Weight Loss and Diabetes

sugarless sue

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As in all things health related discuss your course of action with your doctor/nurse/ dietician before embarking on a diet. You may have other health conditions that have to be taken into account.

Losing weight for diabetics has to be thought of in terms of controlling your blood sugars as well as reducing your food intake.

Many of the ‘ready- made’ diets such as Weight Watchers, South Beach etc may look good in terms of losing weight but they often have high carb levels in their meals even though they say they are suitable for diabetics.

Carbohydrates are what affects blood sugar levels and, in diabetes we have an inability to process the carbs properly because of some sort of damage to the pancreas be it total beta cell destruction as in Type 1’s or insulin resistance/deficiency in Type 2’s.

With those with insulin resistance there is too much insulin in the body because the pancreas produces more and more insulin to try and cope with the ingested carbs turning into glucose.

Carbs = glucose= insulin= fat.

If you eat too many carbs this will convert to glucose. This then requires insulin to try and lower the levels of glucose in your blood, either naturally produced or injected insulin. An excess of insulin in your blood stream then gets converted to fat. If you can break this cycle by firstly reducing the carb intake to lower levels you will then find that you can reduce the quantity of insulin that you need, this in turn will lower your blood sugar levels and also have the beneficial effect of reducing/stopping any fat production.

This is a simplification of the complex metabolic process going on inside each and every one of us.

For each and every one of us however the processing of these carbs will be different. Some can tolerate certain types of carbs with regards to blood sugar control and some can’t. It is only by keeping a food diary and a record of your blood sugar levels before and after a meal that we can gradually learn to work with our food so that the food helps us not hurts us.

Some small tips.

1.Portion control. You may think that your portions are ‘healthy', for a week weigh everything out so that you get to know visually what a 30gm portion is (or whatever portion you are aiming at). Every month or so do this again as our eyes sometimes deceive us !!

2.Use a smaller sized plate. The plate looks full so you feel full as well.

3.Prepare as much of your food as possible yourself using fresh products that are as natural as possible. For instance fresh meat has little to no carbs whereas processed meat may have a lot of carbs.

4.Read the packets ! Look at the TOTAL carb content of the product this includes the sugars and gives you the proper carb value. Do not just look at sugars as this is misleading when you are diabetic.

5.Don’t beat yourself up if the weight loss stalls, it happens, keep to the diet and it will probably start again. Try increasing exercise if you are able, this increases metabolism and gets weight loss going again.

6.Don’t beat yourself up if you fall off the wagon now and again. We are all human and all do it now and again. You are changing your lifestyle. It takes time.

I used this method and lost three stone. This is just my experience.
 

Patch

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Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
Nice post, Sue. That's gonna help a lot of noobs. I've recently been researching T2 as an inability of the body to metabolise certain types of fat (not carbs). Made for some interesting reading.

Basically, when your cells reproduce, they use whatever fat is available to them - in the case of good fats being available, the cells regenerate using those good fats, and the cell membranes remain nice and elastic (allowing glucose to pass through). Where only bad fats are available, the cells regenerate using the only fats available to them (bad fats) and the cell walls lose some of their elasticity, and glucose does not pass through them so easily.

This supports (one) theory that it's the insulin resistance that causes a person to become overweight - not being overweight causing insulin resistance. That makes perfect sense to me.

A bit of reverse engineering would tell you that you can reduce insulin resistance by giving your cells good fats to regenerate from. This would explain why so many people have difficulty losing weight on a calorie restricted diet.
 

sugarless sue

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That's interesting Patch. Have you a link so we can all read it. It's like which comes first the chicken or the egg ! :D
 
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Patch

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,981
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Insulin
I was just gonna say - Chicken n' Egg!

I don't have any links here (I'm at work) but if you google Diabetes fat metabolism, you're sure to find something!
 

sugar2

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833
Hi Sue,

I am no expert in Type 2...but weight watchers actually suits a type 1 diabetic quite well...I am trying it out myself at the moment, becasue, although it tells you how much you should eat, it doesn't tell you what you should eat. So if you no carb, low carb or inject/eat to optimise blood sugar you can make it work for you.

You comment about weight watchers therefor is not quite correct...but ifyou were refering to theri pre prepared food...I agree 100%!

Thanks for setting up this section
 

Dippy3103

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I am following the weight watchers plan too. Because it is up to the dieter how to spend the points allowance, making it easy to adapt to low carb/ reduced carb/ eat carbs'. I am following a reduced carb diet and find this works well. I have lost 3.5 stone this way.
Sue makes a good point about rechecking portion size, may explain why my loss has slowed.
Patch's post interested me. I was a total carb junkie but didn't think I wa eating enough to gain as much as I did. Maybe that is my explaination.
Like Sue I really don't like those ready made ww meals..
 
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flossie1999

Newbie
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1
I was diagnosed with type 2 in 2002 and although my blood sugar is fairly well controlled, my weight seems impossible to shift and is causing more and more problems as I also have osteoarthritis (one hip and knee replaced, the other side waiting to be done). It means that there isn't much scope for exercise. I managed to lose some weight by following a strict Atkins diet but because I found it difficult to maintain, I had some results concentrating on GI. However, this was before my mobility became as limited as it is now. My carb intake is reasonable, portion control is perhaps a bit wonky. To jump start another attempt at weightloss I have started Slimfast two weekis ago with moderate results and no change in blood sugar readings. Can somebody tell me please if this is suitable for diabetics or if I might ultimately do more harm than good?
PS. Thanks for the post on Elmlie - I have been using it for a long time assuming it was better than cream (which I actually prefer).
Flossie 1999
 

marksno1

Newbie
Messages
3
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Hi,

My name is Mark, I became i diabetic last August and was in a hyperglycaemic coma for 12 days I had a blood sugars reading of 62.9 I am on insulin and metformin 3 times a day I weigh 22 stone and cannot loos any weight what so ever.

This is due to other disabilities i suffer with in which I am unable to exercise I was also put on olistat to help me loos weight and that did not work so i was took of the tablet I was just wanting some advise i have three meals a day and they are not large meals my wife has kept to what the diabetic dietician told us to eat so i do not pig on anything.

I know all of this is down to exercise can you help?

Kind Regards


Mark
 

marksno1

Newbie
Messages
3
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Hi She told me to eat three meals a day plenty of veg fruit she also told me chess in small perporsions would not matter and plenty of fibre and small helpings of spuds ex
 

anniep

Well-Known Member
Messages
561
Hi Mark

You don't say what you BG levels are but I was wondering, because some of us on this forum have found that the diet given by our health care professionals has not suited us. There are too many carbohydrates in it and we find that it makes it difficult to control our BG and our weight.

I for example can't eat fruit as it spikes my BG's, I know the dietican said not too much potatoes - what did she say about bread and pasta etc?
 

Dippy3103

Well-Known Member
Messages
325
I read a diet tip in a mag yesterday that makes so much sense.....

Writeca list of the healthy foods that you actually like. Then go to the supermarket and buy nothing but the things on that list. Don't buy anything that isn't on the list. Obvious really...
 
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maddie47

Newbie
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2
l am a type 2 diabetic and have real problems remembering to take my insulin. l dont do this deliberately l really just don,t remember. l also suffer from depression. l am losing weight all the time, could this be due to my diabetes?
 

sugar2

Well-Known Member
Messages
833
maddie47 said:
l am a type 2 diabetic and have real problems remembering to take my insulin. l dont do this deliberately l really just don,t remember. l also suffer from depression. l am losing weight all the time, could this be due to my diabetes?

I think alas the answer is yes! I know when many T1 and t2 are diagnosed, one ogf the things the Drs look out for is a big weight loss, due to high blood sugar. I think it is becasue, without enough insulin, you body can't process teh food, so you start burning fat, which leads to ketones and even more weight loss.

Thsi may sounds liek a dieters dream...but it is doing so much harm. I can empathiose with teh forgetting the insulin thing, and you will get no lectures from me, just a plea, that if you can, you really should take it...it is clearly doing you harm.
 

mohin

Newbie
Messages
4
Hello sugarless sue,
Thanks for your tips and the way to control the weight issue in diabetes... I think that it would be very helpful to all the guy's and help much.... This kind of the post is much informative one and I hope that you will keep sharing more one's with us in your next post here..... Thanks again...