Hi Rodders, big hugs and sorry you're going through that.
My hubby is also T2D. His social anxiety is so bad that he won't even go and get his metformin, and they've thrown him off the appointments list for eye tests etc because he never turns up. He was diagnosed at aged 18 when he had lumps on the back of his legs that were 'exploding'. His mum was T1D so I'm guessing it can be partially hereditary.
Ever since I introduced him to keto though, he can keep his blood sugar at a pretty normal level with food. He tries not to drink during the week (sometimes does though) and just have a few beers at the weekend.
I would say the biggest thing is to read all the food labels. Your body treats carbs / sugar the same, no matter if it's a chocolate bar or some fruit.
You can't just go from 200g carbs a day to 20g though like my hubby, or you'll feel horrendous for about a week until you adjust. Do it in stages if that is your plan. Essentially if you do this you're putting your body in starvation mode - it's not a bad thing, it's just training your body to burn fat (the fat from food and your own fat) for energy instead of sugar. I remember the first time I tried proper strict keto with 20g of carbs, after about 12 hours I wanted to kill someone and I was so angry - that's not like me at all. I did it the wrong way though, done properly and you'll feel the best you've ever felt after the first week. If you don't want to go that low, you'll find you feel much better on say 50g a day.
Your friends food wise are meats, fish, cheese, eggs, even small amounts of mayo and butter. All these have very little carbs. Watch the 'low fat' options because they're normally rammed with sugar. Too much saturated fat can be a problem though as it can cause low mood and depression. Most veggies are ok but watch the fruit. You don't have to eat boring things on low carb, and especially if you like to cook. One of my favourite breakfasts is scrambled egg, cherry tomatoes and avocado. So yummy. There are several yummy recipe websites that we like to use - if you would like the names of them just say the word.
If you don't already, you could get a food tracker app on your phone or pc to help you see your total carbs / fat / protein / calories for the day.
Hopefully you'll do well on less carbs. Once you get used to it you'll probably feel much better and have less inflammation in your body. Carbs are seriously addictive, they make you swell up, and feel sluggish and horrible.
One more thing - do you use Brewfather to plan your beer recipes? It will tell you how many carbs are in your finished beer per 100ml, once you've entered your FG. Then you know how many you can have.
Oh and more protein and less carbs usually means less fibre, so you'll want to counteract that somehow, if you're anything like me and need TNT every time you go
Hopefully this will be a blessing in disguise for you. The cavemen had the right idea food wise
xx
