Pre-diabetic
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Pre-diabetic
| Wed, 12-19-2007 - 12:36am |
Recently diagnosed with impaired glucose, I wondering if I should treat this as diabetes. I have not changed my eating habits,I eat a lot of breads and sweets. I'm a sugarholic and must have something sweet everday. I don't care for fruit. Having a real problem controlling my eating. I check my sugar daily, well I was but it's always normal so I don't check it as often. My highest sugar reading was 201 two months ago since then it's been normal. I appreciate your feedback; thanks in advance.

Hi and welcome to the board. My name is Mary Frances and I am one of the community leaders for this. I am a type 2 diabetic and a registered nurse. Any advise I may give is not a substitute for seeking medical advise from a health care practitioner of your choice.
You absolutely should treat this. I am not sure that you aren't actually a type 2 diabetic now because of your 201 blood sugar. But the reason behind lower the target number for the diagnosis of diabetes is to be able to make the life style changes necessary and prevent the progression into full blown diabetes.
IMHO what you need to do now is to meet with a dietitian to develop a meal plan that will lower the amount of unhealthy carbs that you are eating and increase the amount of healthy carbs and help you to get your weight and physical activity up to the level that will keep you from becoming diabetic. The damage from diabetes starts even before you are diagnosed and taking control early will prevent this.
Have you had an A1C test done? Do you know the results?
I would love to hear what you think about this, so please get back to me.
Hi Maryfrances,
Thanks for replying to my post. Not sure about Ac1 test, my test consisted of not having anthing to eat or drink after midnight then drinking a very glucose type drink waiting 2 hrs. to be checked. My Drs. practioner says it glucose impaired but my Dr. says type 2. I'm really confused. Both of them suggest I check my blood 3 X day. My insurance doesn't pay for any type of nutritional counseling or diabetic supplies. Because my numbers seem to be normal most of the time I'm thinking this is not real.
Hi, I am the other cl on this board...
You'll also want to move more - exercise is a key tool to get your body to use whatever insulin your body is making more efficiently. Whether you're pre-diabetic or already diabetic, insulin resistance is a big factor in how things progress. If you can get your body to use what it's got more efficiently, it lowers the strain on the insulin producing cells which means they can continue working longer.
Definitely watch white foods, count the carb values, watch portion sizes. That's a key one - for instance, for me (everyone varies) 1/2 cup Cheerios doesn't slam my blood sugar but the standard 3/4 cup portion size does (because 1/2 cup has fewer carbs among other things).
Fruit is a carb so even if you loved fruits, you'd need to keep an eye on what kind and how much.
I understand about the sweets - I love chocolate. So, what I do is allot a SMALL portion every day or couple of days of *dark* chocolate (generally less fat and sugar added). This morning, I had my 1/2 cup of cereal (about 15 grams of carbs) with 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk (which is only 1 gram of carbs) plus 1/4 cup of pecans, crumbled (protein helps to slow digestion and absorption of what you eat), PLUS 1 *teaspoon* of semi sweet chocolate bits. Total comes to about 22 grams of carbs and I feel that I've had my chocolate, not deprived of it. KWIM? Just that tiny portion and it's enough rather than thinking "I *can't* have" it's more "I can have this much, I can choose what's my best choice right this moment" Also, maybe check out things like the thread below somewhere related to Splenda based hot cocoas - the Nestle carb select cocoa is 5 grams of carbs per packet which can be incorporated into your day (I'll often have a cup of cocoa with my lunch, for instance, a whole grain bread with peanut butter and all fruit jam - the whole grains and protein and fat help to keep the carbs in the bread, jam and cocoa from slamming right into my system).
--Deb
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Amy