Type 1 Diabetes + Going to the gym

Stay away from the bodybuilder forums and their **** about "slin"; it's honestly the biggest load of sh*te I've ever heard.

The bodybuilders are under the impression that if they take a block of dextrose/glucose after a workout with associated rapid acting insulin this will spur on muscle growth. Are they right, maybe... But are they just looking for another injection/medication that they can take to chase an image 90% of them will never reach, probably.

Yes insulin is a pretty anabolic hormone, but I'd imagine if you were to use this as the bodybuilders try to - as a diabetic, you'd just end up with fairly uncontrolled BGL's or dangerous hypos post workout.

There are plenty supplements on the go which don't have much of an impact on BGL - such as protein shakes (zero carb variety) and creatine. I don't support any of these products but providing they don't interfere with your BGL and have the backing of your diabetes team then I'd be going down that route; rather than the timings/amounts of rapid insulin you're taking post workout.

Keep me posted if you find anything different

Grant

Surely insulin + glucose means extra fat to be deposited in the body unless you are exercising enough to burn it off at the time. Think of insulin as the means to control blood sugar and nothing else.

Working out myself too at gym, I only inject bolus if levels slightly high before workout as you may know, insulin breaks down data for muscles to feed on. Otherwise muscles break down & BGs rise from lack of insulin in body. Just keep to what works with you & don't feel intimidated or uncomfy with what else you see or read as what GrantGam1337 said. Hope it goes well for you

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Hi @Misja, I had some experience of doing this a couple of years ago and managed to go from overweight and 25% body fat to 12% body fat in 12 weeks, whilst increasing muscle mass.

The key was principally two things. Firstly a number of phases of training and diet were applied, and bear in mind that the numbers in here are all what were applied to me.

The first phase was a low carb diet, eating 2000 calories a day with a macro split of 45% Fat; 45% Protein; 10% carbs. This was done for four weeks whilst also undertaking a conditioning training programme, based on German Body Composition training three times per week. Each training session was accompanied by BCAAs and a sugar free protein shake. You may or may not find them useful, but the BCAAs really reduced the muscle soreness I experienced. The important thing about this phase was to get the body burning fat and not lose muscle mass, which I found very successful.

Following this, for the next 8 weeks, we undertook fortnightly programmes doing low rep, heavy strength work for two weeks and then higher rep, lighter composition work for the next two. In this period, the diet added back complex carbs up to 20% of macro values but for the final two weeks reduced the calories to 1750 per day during a composition phase. Throughout the entire period, no alcohol was drunk.

I found it to be a very successful approach and I lost weight, gained insulin sensitivity and gained muscle. I could even see my six pack and no use of insulin as a growth factor was required.