The Just About Blood Sugar Blog

After being diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 16, I was given a lot of dietary advice. The NHS recommended a balanced diet of 300g carbs per day, which I followed religiously. However, I quickly learned that this approach led to erratic blood sugar levels and constant insulin adjustments.

The pursuit for 'perfect sugars' is a common goal amongst those managing diabetes. However, this quest can often lead to frustration and disappointment. The reality is that 'perfect sugars' don't exist and the closest alternative is a far cry from perfection; on top of this, education from many healthcare teams upon diagnosis is not always helpful and can even be harmful. In this blog, we'll break down and explain the importance of knowing some key facts about diabetes management.

Diabetics can't eat sugar - This is the most common myth, for sure, about all forms of diabetes. The truth is often a difficult pill to swallow. Here's my hot take - diabetics can eat sugar, but this does not mean they should.

The truth is high sugars are never a good thing. I try to avoid them like the plague. The body is simply not designed for high sugars, which is why in natural environments, humans rarely have sugars above 5.2mmol/L. In diabetes, numbers can be as much as 6x as high as this in some cases. It's truly a dangerous area to reside in if you're diabetic.

When people ask why diabetes is so bad, often the first thing that comes to mind will be the complications. That is, the complications of years of battling uncontrolled blood sugar and constant highs and lows.