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Gaining Muscle

Wurst

Wurst

Well-Known Member
I've been weight training for a few months now without any noticeable gain. My strength has increased i.e. I'm lifting twice the weights I was at the start but not building any muscle.

I'm on a high protein diet of around 200 g per day and very low carb at around 30 g per day. I am 195 cm tall and weight in at around 90 kg.

Also I cycle every day and occasionally run. I am confused as to why I see no gains? Could it be I am burning too many calories by cycling?

Blood sugar levels have been amazing.
 
Too high for what exactly, gaining muscle ? My blood sugars aren't complaining. I read that 2g of protein per kg of body is perfectly safe and recommended for gaining mass!
 
Go with what you think you read.

It's per kg of lean body mass and it isn't 2g

Just ignore the link to AIS, who train the Olympic athletes
 
You also need to consider your body type. Not all males have the kind of physique that allows for mass gains. If you're really serious about this, you'd probably be best to find someone who trains people on how to do it, rather than trying bits and pieces you've picked up on the net. Any diabetic needs to take care of their kidneys and taking massive amounts of protein may be problematic
 
High protein diets are to be avoided if you already have impaired kidney function , which I don't. The best way to take care of your kidneys by keeping your blood sugar in the non-diabetic range , not the NHS nonsensical range i.e. 'it's okay to be 8 mmol after a meal recommendations' !

I am still baffled why I am not gaining , In the past (before T1 diagnosis) I have managed it , so I can only assume I need some Carbs. I found pasta and tuna would result in a mass gain but obviously I'm not going to be touching pasta these days.
 
There seem to be quite a few threads on the bodybuilding.com forums re. diabetics and body building, so maybe check that out.
 
I am now actually seeing some results without changing the method I outlined in the initial post. The only thing I've changed is removing nuts from my diet , I have become nut intolerant and it was causing some pretty unpleasant stomach problems. So i can only assume these stomach problems were impacting the absorption of protein in some way.
 
Indy51 said:
There seem to be quite a few threads on the bodybuilding.com forums re. diabetics and body building, so maybe check that out.
Click to expand...

The decade-long thread linked below seems to be the best one on bodybuilding.com (I'm Caractacus on there too)

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=485093

Although it's for Type 1, it's got a lot of useful info for Type 2's as well. Maybe a bit too concerned with supplements rather than nutrition and exercise but it's got a ton of useful info in there if you're willing to dig.
 
Hey OP.

EDIT - Short version - Yes i think you are burning too many calories by cycling. You should really be counting your calories every day. To gain muscle you should eat at a surplus of calories (200-500Cals) every day above your daily maintenance. To burn fat you should eat 200-500Cals below your maintenance everyday. So you can see by that you cannot gain muscle AND burn fat for very long, at some point you need to pick one or the other.


LONG VERSION
I think you're issue might be 2 things.

1 - If your lifts are increasing then you are gaining some muscle. You wont see a difference if you haven't lost the fat covering your muscles, you will just look like a slightly bigger version of how you looked before you started training.

2 - You cannot put on muscle AND loose fat at the same time. To loose fat you have to have taken in LESS calories then you needed too, and to gain muscle you have to take in MORE calories per day then you needed to.

The advice i would give is pick one goal - building muscle or burning fat (aka - Bulking and Cutting). If you are on the heavy side you will see the most progress to cut first, and then when you reach your ideal body fat % and weight, then start bulking and you will really see all the muscle youve gained because it wont be covered by fat.

As i said earlier if you do a mix or cardio and weights you risk burning the extra calories that your body needs in order to put on muscle, thus slowing your progress of both cutting and bulking.
 
Do you think it make sense for a diabetic to think in terms of bulk/cut, given the need to keep blood sugar levels stable?

I'm pretty new to being diabetic, but my immediate instinct is to wonder about that ...
 
I've been diabetic a long time and recently started cutting with a very low carb diet. I've found that actually, it's had a positive effect on my blood glucose control and would recommend it to others.

I know of another diabetic at my gym who got down to 6% bodyfat cutting in this way, with few blood glucose issues. I think that, as long as you observe what your body is doing, it is perfectly safe and manageable.
 
Sure. What I was questioning was the idea of a bulk / cut cycle as practiced by bodybuilders to maximise muscle growth. In particular the concept of 'bulk' one generally encounters along the lines of 'eat to grow and don't worry too much about surplus calories, you'll lose them during the cut phase'
 
I guess the level of control required to manage your sugars means that the 'bulk' part of the cycle doesn't necessarily have the implication of indiscriminate lard acquisition that 'bulking' has in the general bodybuilding community?
 
Well, it does and doesn't. You can indiscriminately acquire lard, but if doing it with carbs, you have to take a lot more care.
 
I don't think it will effect your sugars at all.
To bulk you only need an extra 200 cal per day, in perspective that's just eating a 2 scoops of protein powder mixed with water if you wanted which is ~50g protein and around 200cal with around 10g or carbs. Or maybe eating a power bar each day.

200-500cals extra a day is nothing really, most people don't track their caloric intake and probably are already eating that much over maintenance without even knowing.

You need to sit down and work out how many calories your body actually needs each day to maintain the weight you want to be at, and eat 200-500 over that. If your already over that weight then it's likely because you already exceed that maintenance number so it would likely require no or little eating change.

Small changes like this are easy to handle, especially eating low carb. Carbs are what we have the biggest issue dealing with so cutting down the amount should only make our sugars easier to handle. So cutting wouldn't be any harder then without diabetes, and bulking at 200-500cal extra should be as simple eating and bolusing like every other meal.

I can't see why there would be any issues with either. I've been doing fine so far.
 
I'm so glad I've found this thread. I've started weight training since August and my results have been slow. I think this thread will help
 
Does anyone suffer from high blood glucose readings after weight training? I do, I've considered taking fast acting insulin before a workout to combat it as I know the stress of lifting weights means your BG increases.

What does everyone else do to combat this?
 
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