

[Shanny]

Protein & fats are extremely low carb, as are most high fiber veggies.

How to Lower Your Blood Sugar

 

[MCS]

Not magic, but close. When I was new to all of this I found it very benefitial to be as regamented as possible . This means eat as low a carb as I could in the morning, never go beyond 2-3 hrs with out eating a low carb snack and checking my BG levels regularly to adjust what I was doing. You are doing good. Gong for a long period of time not eating and then exercising will indeed raise your BG level. You have to think of your liver as a gas tank full of stored energy. Your body will use what it has eaten first, then it will turn to your liver for fuel if you do not eat. Most D's have a regulator problem in that your liver will excrete far more glucose than you really need at the time. Eating something on a regular basis is the only way to turn this off.

 

[beefy]

Okies I am newly diagnosed about one week ago. a1c was 7.2 with average of 156. They want me to try diet and exercise for three months.

Howdy and :welcome: to the forum. It's a great place for friendly info, and we are pretty blunt about the straight facts here. Hopefully you'll learn a lot and have a good time here!

So far I have been attempting to eat less carbs. I've eaten salad (boring), veggie based soups (boring), and anything I can find with low carb if at all possible.

Low-Carb is certainly the way to go, especially for us Type II diabetics as we usually have insulin-resistance issues not often found in Type I's. So for us, the lower-carb the better.

I have started walking and lifting light weights several days this week.

Good job! Walking is one of the best exercises for anyone that can do it comfortably. Weight training also helps - but if you do want to tone up and add a little muscle (which not only helps you look good, but really helps your metabolism) make sure to eat enough protein and fat in your diet. They're both critical for repairing / building muscle.

The lowest I have seen my blood sugar all week was 114. Mostly it seems to like to be around 150 even when I haven't eaten anything for hours and hours and have exercised.

Does it take awhile to get all the sugar and insulin levels down or something? What in the universe does it take to get my sugar to go any lower? Magic?

Congrats on the 114 ... nice number for a change It will likely only get better!

Yes, it DOES take the body a little while to adjust and naturally lower it's BG (blood glucose) levels , but with a proper low-carb diet, regular exercise and weight loss, it does happen. It's slow, but when you compare your 90 day numbers to your numbers at diagnosis, it's pretty dramatic!

The link shanny posted is GREAT. It's the definitive solution for lowering your BG naturally - but it does focus mostly on diet. As a type II, exercise is also very helpful for burning excess glucose.

Although the body can 'burn fat', it's 'preferred' source of energy is from glucose - so if you have glucose or glycogen (that is stored in the muscles and liver) your body will use those first, so walking and weight training are a great way to lower those (glucose and glycogen) levels.

Several of us are also adopting a LCHF diet (low-carb, high-fat) which is proven much better for both weight loss and control of both blood glucose and insulin levels than many other diets - although we're all different, so YMMV (your mileage may vary). A good source for LCHF is the website for Dr. Andreas Eenfeldt (MD) who is one of many doctors now showing the facts about the LCHF diet. Check his website out when you can.

 

[magicplinger]

Hi, Ann. Several of us, including me, are keeping our bg under control with diet and exercise only. It is important not to eat too many carbs at one time or your bg will go up too high, so space them out throuout the day. Also, most of us can't eat as many carbs as our dieticians recommend. If we did, our bg would be up to the moon. Your meter is the best thing to determine how many carbs you can eat per meal and still keep your bg at a safe level. If you haven't checked out www.bloodsugar101 it would be wise to do so. It will tell you what your bg should be and what safe and unsafe levels are.

I am confident that diet and exercise will work for you, but it doesn't work for everyone. If you have to go on meds, there is no need to dispair, and my advice is to insist on Metformin. It is the safest (not all diabetic medicines are safe) and very helpful to many diabetics.

Froggie

 

[jwags]

It may take awhile to get your bgs down. One of the reasons for higher bgs is liver dumps when we don't eat. When we eat carbs some of the glucose from those carbs is stored in the liver as glycogen. When our body thinks we are starving even if we are not it will change some of this stored glycogen back into glucose. We also store glycogen in our muscles so when we exercise your body draws on that for energy. For many Type 2's the signals in our body are all messed up. No one knows the reason for this. So lots of time our body dumps glucose when we are still high keeping our bgs high. I tried diet and exercise for about 3 months and couldn't get bgs low enough. The metformin really helped me. But everyone is different. I still eat very low carb ( 30 per day) and exercise 1-2 hours most days but without metformin my bgs creep up.