HI ALL! ALTHOUGH I AM CONSIDERED A BORDERLINE DIABETIC, MY LAST AIC WAS 7. THAT IS ABOUT PAST THAT BORDERLINE. MY QUESTION IS WHAT HAVE OTHER DIABETICS FOUND TO NOT RAISE SUGAR AND TO HELP MAINTAIN? I KNOW STARCHES/CARBS ARE BAD. I KNOW THAT ALOT OF PEOPLE AVOID DAIRY. I KNOW SUGAR IS THE OBVIOUS ONE.

OK, WHAT ABOUT MEATS? WHAT'S GOOD .. WHAT'S NOT?
ANY OK DAIRY?
WHAT ABOUT SNACKS? I HEARD PORK RINDS WERE SUGAR FREE/CARB FREE.

I NEED HELP. I DO NOT EAT SEAFOOD, SO FISH AND SUCH FOR DINNER ARE OUT.

HOW ABOUT SOME PEOPLE SHARE THEIR THOUGHTS AND IDEAS ON FOODS THAT CAN RAISE OR HELP MAINTAIN YOUR SUGAR. ALSO, WHAT WAYS HHAVE YOU FOUND IF ANY TO HELP LOWER IT IF YOU GET TOO HIGH.

I AM NOT ON ANY MEDS RIGHT NOT FOR MY SUGAR. I THINK MY DOC WANTS ME TO LOWER MY WEIGHT AND TRY TO MAINTAIN THOUGH DIET. BUT THIS ISN'T WORKING SO FAR.

MY DAD HAS IT AND BOTH MY SISTERS TO. THEY ARE ALL INSULIN DEPENDENT DIABETICS. I DO NOT WANT TO BE THERE IF I CAN AT ALL HLEP IT. I NEED TO LOSE ABOUT 50LBS TO BE AT MY NORMAL WEIGHT. I NEED SOME FRIENDLY ADVICE.

I HAVE CHECKED THE DIABETIC ASSOC. WEB SITE. THE FOOD PYRAMID IS FINE AND ALL. BUT REALLY? WHO CHECKS IT THAT OFTEN. I THINK NORMAL PEOPLE WHO LIVE WITH THIS EVERY DAY CAN HELP ALOT MORE. SO... LETS' HAVE IT! THANKS! :wave:

I think foods to avoid, etc, is actually very highly individual. I limit my carbs to no more than 45 g per meal, though it's usually closer to 35. However, I've found that the type of carbs matter. I have a friend that is diabetic, so we compared notes. Here is what I found:

White flour makes my blood sugar spike and stay high for a while. Does nothing to my friend unless she eats too much. I can have 30 grams of carbs from white bread and my blood sugar will be 208. Hers won't budge.

Potatoes don't raise my blood sugar much at all. They cause hers to soar. Of course, if I ate 4 baked potatoes (at 22 g each), my blood sugar would be terrible, but I can have 1 or 2 small ones and my glucose will be 98 post prandial.

Milk is OK for me in moderation, but my friend is lactose intolerant, so she doesn't drink it anyway.

I think the best thing you can do is get a blood glucose monitor and monitor everything. You will figure out what are trigger foods for you. Eat lots and lot of veggies, especially green ones. My snack is usually 1 oz of cheese, a piece of fruit and a salad (no fat dressing). I also eat tons of salad, with very little salad dressing, which is low fat.

Pork rinds may be low in carbs, but I believe they are high in fat, though I'm not sure because I don't eat them. I limit my fat as well as my carbs. The biggest thing I look for is unprocessed or processed very little foods. Rather than get canned fruits and veggies, buy fresh. It gives me more control over what I eat. Eat chicken for dinner if you don't like fish. Limit red meat to almost never. Measure everything. When trying to determine your portions, if you don't measure your food, you will still eat more than you need. 2 oz of meat is much smaller than you think. Look at serving sizes for everything you eat and stick to it.

Drink water. Lots of it. I drink about a gallon a day, in 1/2 gallon jug I got.

Exercise. Find something you like to do and do it every day. If you hate doing everything (like me), even a walk every night for 1/2 hour is a good way to start. I ride my bike now, for an hour each night when the weather permits. If it's raining I ride my stationary bike.

Best advice I can give you, provided you have health insurance, is to find a Registered Dietician or a Diabetes Educator. Both are extremely helpful. I got lucky enough to find a CDE that is actually diabetic herself, so I get helpful advice from both the standpoint of a diabetic and a medical view.

For the first two months after I was diagnosed, I wrote down EVERYTHING I ate or drank, in addition to what my blood sugar was after I ate it. I found not only that I ate WAY more than I believed, but it helped me determine how I reacted to various foods. Yes, it was an incredible pain, but it was well worth the valuable information it provided.

Well thank you! I'm glad you responded. You are correct, each persons sugar varies by indivual needs and such. I realize this. But I also think it helps people to try different things when they see others notes.

I do check my sugar at least 4x a day. This past week has been no different for me than many others. However, my sugar has not been good. Max was 208 and minimum was 114. I am starting to take away things today from my diet. First to limit will definitely be the carbs. I know dairy raises my sugar, so it's out (skim/ff is ok). I look forward to more posts. Thanks

...If you search for "Low Glycemic Index", you'll find tables with the different foods listed and ranked on a scale of 1 to 100 in how they effected the rise in glucose in test studies. They took groups of people, had them fast for several hours, then eat 50 grams of a particular carb. They then measured the glucose a different intervals and then ranked them, using glucose as the standard with a glycemic index of 100. The white starches ranked the highest at around 80, Table sugar ranked in the 50's or 60's, and fructose and lactose were pretty low in the 30's and 40's.
...Karen is absolutly right in that we all react differently to different foods and montoring your glucose after eating different foods is basically doing the same thing that the study did, except yours will be personalized, which is a lot better.
Rick