Hi, I’m Chris, 61 year old male.
I’ve been border line diabetic for several years, but always managed to stay just below the level on blood tests, until now!
My HbA1c in February was measured at 53, and I was told by the GP practice diabetic nurse that a second test above 48 would mean a diagnosis of diabetes.
I was determined to avoid this and embarked on the 8 week BSD. It went really well, with the help of my wife who did the shopping and cooking!
I finished the 8 weeks with a weight loss of 22lbs and a 3 inch reduction in waist size. I had a second blood test last week which resulted in a HbA1c of 47(phew, just scraped through!)
My dilemma now, is that I obviously still need to reduce sugar, but I don’t want to lose any more weight, my BMI is now 22 and I’m feeling painfully thin with sticky out hip bones and shoulder blades.
Any advice would be gratefully received!

Thanks

Hi Chris,
We have a few “maintainers” on this forum board who are still keeping their diabetes under control and their weight at the same level so hopefully they will be able to answer you soon.

But I’ll try to help in the meantime, I believe they stick to the low carb lifestyle maybe with the odd fast day here and there? So you would increase the calories but stick with similar food.

Congratulations on your progress so far!

Hi Chris and welcome to the forum.
I’ve been type 2 diabetic for many years and after doing BSD I reduced my hba1c from 62 to 46. I only want to lose a little more weight so I’ve been dabbling between maintenance and dieting but I’ve managed to keep my bg (blood glucose) levels low. You MUST keep carbs low in order to keep bg low. You can increase the calories and I think that would balance out the weight. I tend to gain and lose a couple of pounds each week but on average I’m still the same weight as I was in March when I finished the 8 weeks. And more importantly my bg is still low.
Do you test your bg regularly? I use the cheap sd codefree testing kit. The doctors here won’t provide testing equipment unless you are on insulin. But I’m not prepared to wait months for the next blood test to see how I’m doing. I recommend investing in a testing kit if you don’t already have one. Initially you should test before and then 2 hours after each meal to check for any spikes. Now I just test randomly.
Feel free to ask any more questions. There are quite a few diabetics on here and loads of experienced BSD people.
Good luck

Hi Chris,
The trick to maintain weight without increasing carbs is to increase the calories that come from healthy fats. So you can have cream in your coffee, you can melt butter over your veg, and have creamy sauces. Or high fat salad dressings.
Also it may be worth checking on the amount of protein you are having. Too much protein will raise blood sugar levels, but a man can have a higher amount of protein (and therefore calories from protein) than a woman. – Apparently the range for men is 0.6 to 1g of protein per kg of Target weight against the 0.6 to 0.8 for women. – I have read a tip to work out how high you go is to test your blood sugar levels after eating measured amounts of protein to see what effect it has had.

Hi Scottiishgal yes I do have a self testting kit. I’ve been testing once a week, first thing in the morning, and also randomly 2 hours after eating. When I started my fasting levels were around 6.6, but this reduced steadily and yesterday was 5.1. My 2 hour post eating levels have been between 5.0 and 6.9. These seem considerably lower than the HbA1c test by the GP, but if this test covers 12 weeks there would have been a period of time included when I was not on the BSD. I have another test booked in 3 months which I hope will be much lower than 47.

Thanks JGwen, I think more protein is required. Ideally I want to be around 76kg, so 70g of protein a day will be my target.
Thanks for the advice.

They are great figures Chris. Yes, the hba1c is an average over the last 3 months so it doesn’t tend to match your own readings. Sounds like you’re doing everything right so far though and your next hba1c should be even better than the last one.

Hi I recently found out that drinking three cups of hibiscus tea a day,can reduce both blood sugars and blood pressure and cholesterol.I am about to try it waiting on my delivery of the tea.I will let you know if it works and how well it works.

Sorry to tell you this Niki but if any tea can reduce BP, BG and cholesterol then it is a miracle and would have been in all the medical journals. The best these teas can do for you is have a few more antioxidants than black tea and maybe reduce your calories as you will not be using any milk.