Dealing with Pre-diabetes...

[Scream Aim Fire]

So, I took a home test of my blood glucose, as I hadn't been feeling the best for the past few days, found that my level was 106; pre-diabetic. Not entirely sure how it happened - had been feeling genuinely fine up until the past week - though I knew something was wrong about 2 days ago after lunch, when I suddenly started feeling extremely hungry, as well as a few other symptoms. So, that's a thing I'm going to be dealing with now.

Anyone got suggestions on how to deal with this? I've heard that pre-diabetes can be reversed, but it's apparently a 50/50 chance on whether or not I'll be getting better. Still, I want to make a change; aside from an increase in exercise, what's a good suggestion for diet? What's a good weight to be aiming for?

 

[Agarathium1066]

Just taking it at random isn't necessarily going to give you the best reading. Schedule an appointment to get a proper blood test and they'll give you advice from there.

If you're not willing to do that then cut down on any sides you get while eating out. Tons of places slam carbs upon carbs upon carbs.

 

[A Very Big Fish]

I would recommend intermittent fasting. Pretty easy to incorporate into your life, and I've found it helpful. I also did Keto years ago, and cutting out carbs, even if you don't go full keto is helpful, because the less carbs you eat, the less your body needs to burn before it starts burning fat.

At least that's my two cents, but I am a retard, so buyer beware.

Also the book the Obesity Code is a pretty good book to learn about intermittent fasting and some of the food nonsense that we've all heard over the years.

 

[Grub]

Cut out as much sugar as you can. This means sugar in all its forms not just glucose. Lactose and fructose are just as bad. Diabetes occurs because your body is overproducing insulin to deal with your sugar intake. Eventually, if you keep your consumption consistently high your pancreas just loses the ability to produce insulin. If you don't cut out sugar. You will end up with diabetes.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

https://www.reddit.com/r/intermittentfasting/comments/1f3onfz/if_really_really_works_no_more_prediabetes/

I've watched so many fasting documentaries at this point and blood sugar/pressure is almost the primary reason people start fasting. The day/night rhythm isn't just for sleeping, it's part of your organs as well. If you eat early and late, they get no time to self-regulate. Specifically blood sugar, this one lady got meds that made her drowsy and unable to drive. Fasting, removed her need for meds, can now drive to work again.

I hate being a veganism-tier shill but holy fuck fasting just fixes so many issues but blood related ones specifically.

 

[Idiotron]

Some things that can definitely help:
Learn to cook, stop eating processed food, especially sweets.
Start exercising but not just gym but something that makes use of functional strength, plenty of bodybuilders are in horrible shape.
Stop sitting down all the time in front of a screen, move around a bit, do the thing where you set a timer and at least once per hour, you get up and walk about for a minute or so, it changes a lot.

Start it right now, you don't want to get diabetes and be dependent on pharma for the rest of your life.

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

Go to a doctor instead of asking us.

 

[JohnnyG]

Anyone got suggestions on how to deal with this?

Are you overweight? If so, getting down to normal weight via lifting, long cardio, and diet, will help with this and a number of other associated issues.

And I don't just mean lose whatever incremental amount the doc says will pull you slightly back from the edge. A ton of medical issues have a clinical definition that, while not completely arbitrary, are a compromise somewhere on the gradient between actually healthy and major dysfunction.

Meaning if you're 40 pounds overweight and the doctor can get you to drop 15, that may get your score back across the clinical cutoff, and be a victory across the entire population, but you'd still benefit from losing the rest, having more breathing room on the diabetes front, and having healthier joints and cardiovascular system in general.

 

[TheOtherSideofMakeBelieve]

Get your A1C tested, that's the actual number that matters. The finger prick tests have a fairly large margin of error and even then I feel like the recommendation that you need to be under 100 all the time except for after meals is extremely counterproductive and only serves to stress otherwise healthy people out. Mine is usually 105-110 via the quick tests and used to spike up to almost 200 at night and my A1C was/is still well below the pre-diabetic range, usually a 5.0 to 5.1 with pre-diabetes starting at 5.7. Coming off of 16 hour fasts I'm still usually in the 105-110 range according to the handheld meter I have, I'm only ever below 100 if I test within a few minutes of finishing an extended fasted workout

Being fasted isn't the only thing that matters as far as your baseline glucose level goes, time of day matters too and your numbers will be higher in the early morning even before you've eaten. The number naturally spikes at night (3-4AM) and remains elevated until you've been up and moving for a while

The spikes at night were a problem, not because of any kinds of diabeetus related damage, but because I'd end up with hyperdipsia a few hours before it was time to wake up and basically be so thirsty I was in a panic as my kidneys tried to flush the excess which completely prevented me from getting back to sleep. To help with that I started taking berberine, it got the nighttime spikes down into the 130s which is pretty normal and I don't get hyperdipsia anymore. I think I started developing a tolerance to it so I swapped over to dihydroberberine, a stronger synthetic version of it, so hopefully by the time I develop a resistance to that I can swap back to the natural stuff

Even when I was dealing with the bad spikes, which was going on for a few years before I realized that's what the problem was, my A1C was still always a 5.1 or lower. If you want to monitor something, figure out what your baseline is, how long after a meal your glucose spike peaks, and then how long it takes to get back to your baseline. Those relative numbers are going to be the actual useful information since the handheld meters only give rough estimates (look at the box of test strips to see your margin of error, they're usually ±3 to 5, so a 105 may very well be a 100 anyway

imo if your meter says that you're back well below 140 within two hours of eating you're probably fine

 

[DumbDude43]

keto diet will reverse/cure it but it is not easy to adhere to

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

Schedule an appointment to get a proper blood test and they'll give you advice from there.

Already trying to get one planned; current week schedule is pretty full, but I might still be able to get in soon.

If you're not willing to do that then cut down on any sides you get while eating out. Tons of places slam carbs upon carbs upon carbs.

Funnily enough, I actually get griped at that I don't often eat enough; more on that later.

Cut out as much sugar as you can.

Already on it; been getting sick of soda. Seriously, is it weird that I honestly prefer drinking water these days? I really do feel like it has more flavor sometimes...

Go to a doctor instead of asking us.

Already getting an appointment scheduled out; I just trust you guys as well.

Are you overweight?

Don't think so? I'm around 140-144 Ibs in weight, late 20s, 5'11 height.

@TheOtherSideofMakeBelieve About the A1C: that's my current plan, as it seems weird how my sugar levels have spiked so much as of recent; a routine bloodwork test last September noted that my levels were steadily improving and getting healthier, and I'd still been pretty decently active since then up until recent. I have been dealing with a dry mouth and sleepiness as of recent, but those had some fairly mundane explanations; inside of my house is humid/dry thanks to the heater I have to run for the cold, and I kept waking up in the middle of the night to go run to the bathroom and not getting back to sleep, and I STILL had plenty of energy. Hell, I don't even know if this is hunger I'm dealing with, or some other stomach issue. Been feeling genuinely pretty solid about a week ago, so I really don't know what the hell happened.

 

[Aiōn]

Sorry to hear this, I believe that the best course of action would be to switch to a wholefoods based diet. I have actually done this myself, here is a link to one of my posts if you're interested. I had a quick look and fiber-rich foods are apparently good for diabetics and things like brown rice, rolled oats and potatoes are fine.

Here is what I had last night for dinner, bang bang shrimp with garlic rice noodles (switch for wholegrain)

 

[Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed]

keto diet will reverse/cure it but it is not easy to adhere to

This. The real challenge is maintaining a keto diet.

Removing carbs from your diet greatly helps lose weight faster. I substitute regular bread with keto bread since it has a lot of fiber in it.

The downside is that keto bread molds faster, so you have about a week and a half to eat an entire load of keto bread before it starts to mold.

 

[Agarathium1066]

If you're being honest about your weight then I'm rather confused myself. Being a fatty-fatty-boom-bo-latty is why most people start tipping into potential type 2. Glad you're going to see a doctor they'll be able to give you much more sound advice. I wish you the best of luck.

 

[Daddy's Little Kitten]

This. The real challenge is maintaining a keto diet.

Removing carbs from your diet greatly helps lose weight faster. I substitute regular bread with keto bread since it has a lot of fiber in it.

The downside is that keto bread molds faster, so you have about a week and a half to eat an entire load of keto bread before it starts to mold.

Place it in the fridge. It should preserve it a little bit.

 

[Unique Username KF]

Fatass nigga.

 

[Scream Aim Fire]

If you're being honest about your weight then I'm rather confused myself. Being a fatty-fatty-boom-bo-latty is why most people start tipping into potential type 2. Glad you're going to see a doctor they'll be able to give you much more sound advice. I wish you the best of luck.

It's baffling, I agree! My weight's been pretty consistent for over a year now; right now it seems to be going back and forth between 140 and 144, so... I'm not sure if it's a factor. Anyways, I'll be talking to a doctor hopefully soon; call me a hypochondriac, but I like to try and keep an eye on my health.

 

[Grub]

Already on it; been getting sick of soda. Seriously, is it weird that I honestly prefer drinking water these days? I really do feel like it has more flavor sometimes...

Cutting out soda is probably the number one best thing you can do. That shit is literally poison. It's nothing but liquid sugar, preservatives and chemical flavouring. One thing you'll find as you cut out sugar is everything will taste better. Things you never realized were actually sweet will taste almost too sweet and you'll really be able to notice just how much sugar is in pretty much all processed food. It doesn't even take that long for your taste to adjust. A couple of weeks of cutting out sugar is really all it takes to notice a difference in the way things taste.

One thing is, be careful you don't switch out the soda for sugary juice or milk like I've seen some diabetics do. Fruit sugar is just as bad and milk is actually quite sugary. Lactose is a sugar and it's broken down into glucose by your body and has the same effect. There was one guy I know. He wouldn't drink pop but he'd fucking down a litre of 10% cream or a jug of homo milk instead, one time I watched him down a litre of buttermilk, and immediately start getting the sugar mood diabetics get.

 

[JohnnyG]

Don't think so? I'm around 140-144 Ibs in weight, late 20s, 5'11 height.

If you're being honest about your weight then I'm rather confused myself. Being a fatty-fatty-boom-bo-latty is why most people start tipping into potential type 2.

Yeah I assumed by default some level of overweight with the only question being degree. Could be a skinnyfat, so I still prescribe a half hour of heavy lifting (4-5 exercises, 4 sets, 8-12 reps) combined with a half hour of running/biking/rowing, 4-5 days a week. Increase protein in general, and when you get hungry from the calorie burn try not to satisfy it with straight carbs.

 

[ye's Official KF Burner]

A random blood glucose reading could be elevated for a number of reasons, not necessarily prediabetes. A1c is definitely more of a surefire answer. If you aren't diabetic or insulin resistant a one-time reading of 106 isn't awful or worrisome.

If you're super concerned you can get CGMs over the counter nowadays and monitor your glucose at all hours of the day.

When you eat prioritize protein and eat whatever your protein is first, then your vegetables, and then end with your carbs. Track your macros. You don't need to go insane cutting things out immediately besides the simple carbs, sugars, extremely fatty foods.

You can still eat carbs and keep your numbers down if you make good choices and balance with fiber.