Just been diagnosed as pre diabetic. I walk at least 6 miles a day, do agility training with my very active dog. I am 5ft 3″ and 56kg. I am changing my diet, what else can I do? Do I need to lose weight ?

Hi County Girl, this diet is designed to shock the visceral fat away – that is the fat around your liver and pancreas. This is where the magic starts and your liver can do its job properly and your pancreas can start manufacturing insulin again. I see from your 56kg that you dont need to lose weight but you might very well be a tofi – thin outside fat inside – and need to get rid of the visceral fat.

Hi Country Girl and welcome. What kind of dietary advice have you been given? Have you read the BSD book and is it your preferred option?
The really important measurement isn’t weight but ratio of waist to height. If it is more than half your height then the chances are you have visceral fat which you need to target.
In any case you need to minimise your consumption of those foods that cause glucose spikes, ie refined carbs and sugars. Do you have the means to measure your blood sugar so you can see how your body is reacting to what you are eating?
Maggie

Hi country girl and maggiebath,
There was an article in the Sunday Times yesterday, with the title smug beanpoles hid unhealthy layers of blubber – which reported on a research project carrying out body scans of 6000 people to investigate if BMI is an accurate way of assessing body fat. – The article may be helpful in understanding what we are talking about when we are talking about fat in, thin out.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/past-six-days/2018-07-08/news/smug-beanpoles-hide-unhealthy-layers-of-blubber-cppb6pq9f

Thanks for your replies . I have the BSD book and cook books and have started to follow those, only 5 days. I have a blood sugar monitor , first reading was 6.7 ( Saturday) and today 5.3 ! How often should I check it ?

Hi Country Girl, I am diabetic and check twice a day, first thing in the morning before eating – so a non strict fasting test – then again before my dinner in the evening. Some people check after they have eaten but there is really no point as all it tells you is that you have eaten. It might be higher or lower depending on what you ate but that may only be a temporary blip. Basically we now know that we get spikes when we eat carbs, cereals, sugars and some grains so we rather just avoid them. If I ever had proof. I have been on this diet for 2 years and it is keeping my diabetes under good control but not cured as I have had to for 13 years and use insulin and it is difficult to take that step to stop taking it. I generally stick to a low carb vegetable based diet and would never dream of having a starchy white carb. On a cruise I informed the restaurant not to give me carbs but to add extra veg and I managed my blood glucose very well, even allowing for the odd cocktail did not spike it too much. One day we were on shore in Italy (Venice) and we like to try the local food. Besides fish, which I hate, they only served pasta or pizza. I had a carbonara and could only eat half of it. The next morning my BG was 12.1 (instead of 5.0 or 5.5) and it took me 3 days of being careful and increasing me insulin to get it back down.

Another time to check is if you feel at all shaky, weak, blurred vision, tingling lips and / or finger tips etc as you might be going too low and that is more likely to cause you problems. If you do go really low dont reach of the jam pot like I used to before this diet. I now have some Greek yoghurt and a few prunes then re-test in half an hour.

I am recently diagnosed as pre diabetic, had no help from GP. I have started to follow this diet and advice. What is a normal reading and when should I ask GP for another test ?

Pre-diabetic reading are 42 to 47. 48 and above are considered as having diabetes. So 41 and preferably in the 30’s are ‘normal’ readings. Generally if you have just been diagnosed with pre/diabetes then a further blood test is taken three months later. Doctors usually allow three months of changed diet to see if that will control/normalise blood sugar before suggesting medication if there has been no improvement. The problem is that the diet doctors recommend is full of carbs and only aggravates the situation! You have found the best way to reverse you prediabetes.

Hi Country Girl
I noticed earlier you mentioned you are using a home blood sugar monitor (me, too). As you probably know this measures using a different set of numbers to those of an HbA1c test. Ultimately it is the Hba1c numbers that count – these are the ones Verano has quoted – and is what your GP will be measuring.

But you can see how your home blood sugar monitor figures compare to Hba1c figures on this diagram from diabetes.co.uk https://www.diabetes.co.uk/what-is-hba1c.html (Scroll down the page to what I think of as the arc or arch diagram)

The home monitor blood sugar/blood glucose numbers (mmol/l) are on the bottom. The equivalent Hba1c numbers (and %) are on the top. So, for example, if your home monitor numbers are regularly below 7 then that equates to below 42 (6%) on an Hba1c – which would indicate your blood sugar levels are back in the ‘normal’ range.

There are caveats; for one the Hba1c test gives a figure for the average blood glucose over the past 8-12 weeks so if you’ve only been doing BSD a few weeks the Hba1c will include some weeks prior to BSD when your blood glucose was higher.

But, as a general gauge of how you’re doing, I found it really helpful.

Marie

Edited: Forgot to mention – in the boxes just above the diagram they’ve also got the diabetes, pre-diabetes, and normal range numbers Verano mentions, which are helpful to have handy when comparing xx

Thank you for your quick reply, it is so helpful

Just a positive update. I had a blood test last week, three months after being told I was pre diabetic. My reading was 42, after following this diet it is now 35 ! I am over the moon.