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Expanding Waistline

G

gillgiraud

Member
Messages
6
Location
london
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Dislikes
exercise
I have been diagnosed for almost 2 years and in that time my waistline has expanded considerably. I have put on at least 1.5 stone since being diagnosed. I have changed my diet considerably - I only drink a couple of glasses of wine a month which is an achievement as I used to drink at least a bottle a week and high fat foods. I now exercise 3/4 times a week (cycling/pilates), when I used to do none at all but nothing has worked to reduce my waistline. At the moment I look about 6 months pregnant :(

I just don't know what else to do, I feel so depressed about the size of my stomach. The rest of my body is in pretty good shape apart from my stomach it looks so disgusting.

Does anyone have any suggestions.

Gill
 
Hi Gill,

Do your oral meds by any chance include either pioglitazone (Actos or Glustin) or rosiglitazone (Avandia)? Both of these are notorious for huge weight gain. I was on rosiglitazone for 6 months, during which time I put on 5 stone despite frantic dieting.
 
My gym instructor suggested interval training rather than slogging out on a treadmill.

You might like to try that.

He also said there were no specific exercises that target the flabby tummy area. Exercising the abs may give you a six pack, but you can't see it beneath the wobby bits.

Since taking this advice, I have seen a waist again.

Can't comment on the meds, as I am luckiny still on diet and exercise, except for blood pressure.

Good luck and keep the faith!
 
Hi

When I was first diagnosed my doctor put me on rosiglitazone, simvastatin and gliclazide and within 6 weeks I had put on 1.5 stone. The doctors were going to keep me on the rosiglitazone but I refused to take it so they put me on metformin. The metformin didn't work so they have gradually increased it so now I am on 6 x 500mg of metformin a day, 2 x80mg of gliclazide and 1 x 10mg of simvastatin. My levels still aren't great (my average is 8.2 - last annual test, but cholesterol is 3.6 - last year my average was 12.6 and my cholesterol was 5.4)

I tried going to the gym but I hated it. So I have resorted to pilates and my bike and now have started using the flexi-bar which I really enjoy - I don't have batwing arms anymore!

My diet has changed a great deal - I used to eat cream cakes, fast food and chocolate at least twice a week on the same day. Now it's a rare treat (not all at the same time). I try to eat only when I'm hungry or need to take my tablets and only food cooked from scratch.

I am really fed up and disgusted with my stomach - it looks disgusting and I can't get clothes to fit properly.

Gill
 
Hi Gill, what sort of things does your diet consist of? Many of us have found that reducing carb intake helps with levels and weight loss. Others control their Diabetes by medication and don't want to cut carbs. Finding what is right for you is the key.

Ann
 
Hi there Ann

My diet consists - if I don't have granola in the morning I'll have a fruit smoothie, mid-morning either a piece of fruit or a yoghurt, lunch is either soup or a salad, mid-afternoon snack would be fruit, then a proper dinner at night. I haven't eaten bread or rice in 8 months, pasta I've had once this year and potatoes maybe twice a month. I try to eat as little carbs as possible as have suffered from irritable bowl before and don't want to go through that again.

My diabetic nurse put me on victoza from January this year but have now stopped as it wasn't doing anything for my sugar levels or weight and wants to put me on piogliclazide(?) but that causes weight gain also.

I am under quite a bit on stress at the moment (possible redundancy) which may be why my sugar levels are so high (last night 14.6, this morning 17.7 both before meals). Average HbA1 test came out at 10. At the moment I am taking 3 metformin in the morning and either 2 or 3 at night to try and get my sugars down.
 
Stress will affect your levels, it is frightening to have redundancy hanging over you. IBS is dreadful, I suffer with it too. Fortunately since being diagnosed Diabetic in Feb and being put on statins it has improved. I don't know whether its the statins acting like cement of the fact I have reduced carbs as much as possible! I always had suspicions about bread although was checked for Ceoliac disease. Fruit is one of the things that I have never eaten a lot of because of the IBS, I can now eat strawberries and raspberries, but no other fruit. There is a lot of natural sugar in fruit though have you checked what a piece of fruit does to your levels?
 
Like Ann19 said -- I would try cutting out the fruit. And it's likely you'll need to be on insulin to get those BG level numbers where you want if those oral meds are still yielding those numbers. Eating too 'LITTLE' can also make you gain weight as your body goes into starvation mode and stores. You have to keep the fires burning by eating. No skipped meals.. Do you like eggs?

My 'weight loss' 1.5kg a month consists of eggs/cheese+ meat for each breakfast.. 1/3 of protein bar mid morning snack, some salad with meat chunks for lunch - 1/3 protein bar in afternoon - normal - small portion sizes dinner of meat + starch + veggies for dinner and CarbSmart ice cream bar for night snack.. 'Bout 1700 calories. I exercise a lot and take a little insulin to cover for the carbs. It's worked for me. The belly 'on the tummy' is from stored fat from carbs turning to glucose then being stored in the tummy tissue. It's the last area to come off - so until the other fat is burned away that won't go away. Even exercise machines won't flatten that area until the rest of your body has eliminated and burned off the other fat.

Good luck.. It's the hardest area of the body to target.
 
Hi Gill

I'm assuming you are a woman (hope you are!). Not related to diabetes but Uterine Fibroids can make you look 6 months pregnant. Worth checking out the symptoms.
 
))Denise(( said:
Hi Gill

I'm assuming you are a woman (hope you are!). Not related to diabetes but Uterine Fibroids can make you look 6 months pregnant. Worth checking out the symptoms.
Click to expand...

I have a friend who had a similar problem with the size of her stomach and it turned out to be an ovarian cyst (benign) the size of a small football. She had no other symptoms whatsoever.

If you have a GP who will listen, it's worth talking it over with him/her.

Viv 8)
 
gillgiraud said:
My diet consists - if I don't have granola in the morning I'll have a fruit smoothie, mid-morning either a piece of fruit or a yoghurt, lunch is either soup or a salad, mid-afternoon snack would be fruit, then a proper dinner at night. I haven't eaten bread or rice in 8 months, pasta I've had once this year and potatoes maybe twice a month. I try to eat as little carbs as possible as have suffered from irritable bowl before and don't want to go through that again.
<snip>
Click to expand...

Breakfast does look sub-optimal for a T2.
You need to check what the granola (are you US based?) and the smoothie are doing to your blood sugar.
AFAIK granola has significant sugar including honey, apart from being full of carbs.
A fruit smoothie is a way of processing fruit sugars for maximum swift absorption.
Both these options are fine for a healthy breakfast for non-diabetics but unless you have tested to confirm that neither of these give you a blood sugar spike then I would seriously consider changing this part of your diet as they are generally not good for diabetics.

As already suggested you seem to be eating a lot of fruit.
Again, healthy for non-diabetics but packed with sugar so to be approached with caution by diabetics.
Some are better than others, for example an apple has a lot of fibre which can slow down the uptake of sugar.
Fruit juices are the work of the devil because again the fruit has been processed to enable maximum swift absorption of the sugars.
All in all you seem to be eating a diet designed for healthy weight loss in non-diabetics.
Unfortunately this does not necessarily make it a healthy weight loss diet for diabetics.

The newbie advice often posted on this forum is good - including the suggestion that you test your blood sugars regularly throughout the day to get a detailed picture of what your diet is doing to you.

You don't have to test all day every day but it is good to do an initial calibration run and also retest if you make a significant change to your diet or medication.

It is up to the individual how much background testing they do on a regular basis, but it is probably wise to test at least last thing at night and first thing in the morning every now and then just to check that your levels are still within the expected range.

Cheers

LGC
 
Well it sounds like you are in the right ball park for weight loss, so something strange is going on!

Have you had your Thyroid levels checked, I was boarderline underactive for ten years , when my labs were just in the underactive range my body was by this time telling a totally different story.
Hairloss, cold all the time, weightgain all just around my middle even though I was running 80+ miles a week at the time and developed acute Tendonitis due to all the running I was doing to try and control the weight gain...it looked very odd just on my tummy.
I went twice to my GP with it all , I asked if there was anything Metabolic that could be causing the weight to stick on my tummy, even though I was on under a 1000 calories a day and doing all those miles....his exact words were thats B*****ks if you have weight on you you are eating too much as simple as that...as supportive as ever :lol:
After stamping my feet a bit and seeing a couple of other DR's, I was put on Thyroxine ,at last....and I lost all the weight I had put on on my waist, I went back down to a 24 inch waist , my hair grew back and I started to feel better on more calories with less exercise...resting even to get my Tendonitis better.
You may show decent labs, or boarderline even and be very symptomatic,it might not be this but it is worth getting checked out as this is one of the main symptoms of Hashimoto's .
I'm Type 1 and have always been thin, so I knew there was something soooo not right, but he just thought I sat on my butt all day eating cream cakes...if only :lol:
 
Usually morning is highest blood sugar and if you then eat granola (high carb) and /or fruit,this will spike your blood sugar. Pretty much all cereal is high glycemic, yes even steel cut oatmeal. Try to find low carb yogurt, I found some that is only 4 gms for a 6 ounce serving. The first thing you eat should be protein so eggs, yogurt, meat, etc. A big tummy is caused by high insulin levels, have you ever had your insulin levels checked? Most doctors never ceck insulin levels. If you're type 2 then you very well may have high insulin levels, and those diabetes drugs raise it even more. Insulin is the fat storage hormone. To lower it, diet and exercise is the best way - just a 30 minute walk a day will help and get a book on the glycemic index and loads of foods. One comment here about wine - a 12 ounce glass of wine has less than 1 gram of sugar. Wine actually lowers your blood sugar and therefore you insulin. Wine is 0 on the glycemic index, it won't raise your blood sugar, at all. Eating low glycemic my waist went from 42 inches (105 cm)to 36 inches (90 cm)! So it's not about how many carbs, it's about eating low glycemic carbs. and lowering your insulin levels. If Victoza didn't work try Byetta for a while, I lost 51 lbs (23 kilo) on it. But be careful, it can drop your blood sugar a lot.
 
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