runner2009
Well-Known Member
Well it has been just a year since I was diagnosed with diabetes and released from hospital after a weeks stay with an A1C of 13.6
I was a mess when I got out all my muscles had been waisted away and I could barely walk. My eyes were messed up along with pain in both my feet and hips.
I was using over 37 units of 75/25 a day and I came out of hospital on a consistent carbohydrate diet of 2-servings of carbs per meal.
This may sound like a linear progression but it has not been.
Over the last year, thanks this forum and Dr. Bernstein my A1c is consistently between 4.9 to 5.2 and I now eat a LCHF diet.
It took me close to 9-months to get my physical self back and really it was not until I gained about 15lbs of muscle that my BG really stabilized.
Frankly being my age I was very surprise that I've been able to put on so much muscle.
This was a huge surprise since I was constantly told by the docs and diabetic nurses that using insulin I would most likely gain weight and fat.
At first I started doing wall pushups, and squats with no weights and this took a long time to gain some strength back.
I was not gaining muscle mass and that coupled with walking hills I was constantly fighting hypos so I was very careful.
About 8-months in I got a free 2-week membership to a gym and I would wake up in the am, test my fasting sugars, prepare breakfast, figure my insulin, take a shot eat and then go to the gym right after - then to work.
My weight lifting followed a modified Body for Life's method basically start at a weight lift between 8 to 14 reps until failure wait a minute and drop the weight do same reps 8 to 10 and cycle for 3 more repetitions.
In a very short order I noticed along with my GF and friends too that I began to be putting on muscle.
I was surprised at this and as my strength and muscle mass increased my hypos and insulin requirements decreased
I asked my doc about it but he basically ignored the question and warned about hypos.
I started searching the internet and guess what? There were a number of articles for body builders giving insulin protocols to build muscle mass.
It turns out that they use insulin for its anabolic steroid like affects without being able to be detected.
Of course many of these articles warned about the dangers of dying from a hypo ( dummies ! ) and not to confuse cc with units of insulin.
I would never use insulin the way these articles explained nor increase my dosage to build my muscles but what I do do is plan my lifting around my twice daily shots.
This increase in muscle mass has had a positive affect on me both emotional and physically. This coupled with a very strict LCHF diet and constant BG testing has affected both my foot pain to the point it is mostly gone and my readers were at 2.25 and now they are at 1.25. There have been lits of other benefits too (-;
What I don't understand is that I was always told that insulin would make it difficult to lose weight and I'd get fatter.
Why the other side of the equation was not emphasized and make the growth hormone work for us to become healthier?
I want to say explicitly that I am not in anyway advocating using ones insulin to build muscle especially if you are like me using a mixture of fast and long acting.
But why not take advantage of its growth properties with proper timing of ones exercise? For me stumbling across this has been a win win situation as my requirements are any where between 0 and 6 units a day depending on my carb and protein intake.
I was a mess when I got out all my muscles had been waisted away and I could barely walk. My eyes were messed up along with pain in both my feet and hips.
I was using over 37 units of 75/25 a day and I came out of hospital on a consistent carbohydrate diet of 2-servings of carbs per meal.
This may sound like a linear progression but it has not been.
Over the last year, thanks this forum and Dr. Bernstein my A1c is consistently between 4.9 to 5.2 and I now eat a LCHF diet.
It took me close to 9-months to get my physical self back and really it was not until I gained about 15lbs of muscle that my BG really stabilized.
Frankly being my age I was very surprise that I've been able to put on so much muscle.
This was a huge surprise since I was constantly told by the docs and diabetic nurses that using insulin I would most likely gain weight and fat.
At first I started doing wall pushups, and squats with no weights and this took a long time to gain some strength back.
I was not gaining muscle mass and that coupled with walking hills I was constantly fighting hypos so I was very careful.
About 8-months in I got a free 2-week membership to a gym and I would wake up in the am, test my fasting sugars, prepare breakfast, figure my insulin, take a shot eat and then go to the gym right after - then to work.
My weight lifting followed a modified Body for Life's method basically start at a weight lift between 8 to 14 reps until failure wait a minute and drop the weight do same reps 8 to 10 and cycle for 3 more repetitions.
In a very short order I noticed along with my GF and friends too that I began to be putting on muscle.
I was surprised at this and as my strength and muscle mass increased my hypos and insulin requirements decreased
I asked my doc about it but he basically ignored the question and warned about hypos.
I started searching the internet and guess what? There were a number of articles for body builders giving insulin protocols to build muscle mass.
It turns out that they use insulin for its anabolic steroid like affects without being able to be detected.
Of course many of these articles warned about the dangers of dying from a hypo ( dummies ! ) and not to confuse cc with units of insulin.
I would never use insulin the way these articles explained nor increase my dosage to build my muscles but what I do do is plan my lifting around my twice daily shots.
This increase in muscle mass has had a positive affect on me both emotional and physically. This coupled with a very strict LCHF diet and constant BG testing has affected both my foot pain to the point it is mostly gone and my readers were at 2.25 and now they are at 1.25. There have been lits of other benefits too (-;
What I don't understand is that I was always told that insulin would make it difficult to lose weight and I'd get fatter.
Why the other side of the equation was not emphasized and make the growth hormone work for us to become healthier?
I want to say explicitly that I am not in anyway advocating using ones insulin to build muscle especially if you are like me using a mixture of fast and long acting.
But why not take advantage of its growth properties with proper timing of ones exercise? For me stumbling across this has been a win win situation as my requirements are any where between 0 and 6 units a day depending on my carb and protein intake.