A few simple things that genuinely help — and some proper food worth looking forward to. Nothing to count, nothing to download, nothing to give up entirely.
These are the things nearly everyone working in this area agrees on, from NHS doctors to independent researchers. If you only do the first one, that's still worth doing.
This is the part worth understanding, because once you have it you won't need anyone's list. You'll be able to look at any food at all and work it out yourself.
Only one thing in food raises your blood sugar much: carbohydrate.
Carbohydrate means sugar — but it also means starch, and that's the bit that surprises people. Bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, cereal, flour, and anything made with them, all get turned into sugar by your body within about half an hour. As far as your blood is concerned, a slice of bread and a spoonful of sugar are doing a fairly similar job.
Protein and fat barely move it at all. Meat, fish, eggs, cheese, butter, cream, olive oil — these are not the problem, and never were.
“How much sugar or starch is in this?”
That one question explains everything else on this page. It's why you can eat as much broccoli as you like but a potato counts. Why cheese is a free snack and a biscuit isn't. Why the fruit juice is worse than the actual fruit. And why you can add almost anything you fancy to a pot of yoghurt — except the sweet things.
Most of us were told for forty years that fat was the thing to cut. For blood sugar, that turns out to be aimed at the wrong target — fat doesn't raise it. Sugar and starch do.
The fat is doing three real jobs here:
If you take the fat out, the food gets dull and nobody keeps it up. So please don't skip it — the butter on the cabbage is part of the plan, not a lapse from it.
No scales needed for most of it — your own hand is the measure, and it's already the right size for you. Where a number genuinely helps, it's given.
| Item | What to buy or use | How much |
|---|---|---|
| Greek yoghurt | Full-fat, plain, unsweetened. The label should say around 4–5g sugar per 100g or less. Avoid anything marked low-fat, 0%, "fruit", or with a fruit layer — those have far more sugar. | About 150g, a large serving spoonful |
| Berries | Raspberries, blackberries, strawberries or blueberries — fresh or frozen. These are the lowest-sugar fruits. Grapes, bananas and dried fruit are much higher, so keep those occasional. | A small handful — roughly 8–10 raspberries, or 12–15 blueberries, or 3 strawberries |
| Nuts | Almonds, walnuts, pecans, brazils or hazelnuts. Plain or lightly salted, not honey-roasted or coated. Cashews are higher in carbohydrate, so less often. | A small cupped handful, about 30g — roughly 20 almonds or 8 walnut halves |
| Bread, when you have it | Seeded wholemeal or a dense rye. White, and most supermarket "brown", behave almost the same as sugar. | 1 slice, not 2 |
| Dark chocolate | 85% cocoa or higher. At 70% there's roughly twice the sugar. | 2 small squares, about 20g |
| Sausages | Check the front of the pack for the meat percentage — 90% or more. The cheaper ones are largely rusk, which is bread. | 2 sausages |
| Cheese | Any real cheese — cheddar, stilton, brie, feta. Avoid processed slices and spreads. | A piece about the size of 2 thumbs, roughly 30–40g |
This is where people get needlessly gloomy. Almost nothing is off limits as an addition — because almost none of it is sugar or starch. Take the yoghurt as the example.
All of this is fine, and makes it a proper breakfast: pumpkin, sunflower, chia or flaxseeds · chopped walnuts, almonds, pecans or hazelnuts · a small handful of berries · cinnamon · a few drops of vanilla extract · desiccated or flaked coconut · unsweetened cocoa powder · a little grated lemon or orange zest · a spoonful of double cream if you want it richer · a scrape of smooth peanut or almond butter (the kind with no added sugar).
Only these are the problem: honey · maple syrup · granola or muesli · a fruit layer or compote · dried fruit and raisins · jam. All of those are sugar, and that's the only reason they're out.
The same logic applies everywhere. Pile whatever you like onto a salad — cheese, olives, avocado, bacon, seeds, mayonnaise, olive oil. Put a cheese sauce on the cauliflower. Roast the vegetables in goose fat. None of it counts, because none of it is sugar or starch.
Fruit isn't banned, it just varies enormously. The rule is the same one: how much sugar is in it.
| Best | Fine — one, not two | Now and then |
|---|---|---|
| Raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, blueberries. Lowest in sugar and highest in fibre. A small handful most days is fine. |
An apple, a pear, a plum, a satsuma, a kiwi, a few cherries. Best eaten with a meal or after it, rather than on their own. |
Banana, grapes, mango, pineapple, melon. Much higher in sugar. A few grapes rather than a bunch, half a banana rather than a whole one. |
Two exceptions worth knowing. Dried fruit — raisins, dates, dried apricots — is fruit with the water taken out, so the sugar is concentrated into a much smaller mouthful. And fruit juice is the sugar of several pieces of fruit with none of the fibre that would have slowed it down, which is why it acts almost exactly like a fizzy drink.
None of these are forbidden — just check the label, because the sugar isn't obvious:
None of this is diet food. All of it is meant to be enjoyed.
Scrambled eggs — 2 or 3 — with butter, and smoked salmon or mushrooms alongside.
Or — 150g plain full-fat Greek yoghurt with a small handful of berries and a few chopped walnuts. Or a 3-egg mushroom and cheese omelette. Or 1 kipper with a poached egg.
One tin of mackerel or sardines on a big salad, with olive oil and lemon.
Or — a ploughman's: a 40g piece of cheddar, 2 slices of ham, pickle, a few tomatoes, half an apple, and 1 slice of seeded bread. Or a large bowl of chicken soup with a tablespoon of cream stirred through.
One or two chicken thighs with mushrooms and buttered greens.
Or — a salmon fillet with lemon butter and green beans. Or a portion of cottage pie with cauliflower in the mash. Or 2 good sausages with onion gravy and buttered cabbage.
A piece of cheese. A small handful of nuts. A pot of plain Greek yoghurt. A few olives. A boiled egg. A slice or two of cold meat.
All of these are fine and none of them will send your levels up much.
Water, tea, coffee. As much as you like.
If you take sugar in tea, going from two spoons to one, then to none over a few weeks, works far better than stopping all at once.
Two squares of dark chocolate and a proper cheeseboard are both fine and should stay. Giving up everything you enjoy does not work and never has — what happens at breakfast every single morning matters far more than what happens on a Saturday night.
Alcohol needs real care, and this is the bit people don't know. A small glass of wine — 125ml — is fine, but always with a meal, never on an empty stomach. While your liver is busy dealing with alcohol it stops releasing the emergency sugar it would normally use to catch a low, so it can't rescue you while you sleep. The effect can last well into the night.
So if you've had a drink: test before bed, and have a starchy snack as well — a slice of toast, a couple of crackers with cheese, or a yoghurt — even if the reading looks fine. The test only tells you where you are now, not where you're heading.
Worth reading now rather than when you need it. A low — a "hypo" — usually means a reading below 4.
It can feel like: shaking, sweating, going pale, a thumping heart, sudden hunger, tingling lips, anxiety, confusion, irritability, blurred vision, or feeling wobbly and vague. Left longer it can cause slurred speech and behaviour that looks like drunkenness.
One thing to know as we get older. These warning signs can fade with age and after many years on insulin — so a low can arrive with much less notice than it used to. If you're noticing them less than you once did, tell your nurse. That is important information and usually means a dose needs changing.
What to do:
Always keep something sugary within reach — in your handbag, by the bed, and in the car. This is the one situation where the sugary thing is exactly right.
This is the one situation you cannot manage alone, so show this bit to whoever you live with, or a neighbour, and keep a copy by the phone.
If you become too drowsy or confused to eat or drink safely, or can't be woken, they must:
Two things worth sorting now, while you're well. Ask your nurse whether you should have glucagon at home — there's a nasal powder as well as an injection, and the nasal one is far easier for someone untrained to give. And carry something that says you have diabetes and take insulin: a card in your purse, or a bracelet.
Because you take insulin, these are the law rather than suggestions.
You must tell the DVLA if you have two or more severe hypos in a year, if you have even one while driving, or if you start to lose the warning signs.
The version that stops you missing toast. The trick is low heat, and taking them off before they look ready.
To make it a proper meal: 2 slices of smoked salmon on the side, or a handful of mushrooms fried in butter first.
One pan, very little fuss, and it tastes like something you'd order out.
Nothing is missing from this one. The cauliflower disappears completely into the potato.
Freeze 3 portions in separate dishes. That's three evenings where nothing has to be decided.
The quickest proper dinner here, and one of the best things you can eat.
Roast a chicken on Sunday. Sunday: a roast dinner. Monday: cold chicken with coleslaw or salad. Tuesday: simmer the carcass with an onion and a carrot for about an hour to make stock, then make soup with the last of the meat.
Three meals from one shop and one proper cooking session — which helps enormously on the days when cooking feels like too much.
This is the most important thing on the page to actually understand, rather than just follow — so here is the whole of it, plainly.
Your insulin dose was worked out to match the way you eat now. Insulin's job is to move sugar out of your blood and into your body. Someone worked out how much you need based on roughly how much carbohydrate you have in a day.
So if you eat noticeably less carbohydrate but keep taking the same amount of insulin, there is now more insulin than there is sugar for it to deal with. The insulin doesn't know that. It carries on doing its job — and pulls your blood sugar down too far.
That's the whole reason. It isn't caution for the sake of it, and it isn't about asking permission. Change the food without changing the dose and the sums no longer add up. Cutting the carbohydrate is the treatment — but the dose has to come down to meet it.
Which is why the specialists who do this properly lower the medication first, and accept blood sugars running a little high for a week or two while things settle. They would rather see you a bit high and safe than have you drop too low at home. Dr Sarah Hallberg, who ran one of the largest studies of this approach, was blunt about it: people who change the food without adjusting the medication first can get into trouble quickly.
Only your nurse or doctor can work out the new numbers, because they depend on which insulin you take, how much, and when. But now you know what you are asking them for, and why — which usually makes for a much better conversation than simply saying you'd like to eat differently.
If you take insulin or tablets for your diabetes, these changes will bring your blood sugar down. That's exactly what we want — but it also means your dose may need to come down, and ideally before you start rather than after.
So please mention to your doctor or diabetes nurse that you're planning to eat this way. The specialists who do this with patients properly always lower the medication first and let the levels run a little high for a while, rather than the other way round.
Two things to check with your nurse before you start. First — if any of your other tablets are dapagliflozin, empagliflozin, canagliflozin, Forxiga, Jardiance or Invokana, say so before you cut down on carbohydrate. Those tablets work by making you pass surplus sugar out in your urine. That means your reading can look perfectly normal while your body is actually short of fuel — and when it's short of fuel it starts breaking down fat in a way that turns the blood acidic. It's called ketoacidosis, it's serious, and the normal-looking reading is exactly why it gets missed. Second — ask whether you should have ketone strips at home, and what number to test at.
Never stop your insulin — least of all on a day you're ill or off your food. It feels logical to take less when you're not eating, but illness does the opposite of what you'd expect: your body releases stress hormones that push blood sugar up, so you often need more insulin on a sick day even while eating almost nothing. Stopping it is the single thing most likely to turn a bad day into a hospital admission. If you're being sick, can't keep fluids down, have tummy pain, are breathing heavily or feel very drowsy, ring your surgery or 111 the same day.
Change things gradually. Rather than cutting carbohydrate all at once, reduce it by about a third for the first two weeks and see what your readings do. That gives your dose time to be adjusted alongside it.
Test more often at the start — before each meal and before bed for the first two weeks, and any time you feel odd. Write the numbers down and take them to your next appointment.
Please don't stop or change any medicine on your own.
Both of these are reasonable things to ask, and knowing why you're asking makes the conversation a much better one.
None of this is one person's opinion. It's the part a very wide range of specialists land on independently — and the notable thing is that they disagree with one another about almost everything else. Some are NHS doctors, some are university researchers, some are outsiders who fell out with the medical establishment entirely.
I checked this properly rather than assuming, and it's worth showing you honestly.
| Advice | Who backs it |
|---|---|
| Cut sugar and refined starch | All eight — though Taylor gets there by cutting calories overall rather than carbohydrate specifically |
| Lose fat from around the liver and middle | All eight |
| Move after meals | Most of them. Taylor is the exception — he asks people not to increase exercise while actively losing weight |
| Keep an eye on an actual number | Most of them, in different ways |
| Plenty of protein | Some, not all. Hallberg says adequate but moderate; Fung and Taylor don't advocate it |
| Strength work | Some. Fung calls exercise “overrated” for weight loss; Taylor discourages it during the weight-loss phase |
| Sleep as a lever | Attia, Brecka, Berg and Fung. The others simply don't discuss it |
| Fasting or a set eating window | Fung yes. Bernstein prefers three regular meals. Attia tried it and publicly stopped, because it cost him muscle |
Two things are backed by every single one of them — and those two are the top of this page. Where they part company is further down the list, and I've been careful not to lean on anything in that lower group.
The protein advice is the one place this page deliberately goes beyond the full consensus. That's a considered choice: at your age, protecting muscle and balance matters enormously, and the specialists who disagree were mostly treating younger people trying to lose weight fast.
If you'd like to look any of them up, or mention them to your nurse:
Every one of them is a working doctor or researcher who has published their results. None of them is selling anything you need to buy.