I have found this forum useful and thought I would say hello. My name is William, I am 57 and was recently diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. I need to lose about 25kg to reach my BMI.
I have been following the 800 diet, more or less, for 4 days and have lost 3.2kg. I must admit I have found it difficult – I love toast, potatoes, rice, cakes….
My blood sugar levels have been erratic over the 4 days. I have just got 6.4, which is not too bad for me.

Hi William! Welcome to the forums and I am sure you will find them very useful to get information and support. I’m sorry about your T2 diabetes diagnosis but you can literally turn that around with this way of eating.
As you are just starting, don’t worry too much about your continued desires for potatoes and toast — those desires will begin to fade as you move forward and cut out the carbohydrates and sugars and refined flours. Over a period of weeks it will get easier and easier and you will literally lose the desire for these foods — at some point you will just not think of them as good food anymore.
Can you get a copy of my favorite “companion” book for the BSD (it’s also Allie’s ((another maintainer))favorite)— it is “Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It “ by Gary Taubes. He will give you great information about why you MUST give up those simple carbohydrates and how your body’s hormones will respond.
Don’t worry — as you continue it will get easier and easier. Most people here who followed the guidelines have put their diabetes into remission.
You are going to get your life back.

Hi William!

Great start.

It is hard to begin with as we tend to focus on what we can’t eat and generally that’s what we used to eat a lot of – which is why we need the diet! As you get used to it, and find different foods you do enjoy it does get easier.

If you feel the need for something which seems carby I suggest butterbeans, chick peas and other tinned (without sauce) beens. You can have them in place of rice or potatoes and they’re very filling. You can also try using gram flour (chick pea flour) to make pancakes or flatbreads.

Many thanks for the kind and helpful comments.
I have ordered the Gary Taubes book.
Butter beans as a substitute for potato seems a good idea.

Welcome, welcome, William! I’m glad that you’ve found your way here 🙂 You are in a great position
to reverse your T2D diagnosis, since you are newly diagnosed. I’m so pleased that you have ordered
Taubes book. Californiagirl and I both think of it as “The Bible”, and we travel around the threads recommending
it constantly. It truly changes how you think about food, and it will be greatly helpful in understanding
insulin resistance and hormones. Suddenly those white carbs and sugar will lose their appeal…and you
feel better than you have in decades. Best wishes,

Allie

Hi William
You’ve made a great start so stick with it. As the others say it really does get much easier the longer you stay away from the big carbs. I loved/love all of the foods above (well, if you replace cake with chocolate),and more! I haven’t got iron willpower I promise you, but not eating them just doesn’t bother me any more. And, of course you will build up a whole new range of lovely things to eat – again, if I didn’t enjoy eating this way it simply wouldn’t be sustainable for me.

Like any big change, it takes time to learn how best to work it to suit you – but what helps is when you see the impact this way of eating has on your Type II diabetes. Like lots of people following BSD, I’ve put my diabetes in remission and it’s stayed that way for over 2 years now – it really is remarkable the impact it has on Type II and on your health generally.
All the very best
Jennie
Edited: Personally, although I love pulses and beans I find they spike my blood sugar so I just don’t eat them. Everybody is different, but if you test your blood sugars it might be worth testing before & 2 hrs after eating them or go for very small portions. A lot of people replace potato (mash) and rice with cauliflower mash, cauli rice etc as it’s lower carb. There is a thread on here called something like 101 ways with cauliflower (or similar)which you might want to have a look at (use the search box in top right-hand corner).