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Need to lose weight sensibly

Willow85

Willow85

Member
Messages
10
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Am looking for any tips on losing weight and maintaining a good control of levels. Any advice and ideas of diet plans would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
 
Hi @Willow85, As a guy I agree with @Jaylee. And asking the question , am i eating to prevent hypos? Also noting that in general, less carbs in = less insulin required.
My personal experience (and not as professional advice or opinion) is that weight loss for T1Ds is 75% about diet/insulin and only 25% about exercise.
Of course these are approximations. Much also depends on one's age, level of activity etc. Are you still growing? How much iron do you need etc? I am sure the ladies on site will be most able to provide better information than i.
Looking at the Home page and "Food and Recipes' shows various diets and many have noted that they do well on a low carb diet, not only for T2Ds but also for some T1Ds. Finding a dietitian who is versed in all diets but particularly low carb diets would be a plus, as it is important to ensure such a diet also covers your vitamin and mineral needs.
Carb counting can also be useful (Dahne/Desmond course etc) as a means to work out how much insulin to take before each meal (called Carb to Insulin ratio, which may vary for meals at different times of day), and as @Jaylee described, how to measure the effect of one's basal dose(s) of insulin and adjust it down is important also.
Of course, there is the risk of developing hypos if the changes in diet are not fully matched with insulin changes and your DN and doctor need to be part of this venture. A a rule of thumb that I use (and this may or may apply to you) is that a change in insulin needs to be 20% at least to make a difference. Of course this may not apply during the first 12 + months on insulin when going through the honeymoon phase.
If you choose a low carb diet and meet opposition from your health team you may need to reconsider the diet OR your choice of health team. Best Wishes and please keep posting. We all learn from asking questions and the above is a condensed version as I am not sure what you know about various topics. So please ask away!!
 
kitedoc said:
Hi @Willow85
A a rule of thumb that I use (and this may or may apply to you) is that a change in insulin needs to be 20% at least to make a difference.
Click to expand...

Isn't that a bit of a big change? I tweak, sometimes by the smallest amount I can.
 
Hi @Willow85
Good to hear that you are after a sensible approach and not just a quick fix.
Have your medical team expressed concern over weight?
Are you hypo a lot?
Do you have any issues around food?
I generally find that if my sugars are in range my weight stays stable, hypos mean having to eat food I might not want, or driving me to the point of 'eating the fridge' where anything and everything is fair game. Better sugar control equals better eating for me.
You could try a local slimming group if support helps you, but many suggest carb heavy meals that may be hard to dose for.
 
How much do you need to lose? Sometimes just cutting back on portion sizes can really help. My hubbie has lost a fair bit through that - mainly because we were concentrating on portion sizes to help me carb count.
 
I cannot advise on how to lose weight as my genes have been very good to me (and my parents) in that area.

As far as maintaining good control, the best advice I have been given is to test and record.
I know it is dull but keeping track of what your BG is doing depending on time of day, how much exercise you have done and what you have eaten gives you a chance to spot trends and adjust your insulin dose.
It is usually a good idea to start with setting your basal level correct and then moving on to your bolus. There are lots of threads about basal testing.

If you can afford it, the Libre makes this easier. Unlike many, I only use my Libre for trend spotting because it is not accurate enough for me for point checks. However, this makes it much cheaper because I only check every two or three months once I am happy my levels are correct and just need a little tweaking.
 
I was in the same boat as you around 2 months ago. I had excess belly fat which really started to annoy me and wanted to lose fat. Over the past 6 weeks I've lost ~4-5kg and it took a bit of trial and error with insulin and diet.

First tings first, you must get your blood glucose levels under control, too low glucose and you will eat unnecessary calories, too high and this is not only of detriment in the long term but increases muscle breakdown - which is essential for fat loss (as more muscle uses more energy essentially).

I have been doing a mix of HIIT and weight training, generally the HIIT lasts 20-25 min max and weight training I typically focus on one area such as back/chest/legs. everyone does it differently, but because my main aim was fat loss I start with cardio and then follow with weight training, I then cool down with 5-6 minutes on the bike.

One thing I noticed was my glucose levels dropping during training due to HIIT, so either take a bottle of lucozade sport with you or ensure your glucose levels are slightly elevated before going to the gym, secondly I dropped my basal insulin from 26 units to 20-22, as I typically go to the gym after work to prevent hypos during the night.

Also important as stated before is your diet, I still ate what I did before but I reduced my portion sizes, also remember you will likely require less insulin following training, if you inject too much you fall back into the cycle of hypo and extra calories.

Stick to a rather simple diet so you can become aware of how much insulin is required.

I learned a lot from the Diabetic Muscle and Fitness website and YouTube channel, so that's also a good source of info.

Hope this helps.
 
I've started to lose weight recently too. Lost 12 lbs in the last 9 weeks. Before I was a T1 I could lose 2 lbs a week easily but it's been much more difficult to do that with T1 due to the hypos. My food intake obviously reduced a lot, and that's brought my BG levels down a lot but because I don't snack between meals now and time between meals is longer my hypos have become more regular. So that would be the first thing I would tell you to watch out for. Also, I've found I've needed to reduce my long lasting insulin. I take Absaglar and was on 18 units per night, but now I'm down to 14 units per night otherwise I was just hypo'ing twice a day every day at the start because I had too much insulin. I've also found I've had to tweak my Novorapid slightly too. I've become slightly more insulin sensitive because I exercise a lot now. I used to be 1 unit for around every 5.5 grams of carbs but now I tend to closer to 1 unit for ever 6.5 grams. A slight change, but significant in preventing hypos. I'd also suggest to you to keep an eye on your BG levels whenever you exercise. My BG levels plummet when I exercise and can drop as much as 7 or even 8 in half an hour so before I exercise I make sure to push my levels up to at least 7 and check every 10 minutes or so now because when I first started exercising again I knew realised it made my blood drop a lot, I pushed my BG up to around 12 and exercised for 30 minutes thinking that would be no problem and it dropped all the way to around 5 so keep an eye on that if you start to exercise.

In terms of advice for actually losing weight, find out what your body will naturally burn in a day calorically and then take 500 off that and that's around how much you should eat per day. Do that and you'll lose a pound a week.
 
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