Hello. I was wondering if anybody could offer diet advice for better health, especially if they are planned diets. For context, I’m not yet in my 30s and I was diagnosed as a Type 2 Diabetic and am trying to look for diet plans that are not gimmicky. I have had some success losing 20 or so pounds over 5 months with just cutting back a lot of excess food and carbs. Made my A1c go down from 8.6 to 6.8. I think I might not yet be insulin dependent. However, I would just feel more secure with a routine to follow (same with exercise, but I will have to address that another day) It is hard to do that, given how commodified diet literature and fitness are. I greatly appreciate your input, especially from those who are in similar situations and might have experience with diet and remission.
Man, you want my honest opinion on the pizza and pasta? When you have pizza/pasta, make it the way you normally do but eat half a slice and make a giant salad with everything you like or a really good filling soup or whatever. Give yourself that taste because nothing will replace it, honestly. Just limit your portion size. Don’t make it 4 slices of 3 inch thick bread for dinner :). This is kind of what I’m saying, you can’t, in my experience, dodge that craving for something you love. Let yourself have it but don’t eat a whole cake. All of the things I recommend are replacements on a daily basis. Don’t mindlessly eat chips unless you really want chips today. Denying yourself something long enough leads to binging and binging is what really gets you in trouble. If you eat a whole bag of candy because you haven’t had candy in months and you finally break, you may go to the hospital which is worse.
There are days when I just straight up eat a cookie with lunch because god dammit I want a cookie. But on days when I don’t really crave a cookie, I just…don’t get a cookie from the cafeteria.
As for the sodium, this runs in my family, many of us love the like lays chips and dip. Its not something that can be given up for the rest of your life. I’m not particularly into it. If its not a problem for you to not miss it, fuck it, no problem, easy wins. Like, in your example with the wheat bread? I don’t like that bread that much. The thing I miss is like…fancy, chewy sourdough or seeded long rolls as an Italian sub. So its not at all hard for me to never have bread in the house. But if I go to a sandwich shop with good bread I am eating that bread.
For the fruits you mentioned, there’s a few differences between naturally occurring sugars and processed sugars. The naturally occurring ones are more complex and won’t spike your BG as hard as they take a little longer to process through your system. I don’t tend to eat fruit that much as I don’t enjoy it for the carbs they bring. Stay away from fruit juice, that shit is concentrated fruits. I think like a cup of apple juice is like 3 apples or something lol. But, its good to mix fruit in if that’s what you like.
Lentils are relatively easy–soak in water, cook for several hours and you can make a batch that’ll last you all week. They’re time consuming but not a lot of work.
I don’t do sweeteners in my coffee or tea, that’ll be on you to figure out lol. Oh, milk can cause your sugar to spike too, so I would monitor it when you take it. I don’t do milk/yogurt so I don’t have this problem.
Tofu is usually fine and good, I’d check the label. There are different types of tofu, I don’t eat it that often because I’d have to go to like HMart to get a decent selection. It is a great calorie dense, cheap food with not a ton of carbs. Its…basically processed lentils lol. I don’t know a lot of tofu dishes that don’t involve noodles, though, I think that’s why I stay away from it.