Type 1, weight loss and insulin

vidareve

Newbie
Messages
4
I'm a reasonable well controlled type 1 diabetic who wants to lose a little bit of weight. I take Novorapid insulin with every meal and Lantus as a back-up insulin. I'm not really overweight with a BMI of 21.0, weighing 78/79kg, being 1.75m tall. I'm very active and go to the gym at the same time every day, 7 days a week, and have done that for may years. I also go for a walk or somthing similar like go on a crosstrainer/spinbike nearly every day in addition to my my activities in the gym.
I'm sitting still much of the rest of the day in front of a computer.
Since taking insulin 4 times per day, and eating so little (see below) I frequently have had some hypos, which I dislike very much.
I've tried to lose weight over the last few weeks, and the principle I've followed is to calculate how many calories I need per day, which is about 2300, and reduce that by 500 calories, try to eat around 1700 calories per day. The glucuse levels been reduced the same, and I've tried to eat many GI products like cauliflower, broccoli etc, but have also eaten 2-3 boiled small potatoes with most of my main meals, in addition to a small piece of meat or fish.
By following this diet I haven't really lost any weight at all, so I've tried to reduce the number of calories even further down to around 1200-1300 calories per day, which is very little with my activity level.
I understand that insulin is a hormon, that the body is using to store the fat.
So my problem is how or what do I have to do to reduce my weight a little in a controlled way , eating so little? Some days eating 1200 calories, my weight's gone up a kg.
So before you say that the number of calories I'm eating must be wrong, let me explain:
Breakfast around 224 cal (carbs 40g), an apple around 11 at 47 cals (12 g), lunch same as breakfast at 224 cals (40g), a fruit at 4 oclock 57 cals (13g), dinner around 6pm 500 cals (carbs 50g), and a fruit again at 9pm of 57 cals (13g), maybe a snack at 11 100 cals (30 g carbs), is around 1200 cals, carbs about 200g, adapting my insulin to this and my activity level.
I've been trying to get hold of a NHS dietician in the hospital where I'm controlling my diabetes at, the St. James hospital in Leeds, but have waited now for month without an appointment.

Anyone understanding my problem and can give me some advice.
I would appreciate all comments.
 

fergus

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,439
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Hi vidareve,

The alarm bells were ringing at first when I saw you were trying to lose some weight at a BMI of 21!
When I did the maths I got a BMI of 25 though, is that right?
Medical history is full of example of failed attempts at losing weight through calorie restriction. The consensus seems to be that calorie restriction is more likely to induce a slowing of the metabolism to compensate so that weight stabilises, then increases when calories are restored.
200g of carbs on a 1200 calorie diet isn't likely to succeed in my view. That's a high carb diet by anyones definition.
How much insulin are you using and how are your blood sugars?

All the best,

fergus
 

vidareve

Newbie
Messages
4
Hi there fergus,
and thank you for your reply.

I'm using an Omron Body Fat Monitor for measuring my Body Fat and BMI. This morning I rechecked
it and my Body fat was 18,6%, and my BMI was 25,8.

It's a litle bit difficult to tell exactly how much insulin I'm using, because it depends on the testing of my blood sugar, but normal I take 1 u of the Novo rapid insulin per 10g of glucose I'm eating, so for breakfast and lunch, where I take 40g carbs, I take 4 units, for the snacks like apple. oranges and bananas I don't take anything, and for dinner if I'm calculating my dinner to be 60g, depending on the potatoes, I take 6 units. As backup insulin, I use Lantus, and I take 14 units at midnight.
I have to be very careful with my insulin, because I'm training so much, because my job is making me sit still in front of my computer, for many hours every day, and it's easy to get very low.

I've just bought a new book from the US, 'The stubborn fat fix' which tells how to eat more GI foods and lose weight with GI foods, but I haven't received it yet.
I prefer to eat natural organic foods,but I don't always do it, because here where I live it's not so many shops providing organic foods. I live in US as well, part of the year, and there they have many more shops with only organic food, and with lots of fruit and vegetables we don't provide here in the UK.