Hey everyone,
Joined the forum tonight as I had many questions and I hope there’s someone in similar circumstances as me. I’m a Type 2 Diabetic (I ate my way into oblivion). I’m sitting here wondering if anyone else has used Huel as a diabetic and what their experiences are with their blood sugar etc are and weight loss.
PS a big goal of mine whilst utilising Huel is massive weight loss and to get my Diabetes under control.
I was diagnosed with type 2 ten years ago, and until I hit a rock in the road, was managing pretty well on medication and a wholefood diet. The rock in the road was Fanconi’s syndrome, a rare side effect of one of the anti HIV drugs. One effects of Fanconi’s was that I completely lost my “joy in food” whether in cooking or in eating. This would have been fine were it not for the fact that I ended up with malnutrition as a result, and very nearly died.
While recovering I made heavy use of Ensure until my blood glucose hit 29 (old numbers) and I realised that Ensure was 25% sucrose. Before I found Huel last year I was staggering along with ready meals, wishing that my joy in food would return but with my bloods slowly worsening. A couple of months ago I found that my Hba1c was at the wrong end of “very poor” and started with 80mg gliclazide on top of 2000mg metformin and keeping a spreadsheet of blood numbers and food intake. I’m now back to seeing average bloods between 5 and 7, though like most people with HIV my numbers are slow to subside after a meal: it seems that “running hot” is an effect of HIV.
Weight loss I can’t comment on as I’m at a comfortable weight, and have been since I recovered from malnutrition. But the low glycaemic index of Huel is great for getting blood numbers down. I hate to say it, but your next step is to talk to your doctor about exercise… 
That’s a tough road your on! at least i know its good then for maintaining a normal blood sugar, without the nedd for carrying lots of tupperware around.
Actually just seen the doctor today. blood sugar was atrocious as was the HbA1c (88 …wow) he put me on a gliptin tablet, which is confusing. pushes out more insulin when i eat …but my insulin isnt working as well as it should be? guess its more quantity over quality. Just going to hve to play it by ear now and get the kettlebells out!
Got you beat there: my last a1c was 92! As I understand it, it’s not the quality of insulin we produce, it’s the fact that we don’t produce enough of it, so the options are medication to force the pancreas to work harder, encourage the rest of the body to take up glucose more readily, or just plain old add more insulin via injection.
What I’ve found useful (as I did when first diagnosed) this time round is to keep an annotated spreadsheet of what I’ve eaten and what my BG has been. Plus, of course, any exercise or other relevant information (“foul mood: pack of bombay mix”). I started my serious work this time round a couple of months ago and had the blood taken for my a1c last week, appointment to discuss next week. While I think about it it, hint for talking to medical staff: I print off the ingredients/nutritional profile to take with me just in case…