I’m a diabetic type 1 for 11 years now, I’m trying to get healthier and working out three times a week, eating more meals with altleast 4 hours gap and taking protein too. at times my muscles gain looks good and than if I get high blood sugar levels I notice the muscle shrinks and than gradually goes up again. Is it harder for diabetics to gain muscle, also if anyone has any tips to prevent the muscle loss would much appreciate it. I currently take insulin and metformin both.
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Building Muscle and weight
- Thread starter m786xxx
- Start Date
Maco
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 278
- Type of diabetes
- Type 1
Hi, I train 6 days a week & work with a bodybuilding personal trainer. Gaining muscle with diabetes can be massively challenging, when you have high blood sugars it can break down the muscle. If you train with a high blood sugar it massively effects how much you gain from that session. Then you’ve also got the problem of hypos, I’m on a really strict calorie controlled diet with good amounts of protein etc etc. Roughly eating between 1200-1500 calories a day, but if I do go hypo I might need to quickly eat an extra 200/300 calories of high carb food to treat.
So to answer your question, yeah it is hard to gain muscle compared to someone that isn’t diabetic. It’s not impossible though, I was 18st & I’m now 12.6 with around 17/18% body fat. Still a long way to go but my body fat is dropping week by week & my muscle tissue is starting to build. Don’t get me wrong though like I said earlier I’m training 6 days a week with a personal trainer that pushes me to my limits every session alongside the tightly controlled diet. Have a read of this link https://diabeticmuscleandfitness.com/ & also google a man named Anth bailes. He is a type 1 professional bodybuilder with type 1 diabetes.
