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T1D-Weight gain— insulin aspart + glargine

T

TypeZero.

Well-Known Member
Messages
296
Have started insulin 3 months ago. Started out on 57kg which put me briefly in the underweight category. I’m up to 61kg which is in the healthy category but I’m worried about gaining anymore weight. Has anyone experienced a similar sort of weight gain? I know a little weight gain is expected but I don’t want to gain loads.

From the amount of insulin I’m injecting I can see that my carb intake has increased from about 150g/day to 200-300g/day. Is my weight gain down to eating more carbs? If I increased my protein and fat percentage and reduced carb percentage would that still cause weight gain?

Also does injecting insulin increase muscle mass or something? I don’t know if I’m biased because my friend said insulin increases muscle but lately I’ve realised my arms have gotten more muscular, I do inject into my upper arms regularly but surely the insulin circulates in your body so there shouldn’t be any localised effect? (I don’t inject into my stomach that often because there isn’t that much fat so it tends to bleed and is usually way more painful than anywhere else)

Any tips on limiting weight gain? I know the whole concept of calories in and calories out but surely some macronutrients affect weight to a lesser degree?

Thanks
 
Eating so much carb is putting the weight on. Stop it by reducing carb and insulin at the same time. Insulin is an anabolic hormone and promotes muscle growth, but only if suitable resistance exercise is done. Bodybuilders often supplement with it and increase carbs too.
 
It's common to gain weight when first put on insulin. What happens is when you become a type 1 not on insulin yet, you can't utilize all your food you eat, so you aren't really absorbing all that food and that means you are actually eating more than you need too. If you carry that eating pattern over to once you start insulin, it's too much food and hence also too much insulin. The muscle can also start coming back because before insulin you were actually cannibalizing your body for energy. That's one of the signs a type 1 gets is losing weight because they can't utilize the food they eat.

You can eat the carbs you want, I do. It's a matter of figuring out proper dosing. It's also a matter of never eating too much food than you actually need like anyone else. Sometimes you can add more protein or fat, but you still have to watch that as it could be too many calories than you actually need.

But it is common and something you have to watch for.
 
Hi,
Sounds like you're recently diagnosed, so I just wanted to advise you to include your diabetes team in your conversation and thought process. While you're initially getting used to what having diabetes means, people usually get put on fixed insulin doses. I was put on fixed doses and told to eat to match in the first few weeks/months since diagnosis. I either did, and so ate more carbs than I would originally have done, or I didn't and had low blood glucose (hypo) so had to have sugar to treat it. I understandably put on weight. I then found out about carbohydrate counting which personally makes so much sense and has made my life since (14 yrs since and counting!) so much easier.

There is no reason your diet should change just because of your diagnosis. You talk about eating more carbs now, why is this? Having said that, before you reduce the carbs in your diet talk to your diabetes team who might amend your insulin doses so you don't hypo. Hope that helps a little!

Edited to remove typo
 
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