Newly diagnosed with Type II - intro.
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Newly diagnosed with Type II - intro.
| Tue, 01-20-2004 - 3:00pm |
I was g.d. while pregnant with my twin boys 19 months ago and have just been diagnosed with type II. I am not overweight and exercise 2-3 times a week, so I have been told that Im not your typical type II. I dont meet with a dietician for 4 weeks, so can anyone help me with some sort of meal plan until then?!?! Or a book, website, etc. that would help me. I have a lot of info. from when I was pregnant, but b/c of the twins, I was on 3600 calories a day...something Im sure they dont want me to do, LOL! Any suggestions would be appreciated greatly.

My name is Ann and I, like you, developed gd with my last pregnancy (ds is now 2 years and 2 weeks). 6 weeks after birth I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic - in general I have no problems with fasting (in over 26 months of checking I've had 2 that were higher than 110), but I have problems with my 2-hour after numbers. Like you, I am not overweight (though I was a few pounds overweight before I got pregnant last time) and I exercise at least 2-3 times a week, often more. So what's a girl to do?
I recommend the book by the ADA called the Food and Nutrition Bible (or something very close to that). They give in an appendix various levels of diets (numbers of calories from 1000/day up to 2600/day I think). List who should likely be in which category by amount of exercise, gender and age. There are a few recipes in this book, but they spend a lot of time talking about what the nutritional content is of many foods (chapters on veggies, fruits, fats, meats, dairy, etc.) There are great tables of food that give serving size, calories, carbs, protein, etc. Since I have not seen a dietician since I was pregnant - this is what I've used. Especially when I was nursing, it was important for me to get enough nutritution (and, oddly enough, enough carbs to create milk), but my doc (an internist) didn't really know the answer. I did ultimately lose about 30 pounds (I needed to lose about 10) while nursing. But I have maintained my current weight for over 1.5 years now (and doc said he'd get mad if I lost more...)
Since I am pre-diabetic and my A1C is good (5.2 just last week which means I've kept it well under control with diet and exercise) my doc has basically told me that I can eat what I want as long as I test and make sure that I am not out of control. This is an ok message for me - I'm an obsessive statistician - so even though I'm in great control - I still test 2-4 times a day. So I don't really count carbs anymore when I'm eating. But I maintain my exercise and am careful about what I eat.
Good luck and come back as often as you want. I have certainly learned a lot here and felt great support from the members here.
Ann
I read your post tonight with interest. I, too, was diagnosed as a Type II diabetic 5 years ago. I was not overweight (and had never been significantly overweight) and exercised at the time of diagnosis. I recently discovered after all this time that I am not a true Type II diabetic. I responded to oral meds initially, but recently I had a GAD 65 protein test. The results of this test showed that I have slow onset Type 1 diabetes--or what they call LADA or Type 1.5.
This may not be the case with you, but I'm mentioning it now for your information since you are not overweight and exercise--2 markers that made my doctor think that I should be tested for GAD 65 protein. I also found that for the last year I had a terrible time trying to control my blood sugars. Nothing seemed to work. With Type 1.5, I am not resistant to insulin, so medications to treat resistance didn't work. I never heard about Type 1.5 until I read about it on another diabetes board. It would have saved years of frustration and discouragement if I'd known earlier.
If you find that you continually struggle to get your blood sugar in control even when counting carbs, eating fewer carbs and low-glycimic carbs, if you continue exercising and your blood sugar goes up after exercise and not down, if you have to take a lot of oral meds to get in control, it may be worth talking to your doctor about getting tested for Type 1.5.
Good luck.
Alison