Type 1 Trouble gaining weight?

[aaronjunited]

Anyone here type 1 currently skinny with trouble gaining weight?

 

[Postleneo]

Was going to post something similar! Was diagnosed last year in Florida spent 3 days in hospital (2 days in intensive care) with DKA. After trying to stick to 3 meal's a day - trying to stabilise my BS levels. - I've lost 3 and a half stone and now not gaining any weight and family say I'm far too thin and look ill.....don't feel ill but always seem to be hungry. Have a banana or cereal for breakfast. 4 hours later sandwich and fruit for lunch then anything from salad and pasty to Sunday dinner with all the trimmings for tea. Just wish I could find meal's that are low in carbs, filling and help me gain weight...so frustrating.

 

[tim2000s]

Was going to post something similar! Was diagnosed last year in Florida spent 3 days in hospital (2 days in intensive care) with DKA. After trying to stick to 3 meal's a day - trying to stabilise my BS levels. - I've lost 3 and a half stone and now not gaining any weight and family say I'm far too thin and look ill.....don't feel ill but always seem to be hungry. Have a banana or cereal for breakfast. 4 hours later sandwich and fruit for lunch then anything from salad and pasty to Sunday dinner with all the trimmings for tea. Just wish I could find meal's that are low in carbs, filling and help me gain weight...so frustrating.

How are your blood glucose levels?

 

[Postleneo]

How are your blood glucose levels?

Mine are quite variable - any thing from 5 to 8 pre meal followed by approx 12-16 mmol 2 hours post meal (well up to 3 hours - post meal) - then seem to drop to between 5-8 mmol (on average) before the next meal. HA1C readings have been 86, 64 then last one was 52 think there are going in the right direction - although on saying that in last couple of weeks have had a few unexpected hypos and unexpected highs

 

[azure]

@Postleneo Have you tried bolusing more in advance of your meals to reduce those spikes? I'm naturally slim and I find that eating sufficient carbs plus keeping my blood sugar in range keeps me at a normal weight and stops me losing any.

 

[Postleneo]

@Postleneo Have you tried bolusing more in advance of your meals to reduce those spikes? I'm naturally slim and I find that eating sufficient carbs plus keeping my blood sugar in range keeps me at a normal weight and stops me losing any.

I normal bolus 15-20 minutes before my meal if i can - even tried splitting meal- say having the fruit 40 mins later - but still high readings up to 3 hours post meal then seem to rally come down at the 4.5-5 hour mark following insulin... consultant says not to worry he is only interested in pre-meal readings but has mentioned to think about a pump if i am concerned....dont know what to do about that one but have heard you can get much better control.

 

[azure]

I normal bolus 15-20 minutes before my meal if i can - even tried splitting meal- say having the fruit 40 mins later - but still high readings up to 3 hours post meal then seem to rally come down at the 4.5-5 hour mark following insulin... consultant says not to worry he is only interested in pre-meal readings but has mentioned to think about a pump if i am concerned....dont know what to do about that one but have heard you can get much better control.

I find I need to bolus different lengths of time in advance for different meals - I mean breakfast, lunch , etc. Breakfast needs a bolus twice as far in advance as my other meals.

15-20 mins is a reasonable time in advance to bolus. Have you experimented ever so cautiously with moving it a little further in advance? Go really carefully and gradually if you decide to try this as you don't want to go low.

If that doesn't work, you could consider your mealtime ratios. Perhaps slight tweaks to those would get your spike down a little?

How many carbs do you eat a day? Have you changed your diet since diagnosis? I find if I eat too few carbs, I'll lose weight. i spread my carbs over the whole day and tend to eat similar amounts for breakfast and lunch each day just to make things easier. I also make sure I eat enough fat but your needs may vary so do check if you're unsure whether that's suitable for you.

 

[qe5rt]

Not really skinny but trying to gain weight for weightlifting. I eat 5-6 times a day with 3 large meals and 2-3 snacks. The weight is slowly stacking on as i don't want to gain too much fat but a nice ratio of muscle/fat. This said, gaining muscle is a healthy way of gaining weight. Especially the larger muscle groups like buttocks, legs, back will help putting on weight. You off course also need to adjust your diet a bit for allowing your muscles to grow.

If you don't like that approach just go for the caloric surplus method. Snack food that's high in calories but low in carbs like nuts, cheese (mostly in all it's variety). I usually eat about 100 grams of nuts a day which amounts to 650 calories and 100 grams of cheese which is about 400 calories. During lunch i eat peanut butter on bread which is the highest in carbs but i find it manageable which is around 650-750 calories. The rest of the day i choose for the higher calorie options which usually means a fatty fish or add something like avocado. Or just add a bit a mayo to a lean meal, with about 700+ calories per 100 gram you really increase the calorie intake of a certain meal and lately you have a lot of brands that contain more good fats than they used to. Off course i need to adjust my insulin intake when i'm trying to gain weight and overall it's about twice as high as to when i'm maintaining my weight. I start slow and allow myself to adjust my insulin and then i gradually increase trying to maintain proper BS levels. I'm now eating around 4000 calories a day and gained about 6 kg. since mid july. My bodyfat percentage has increased since then too but i'm also more muscular, still got about 3 kg. to go before i reach the maximum in my weight class but i'm slowly getting there.

 

[Postleneo]

I find I need to bolus different lengths of time in advance for different meals - I mean breakfast, lunch , etc. Breakfast needs a bolus twice as far in advance as my other meals.

15-20 mins is a reasonable time in advance to bolus. Have you experimented ever so cautiously with moving it a little further in advance? Go really carefully and gradually if you decide to try this as you don't want to go low.

If that doesn't work, you could consider your mealtime ratios. Perhaps slight tweaks to those would get your spike down a little?

How many carbs do you eat a day? Have you changed your diet since diagnosis? I find if I eat too few carbs, I'll lose weight. i spread my carbs over the whole day and tend to eat similar amounts for breakfast and lunch each day just to make things easier. I also make sure I eat enough fat but your needs may vary so do check if you're unsure whether that's suitable for you.

I try to stick to 30=35 g carb for breakfast... usually at 5:15 am at a ratio 1:11 also taking into account the DP which I inject an additional dosage for..... breakfast seems to be not too bad as at the 2 hour post meal my BS is ususally the same or 1-2mmols higher than my pre breakfast readings. This (touch wood) seems now to be stable until lunch at 11:45 where pre meal readings are between 5.5-8.5. Take about 80g carb at lunch at a ratio 1:12... and at 2 hrs it can be anything from 10.5 - 17mmols at 3hrs still quite high at about 13 but then at 4.5 hrs post injection averages about 7 mmols. tried altering the times I inject slightly even splitting my meal and have also slightly adjusted my ratio... if I get my levels to just under 9 at lunch... about 3.5 hours later I become far too low and hypo and have needed to eat up to 30 grams of carb.... at moment just cant seem to get the balance right especially at lunch.

 

[azure]

@Postleneo Ok, well it looks like lunch is the main problem. Bear in mind we're all different, so what works for one person might not for another.

My first thought reading that was could you split your lunch so that some of the 80g carbs were moved to an afternoon snack (for which you may or may not need to bolus). It depends on the person as to what the quantity is, but most of us find there's a maximum number of carbs per meal above which it becomes harder to control your blood sugar. You may find moving some of those carbs to an afternoon snack may help. You could then possibly increase your lunchtime ratio slightly to get that spike down, then eat the rest of the carbs as your snack when you start to drop.

If that's not possible, you may need to experiment with a variety of split boluses. I know you've already done that, but there may be further options you could try.

Another point to consider - I wouldn't eat until my BS was below 7 at a meal, so if you test higher than that at lunch you could delay eating. Starting from a higher number makes it harder to control any spike.

If you do experiment further, it helps to eat the same lunch (exactly the same, not just the same carb amount) so that you've at least removed one variable as you try different approaches.

 

[vanarchre]

Not really skinny but trying to gain weight for weightlifting. I eat 5-6 times a day with 3 large meals and 2-3 snacks. The weight is slowly stacking on as i don't want to gain too much fat but a nice ratio of muscle/fat. This said, gaining muscle is a healthy way of gaining weight. Especially the larger muscle groups like buttocks, legs, back will help putting on weight. You off course also need to adjust your diet a bit for allowing your muscles to grow.

If you don't like that approach just go for the caloric surplus method. Snack food that's high in calories but low in carbs like nuts, cheese (mostly in all it's variety). I usually eat about 100 grams of nuts a day which amounts to 650 calories and 100 grams of cheese which is about 400 calories. During lunch i eat peanut butter on bread which is the highest in carbs but i find it manageable which is around 650-750 calories. The rest of the day i choose for the higher calorie options which usually means a fatty fish or add something like avocado. Or just add a bit a mayo to a lean meal, with about 700+ calories per 100 gram you really increase the calorie intake of a certain meal and lately you have a lot of brands that contain more good fats than they used to. Off course i need to adjust my insulin intake when i'm trying to gain weight and overall it's about twice as high as to when i'm maintaining my weight. I start slow and allow myself to adjust my insulin and then i gradually increase trying to maintain proper BS levels. I'm now eating around 4000 calories a day and gained about 6 kg. since mid july. My bodyfat percentage has increased since then too but i'm also more muscular, still got about 3 kg. to go before i reach the maximum in my weight class but i'm slowly getting there.

4000 calories is a lot. I tried seriously to put on weight a while back and was hitting 3500 for a while and that was pretty exhausting.

I posted here recently:

http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/low-carb-and-high-calorie.109975/

because I've found it increasingly hard to stay low carb and maintain calories, while staying healthy. Sounds like youeat a lot of similar foods to me. I'd like to eat as much cheese as you but the sodium scares me.

 

[mist]

Can't gain a single pound even if I eat like a hippo..

 

[Postleneo]

Cheers for the advice.... Will try moving some if the carbs to an afternoon snack and see how it goes ... Was a bit reluctant to do this initially as may find it hard during work to have a further break 2 to 3 hours after lunch but will give it a go

 

[FawX]

Not really skinny but trying to gain weight for weightlifting. I eat 5-6 times a day with 3 large meals and 2-3 snacks. The weight is slowly stacking on as i don't want to gain too much fat but a nice ratio of muscle/fat. This said, gaining muscle is a healthy way of gaining weight. Especially the larger muscle groups like buttocks, legs, back will help putting on weight. You off course also need to adjust your diet a bit for allowing your muscles to grow.

If you don't like that approach just go for the caloric surplus method. Snack food that's high in calories but low in carbs like nuts, cheese (mostly in all it's variety). I usually eat about 100 grams of nuts a day which amounts to 650 calories and 100 grams of cheese which is about 400 calories. During lunch i eat peanut butter on bread which is the highest in carbs but i find it manageable which is around 650-750 calories. The rest of the day i choose for the higher calorie options which usually means a fatty fish or add something like avocado. Or just add a bit a mayo to a lean meal, with about 700+ calories per 100 gram you really increase the calorie intake of a certain meal and lately you have a lot of brands that contain more good fats than they used to. Off course i need to adjust my insulin intake when i'm trying to gain weight and overall it's about twice as high as to when i'm maintaining my weight. I start slow and allow myself to adjust my insulin and then i gradually increase trying to maintain proper BS levels. I'm now eating around 4000 calories a day and gained about 6 kg. since mid july. My bodyfat percentage has increased since then too but i'm also more muscular, still got about 3 kg. to go before i reach the maximum in my weight class but i'm slowly getting there.

how is the 4000 calories diet goin on with you ? as im thinking of trying this for weight gain and couldnt find a lot of people talking about this topic specially with T1D