# complex carbohydrate breakfast



## queenbee01 (Jun 12, 2012)

Morning, everyone! I have a dilema, here. been to see a nutritionist this week as I am trying to find a diet that suits my life and working commitments. I learnt from her that my current diet is a yo yo diet, full of saturated fats. She explained that in the morning when diabetics wake up their blood sugars are high because their body thought they were in starvation mode and released sugars from the liver into the blood stream to give us energy. then when we eat breakfast any un used sugar/ energy is stored as fat. there for it is essential to eat a hearty breakfast containing complex carbohydrates, found in cereals and grains. I so get this and understand completely, but i can't eat wheat and grains including oats as It gives me serious indigestion. she suggested wheat free, gluten free muslie and even gave me a recipie for said cereal, but it contained all the grains I cant eat, a teaspoon of honey or maple syrup or agarve syrup! Dried fruit as well as yoghurt and if I wanted I could even chop a fresh fruit on top.  I have had gluten free, wheat free muslie for two days now and already I am getting that gripy tummy feeling and know I am going to pay for it later with chronic indigestion. Can anyone suggest other complex carbohydrates that I can eat instead of the wheat and grains she suggests as an alternative?

I used to eat a vegetable or protien based breakfast like tomatoes on toast, bacon and egg, kippers or smoked pollack, but the nutritionist said that it was not the right food choice for that time of day....... Any ideas speedily given will be gratefully accepted as my stomach right now feels like its full of wiggly eels full on acid!


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## Vicsetter (Jun 12, 2012)

Personally I think your nutritionist has shot herself in the foot by suggesting a diet of food you cannot tolerate.  I don't see what is wrong with your bacon and eggs or fish.  If you have time to do it in the morning go for it.  If I am above 8mmol in the morning I will not have breakfast.  If below I may have some grapefruit in it's own juice or a couple of slices of Burgen bread with Peanut butter.  I really don't see why she should suggest honey or maple syrup, you don't need the sugar from them.  Yoghurt should be fine but I would avoid the dried fruit, too much sugar again!  I presume as you can't tolerate oats then you can't eat porridge which is a shame.  Eat what you want to eat and see what effect it has on you.
Have you talked to a GP about your food intolerance?  maybe there is something can be done about that?


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## Mark T (Jun 12, 2012)

I think Vicsetter was being polite with regard to the nutritionist 

I also don't necessarily see what was wrong with your previous diet.  Ok, bacon perhaps contains more saturated fat then most (you could always swap to Quorn bacon which has at least half the saturates, but correspondingly costs at least twice as much) but otherwise I don't see much saturates unless you are deep frying the fish in lard first .

I've been happily surviving on natural yoghurt (low fat, about 8g Carb per 100g) for breakfast for at least a year now and my weight doesn't yo-yo.

You were previously eating toast you say?  Out of interest, did you get the same stomach feeling with that or did you find that certain breads were ok?


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## everydayupsanddowns (Jun 13, 2012)

The dietician advocating that you must eat a high carb breakfast is only repeating what they have been told. 

I heard an interesting snippet on the radio a month or two back where a DUK dietician get themselves all befuddled while trying to offer the same advice. She was being interviewed alongside Dr Briffa, who has taken issue with the 'lots of starchy carbs' advice for some time. If you are interested in his take on the 'standard' NHS dietary approach he wrote about the interview here: http://www.drbriffa.com/2012/03/05/...y-advice-diabetes-uk-dishes-out-to-diabetics/

There are more articles and TV reports these days which are putting this view forward, along with the view that it is not necessarily 'high fat' that is the problem with the modern diet, but the level of sugar and carbs. There's a TV prog on BBC2 Thursday this week about it I think.


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## AlisonM (Jun 13, 2012)

My everyday breakfast is either a bowl of oatmeal, my own yoghurt with a handful of fresh berries or a couple of slices of Burgen/wholegrain toast with grilled mushrooms or tomatoes. My nutritionist says these are good, well-balanced meals for me and they don't send my bgs through the roof or give me a gippy tummy. I think your nutritionist is dead wrong and way behind the times. Dried fruit, while it tastes great is pure sugar, not a good idea unless you're hypo.


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## Northerner (Jun 13, 2012)

It doesn't make sense to me to say that, because your blood sugars are likely to be high in the morning you should eat lots of carbs, since they can only make your levels higher unless you are able to inject extra insulin to cover them. Eating carbs will stop the liver, but then just give you more glucose to cope with as the morning progresses. 

A protein breakfast works fine at 'switching off' the liver's extra morning boost, so if that is what you have been enjoying and are used to eating I don't see any reason to change.  Using a meter is, of course, the best way to discover what works best for you as an individual.


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## queenbee01 (Jun 13, 2012)

*Complex Carb Breakfasts reply*

Hello, Thank you for your reply. I used to eat home made, organic granary bread or mixed seed brown bread, but I found if I ate more than 1 slice either in a meal or a day, I'd get the same gripy tummy. However, I found out through trial and error that I can eat shop brought Granary and that does not affect me half as much as home made bread.
It's not my weight that yo yo's, I have found that I'm just not loosing weight. the nutrtionist said that it was my blood sugars that were yo yoing all day long which is why she has started me off on complex carbohydrate high diet.


Mark T said:


> I think Vicsetter was being polite with regard to the nutritionist
> 
> I also don't necessarily see what was wrong with your previous diet.  Ok, bacon perhaps contains more saturated fat then most (you could always swap to Quorn bacon which has at least half the saturates, but correspondingly costs at least twice as much) but otherwise I don't see much saturates unless you are deep frying the fish in lard first .
> 
> ...


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## queenbee01 (Jun 13, 2012)

*complex carb breakfast problem.*

Hello all who replied to my post about finding out about what I can eat, other than cereals that are complex carbohydrate rich.
I did not fill you in with the full story, as I am terrible at writing short & sucsinctly. I waffle too much! but by not filling you in with the wider picture, I seem to have caused quiet a stir So here goes.
About a two years ago, I discovered that I got awful indigestion from eating wheat and oats. My diabetic nurse said at the time to ignore cereals and eat protiens for breakfast if this helped. So over the course of a year, I cut out all cereals, and bread and lived off mostly vegetables, pears or apples and meat with fish a couple of times a week. Through not eating wheat or cereals, including oats, I began to feel quiet good. Then I started introducing bread back in my diet. Lovely home made Granary or mixed seeded brown bread, but I quickly found that that same old Gripy tummy and chronic indigestion returned. Then I discovered that shop brought granary had little or no effect on my so I've have kept that in my diet regime, trying not to eat more than two slices a day. 
All was going well until late last year. I stopped loosing weight and began to feel tired and just generally not me. I was introduce to this nutritionist by my sister and my first visit was the end of last week. 
She asked me loads of questions about my eating habits and even got me to point out from a picture board what my number two's were like!!
Anyway, from everything I told her, she deduced that I was eating too much saturated fats and hardly any complex carbohydrates. Through the job that I do, meal times are rushed and often eaten on the hoof and as a result my blood sugars were yo yoing all day long. 
To help balance my blood sugars, she has suggested eating a complex carbohydrate diet for the first six - 8 weeks, when I have to go back and see how I am going.

Thank you all for  your suggestions and tips. maybe if I'd have explained my whole daily diet better, I would have made things clearer.
Anyway. Today, I have been to the health food shop to buy a load of non wheat/gluten, oat grains that are all complex carbs and have made it into a rather large container of muesli, that I hope I will be able to eat without getting this God awful indigestion. I have a diabetic review at the end of the month and will discuss this problem with my doctor. Thanks all and have a great day.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Jun 13, 2012)

Thanks for the update QueenBee. No 'stir' caused 

Just wondering... Are you testing your blood glucose? 

What gives the nutritionist the impression that your BGs are 'yoyoing'? And what of the things that you are eating does she suggest is causing this - cause it's not going to be protein (converts to glucose very gradually over 5hrs) or fat (converts to glucose even more gradually over 10 hours)

Starchy carbs on the other hand will often convert to glucose in 60-120 minutes or so. (the GI of a food will give an average indication for this - many breakfast cereals for example are, on average, not dissimilar to table sugar)

And if you are not systematically testing your BG no-one can tell for sure what your BGs are doing, nutritionist or no. They are just guessing based on what they think *might* be happening. Advice to eat plenty of carbs at every meal though, is pretty much standard.


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## Northerner (Jun 13, 2012)

Queenbee, have you been tested for Coeliac disease?


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## queenbee01 (Jul 1, 2012)

*Two weeks in................*

Well chaps, it's two weeks in to my new complex carb diet, Ive cut out all read meat and milk, I now eat regularly and at evenly spaced times. I've started WalkActive and this last week have walked 21 miles. Thank you all for your comments, I stuck with it even though a lot of you were being polite and helpful, only because my old diet of veg, meat and bread was not helping me stabilise my blood sugars. 
I don't use a blood sugar reading meter only the wee strips. Keep asking for one and keep being turned down. 
I've discovered that it's Oats that causes me to have bad bouts of indigestion and am much happier eating Wheat/Oat free cereals.
I am going to the doctors on Tuesday and will ask again for a glucose meter and ask to be tested for coliacs and wheat/oat intollerances.

Biggest achievement.. AT LAST MY BLOOD SUGARS ARE CONSISTENT AND NO HIGHER THAN 1.8 YIPEEE! I THINK I MIGHT HAVE CRACKED IT. 
Thanks all for your help and support


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## caffeine_demon (Jul 1, 2012)

"AT LAST MY BLOOD SUGARS ARE CONSISTENT AND NO HIGHER THAN 1.8"

Isn't that verrrry low??


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## Mark T (Jul 1, 2012)

caffeine_demon said:


> "AT LAST MY BLOOD SUGARS ARE CONSISTENT AND NO HIGHER THAN 1.8"
> 
> Isn't that verrrry low??


I'm guessing that Queenbee is referring to a measurement on the urine test strips, so that reading is probably not in mmol/L.

My guess it is g/L which my diastix have on them.


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## everydayupsanddowns (Jul 2, 2012)

Hi Queenbee
Good that you are trying to get to grips with a diet which will help control your diabetes, and that you are eating more regularly with fewer refined sugars. That's great! 

Great news that your urine results are reducing too. But... as I understand it  you should to be testing negative for glucose in urine. There is seems to be a 'threshold' at which glucose begins to spill over into urine which is usually about 10mmol/L (so already much higher than ideal). This page has more detail: http://www.idf.org/position-statement-urine-glucose-monitoring .


I suspect that while your high carb diet may be helping in some ways the amount of carbs you are eating is still putting strain on your system, pushing your levels  regularly over 10mmol/L and causing positive urine glucose tests.

In your shoes I would worry less about red meat and more about the carbs (starchy or otherwise) until you get those urine tests to be negative 

Keep up the good work!


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## DeusXM (Jul 2, 2012)

Mike, that original link you posted was really interesting - I was listening too when Baroness Young fudged the issue. I was really struck by this:



> See here for a list of corporate sponsors of Diabetes UK. In amongst a whole raft of food and diet companies, you’ll see ‘Kelloggs’ (who make Sultana Bran and Special K) and ‘Shredded Wheat’. Could this explain why there highly disruptive foods get special mention from Diabetes UK and make their way into the ‘low-GI’ category even though they are anything but?



I would love to know if this question has been asked. This sounds extremely significant to me. I mean, Jesus, they've got Jelly Belly sponsoring them! Jelly Belly! They make SWEETS! I know there's no reason sweets can't be included as part of a healthy diet but frankly it seems ridiculous that a diabetes charity accepts sponsorship from a sweet manufacturer.


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## MaryPlain (Jul 24, 2012)

Northerner said:


> Queenbee, have you been tested for Coeliac disease?



I was thinking the same.  I also read that if you are going to be tested for this then you should not restrict your diet (eg cut out wheat) as this can cause the test to come back with a false negative.


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