Thanks for replying to my posts. I did not know canned tomatoes could do that. I will consider that next time. I also have my meter too because of this thread, so I can use that too. I have not yet, but will educate myself about the effects meat has on insulin response also.

Cajunboy47, I am glad you replied to my post. I have read a lot of your posts, and it looks like you went from having diabetes out of control to good control around 100. That is encouraging. I also saw your pictures. I bet you run into people that don't recognize you. Just outstanding. Anyway, your posts are always informative for me. I am your neighbor over in Denham Springs, just east of Baton Rouge. I have been to Breaux Bridge many times, I did a few months for the National Guard over there in the 80s.
Geaux Tigers,
David

Yea, I do tend to be motivated about something at first and then taper off after awhile. Maybe that is just human nature. This is a concern for me. I know a few people with diabetes that are not doing what they know they should be doing, so that is a concern also. Hopefully, I will stay on the straight and narrow road.
David

My niece lives in Denham Springs, married to a Keller, but they're not from there, just been there about 10 years or so...

Two things I've learned the most about Diabetes.

1. Worrying makes it worst.

2. Diabetics are always one meal away from being out of control.

I think everything has been said already.

I am happy to hear that you are getting on board with changing your lifestyle to avoid full blown T2.

However, I have difficulty with the term pre-diabetic.

The question is what happens to your blood sugar levels if you have hi carbs?

Do they stay below 120?

Do they return to under 100 at the 2 hour priandal?

If they shoot up above 140 and head for the 200s and 300s, that is a very strong indication that you have lost phase I insulin and are already a T2.

The meter you bought and prudent measurement before and after meals will tell the true story.

Yes Dancinbr, there seems to be some controversy about being pre-diabetic. Someone "pre-diabetic" in my opinion is just someone that does not have diabetes too bad yet.
I think at 1 hr of my glucose test I was 190, but I am not 100% certain I have that number correct. At 2 hr it was 59. That was after going thru the familar conditions of feeling sleepy, can't possibly stay awake, falling asleep and waking up with a kind of hung over feeling 45 minutes later. I have done that a lot over the past few years. Little things like eating fried chicken will do that to me, not just deserts.
Lowest number after fasting was 115. I had a positive discussion with a second doctor in July, the start of my low carb eating plan, and he said the blood glucose falling so low is all part of the beginings of diabetes. I went to my regular doctor in May to have the 2 hr glucose test. I did not know if what was making me fall sleep (almost pass out) was from low blood sugar or high blood sugar.
This morning, after only one month on basically Atkins induction, my fasting # is 82. I plan to keep with the Atkins induction for a while then switch more to a whole foods diet, low in carbs or rather what my doctor recommended, a low glycemic diet. Whole foods for more variety, which I'm sure I will want at some point but staying with the Atkins principals.
I work with several people that are heavy, and I seem to be the only one with BS issues. Go figure. I might have a gentic propensity for diabetes, my grandmother had it and she was supposely 100% choctaw indian. I don't know if that is true, but she did have diabetes and had classic indian features. I was best friends with her, I wish I could have talked to her about this before she passed.
I'm just trying to feel my way thru all of this. My situation seems so very minor compared to many others on this forum. Hardly worth taking other people's time to answer me. I don't believe what I read at the ADA site, about 45 to 60 grams of carbohydrate per meal etc. I would go to a dietitian but suspect they would just parrot what the ADA is recommending. I've got my little meter now, so when I feel something going on, I'm going to check it.
What do you think about the ADA and what they recommend?
David

Until you get your weight down near goal, you're correct in keeping the carbs pretty low... I'm not sure how low exactly you're keeping it, but I imagine 10% to 20% carbs might be your range... When I had a lot of weight to lose, I couldn't handle 10% for a while there....

Sounds like you've taken the bull by the horns and that is really the way to go, and monitoring yourself is wise to do, especially as you make adjustments to continue getting better control.

Posting your supplemental regime is good for others to see so they can provide their experiences for your comparison.. Don't feel that posting is wasting anyone's time. Even when we're helping others, it is reinforcing good things we've learned, so its all good...

How true

Since we're deep into discussion about blood sugar test results... here's a bizarre one for you. Let me know if anyone's seen this, as the only thing I could find in a book of test result charts tied it to pituitary tumor. (No, haven't been tested for that, and no don't have a lot of weird symptoms aside from the superpower of easily retaining lots of energy.)

When I had one of those four-hour glucose tolerance tests, where they give you the sweet drink, instead of my blood sugar rising to the normal high that is expected in the first 15 minutes and then coasting back down to normal fasting lows over the following hours, my blood sugar shot up right away to the normal high, and then in the next 15 minutes shot right back down to the normal low. Freakin' fat magnet.

And I felt literally drunk from the crap, spent the next couple hours of the test sliding lower and lower in my chair.

There is a serious measure of diabetes on one side of my ancestral line, but most of my life (since just before I was a teen) I've been on mostly low to moderate carbs and/or low to moderate calories - never piling on the processed carbs. I don't have diabetes, but I think maybe this lifelong need to diet is probably the reason. Mixed blessings, lol.

So what did your Doctor diagnose after the glucose test? It sounds like you stayed in normal ranges, not even indicating pre-diabetes....

Nothing definitive, I believe, but suggestive of a hyperinsulin condition ... the steep drop of the curve indicated that sugar was being taken out of my bloodstream at a rapid rate - much, much, much more rapidly than normal. It's terrific that the values stayed within the normal high point and normal low point, of course.

But never in my adult life have I had a standard American diet with high calories and high carbs ... because keeping weight down has been a lifelong battle, I've had to adopt calorie and carb control, and healthy eating practices. The doc did mention that maybe that is what has kept me from becoming diabetic, where there's a lot of family tendency to. (As I said, nothing definitive, however.)

For anyone who is new to the diabetes discussion, the way diabetes is often thought to progress is that after a period of pumping out more and more insulin, which serves to reduce the circulating sugar in the blood, the body loses its ability to do so by wearing out the insulin-secreting apparatus, so it's then that people get blood sugars soaring above normal.

I actually never met anyone on these boards with your condition. My wife is an Herbal Medicine Doctor. We don't know your age, it isn't in your profile, but my wife is guessing you're under 40, as you are overweight, and your symptoms indicate future diabetes if you don't take action now to prevent it.

Anyway, I asked my wife if there is anything to help and she said the very first and most important thing is to lose weight, and the most dangerous fat is fat in the belly area. She said that there is a Chinese herbal tea pill you can take that helps normalize body organ secretions (your pancreas is over secreting apparently) and the name of it is: Liu Wei Di Huang Wan

She said that if you can at least keep the pancreas from over secreting insulin, it'll last a little longer as it might not work so hard and that will give you time to lose the weight, but again she stesses to lose the belly fat as quickly as you can, or you are very likely to get diabetes and no one can predict if and when it will happen, just that you're at high risk.....

Now, if I only had the answer on how to rapidly lose weight, I'd not be here writing this to you.. I'd be hauling the money to the bank...

I just went back over my journal to see what am I doing now or what was I doing at the time I had a steady weight loss to see what is different now, and I'll share the differences with you that I could observe.

When my steady weight loss began, it was immediately after I did a 40 hour fast which I had done because it came to me in a dream to do so.

I'm only mentioning the differences, because I made some changes in my diet back then, and many of those changes are still in place now and I'm not currently losing, just maintaining.

Back then, I was eating 3 snacks a day consistently and the snacks consisted of nuts/yogurt/or fruit and nothing else. I also ate 3 meals a day back then and lately, I've been eating only two meals on some days, and replacing the skipped dinner with two fruit & or yogurt snacks and I've not nearly been eating nuts in my snacks lately.

Another thing I was doing and as soon as I stopped doing it the weight loss stopped, was I was working out in a gym, but it wasn't the workout itself that was so much different, because I exercise now, it was that I was working out in a gym with huge windows that were open, so my workouts were the same as being outdoors and it was hot and I remember sweating buckets every day. (During the workouts, I was dropping 4 to 6 pounds and consuming a quart or more of water)

I was living in China and now I'm living in Louisiana. I never cheated on my way of eating in China and I do it about 2 or 3 times a week here. When I cheat, I push either my carbs to 40-50% range, or I push my proteins to 20-30% range, so I cheat two different ways now...

Back then, my daily activity was about 25-35% more than now, not counting the exercise period everyday.

Back then, I slept 7-8 hours every night consistently and at consistent times. Now, I'm inconsistent on bed time and average 5-7 hours of sleep a night.

to sum it all up for the things that probably helped me lose weight....

1. Started with a 40 hour fast
2. 3 meals and 3 snacks daily
3. Workouts to induce a lot of sweating
4. Keep diet plan consistent without deviating
5. Stay active throughout the day
6. Sleep at least 7 hours and no more than 8 hours nightly

........I'm not saying this is what anyone needs to do to lose weight, this is just what I was doing when I did lose weight that I'm not doing now..

I will try to implement this back into my daily routines...

Thanks for your kind and detailed observations. I'll keep each in mind. My diet strategy has been all about limiting what can trigger insulin secretion. I'm not often hungry, one indication that is working. I'm down to 185.4 from a high of 9 pounds more... or from a sustained his of just 6 not 9. A month of South Beach ... Mainly the restrictive phase 1 ... inched my weight Ydown a little but a calorie-limited high fat but only necessary protein and low carb approach has taken off about the same in more like a week. It could partly be water weight but both were similar in carb counts. One surprise has been that while I have never outright had breathing difficulties, the last few days I have felt lime I am breathing better... More... And I have a lot of energy. The breathing change is not weight related as am breathing more deeply or something than when I was even at lower weights. The weight gained over the years has all been on daily intakes of 1,000 to 1,500 calories per day, some of the time with dedicated aerobic exercise.

The things you mention such as the outdoor exercise and warmth may end up being pertinent. I'll look into the Liu Wei Di Huang Wan also.

Now I'll shut up so Mr. Studley's thread can return to it's originally scheduled programming.

I had something freaky happen yesterday. I ate breakfast, and felt shaky doing house chores, but figured it was my BP meds. So since breakfast was so late, I ddn't eat lunch, went to friends and there on the table for dinner was Corn on the cob, potato salad and 4 thick steaks and watermelon. I looked at it and my insides freaked, and I said oh dear Lord what am I to do. I haven't ate any of these foods for so long I don't remember. So I wasn't rude, I ate each except the watermelon next to me. The later she came to use and handed us a little cup of desert, pumpkin pudding (OMG so sweet) with sweet whipped cream and pecans and crushed Ginger snaps. OMG... so when we were coming home I said I know MY BS must be on the ceiling, I have nothing to bring it down, so I won't take it to just freak out and make it raise more. So I went for a walk, went to bed, and this AM the First in forever I had a 91 reading, I took it once more and 91 again. What the heck caused this? I am always never lower than the 130's....
I am sorry for posting this here, its just I see so many that know lots about diabetes here Debbie

Define 'too much protein'. In the study it was defined as 'in excess of your energy needs'. Also, the study was done on rats who don't do well with either high fat or high protein diets.
I'm always a little leary of the conclusion when anything contains the word 'may'.

the two kwasniewski threads on the forum address your question best I think