• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Type 2. Improved BG Control but Weight Gain.

blueprudence

Member
Messages
15
Location
United Kingdom
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Non-insulin injectable medication (incretin mimetics)
Dislikes
Being so totally lazy. The thought of having any of my body chopped off or going blind - incentive enough to make the changes I need to prevent that, even if I have to start {gasp} exercising.
Any form of animal cruelty or abuse. Globalisation, americanisation and homogenisation of everything from our high streets to our regional dialects. Any form of injustice.
Hello Board

Since diagnosis 2 years ago, I've had really bad control of my blood glucose but have recently been referred to my first community diabetic nurse specialist - what a difference she is to GP practice nurses! :) She put me onto 5ml x twice a day of Byetta (Exentide), referred me to the podiatrist and wrote to my GP about bariatric surgery. My BMI is around 50 (my highest ever). I've got on extremely well with the Byetta and my sugars have overall come down by at least 6-8 mmol/l for each reading. I test on waking, before my lunch, before dinner, two hours after dinner. I also take 2 x 500mg Metformin twice a day and 2 x 80mg Gliclazide twice a day. The Byetta was reducing my appetite and I've taken the opportunity to eat very healthily with smaller portions of low GI food and sticking to about 1400 cals a day. I thought - "YES! I can do it this time, I'm going to have lost weight and help my diabetes further".

Oh dear. :( Had my 3 week Byetta follow up on Friday and jumped on the DNS's scales and have somehow managed to GAIN 4kg. I burst into tears in front of her, feeling like such an idiot as I'd been so proud with my efforts and she was so chuffed with my BG control and I was ready to have lost 3 or 4kg and got such a shock. She's told me to drop one of the evening meal Gliclazides (she feels they cause weight gain and aims to get me off them totally), is starting me on the 10ml Byetta from today (if the dispensary have it ready) and has told me that it's totally normal to gain weight when BG control is so much better and that the 6-8 mmol/l of sugar I normally have slooshing round my blood stream has to have gone somewhere and has ended up as weight gain. She's really happy as my sugars are better but I'm worrying that I might die of a heart attack or stroke anyway if I can't drop some of this **** weight - like half of it. :(

In anger and disappointment I made some poor food choices for a few meals (old habits die hard) but have climbed back onto my healthy eating future now and am looking at reducing carbs further to less than 30g in each meal. Will this weight gain continue for as long as I have good BG control or is it just a spike caused by going from readings of 10-18 mmol/l in the evenings down to a new normal of 7-12? I understand that losing weight unexpectedly is a side effect of uncontrolled diabetes so does controlled Type 2 diabetes cause ongoing weight gain?

Has anyone else experienced this or does anyone have any advice?

Gosh I wish the DNS had warned me a bit more about this when I told her I was planning on eating better to control my sugars and lose weight. Such a shock and hard to experience hunger pangs when I don't even enjoy watching the scale measurement reduce.

Thanks in advance.
 
From what I have been able to learn on this site and web-wide, the answer is no - controlled T2D does not cause ongoing weight gain.

What might cause it, though, are certain medications. Insulin, for example, is an anabolic hormone, and can facilitate fat (and muscle) gain. I am not familiar with the medications you are on, apart from Metformin which commonly helps with weight loss. You might want to research the effects of Byetta and Gliclazide, and discuss with your DN the possibility of changing your meds.

A possible way forward (which seems to work for some people) is to go on a strict LCHF diet, without starving yourself. This often results in lowered blood glucose levels, which would mean lowering your medication, and the weight loss resulting from both.

About bariatric surgery, I was referred to the information session about it, and it seriously frightened me. Just the death rate (up to 13 %), not to mention serious and ongoing complications... and through it all, they advise a lower carb low cal diet. I might as well do the diet without mutilating my own internal organs, thank you very much!

Good luck, and I hope you manage to balance your BG, diet and medication for the best result!
 
Hi :)

You sound motivated, perhaps your diet just needs tweaking a little. I can't comment on the meds and whether they can cause weight gain, but someone will know.
 
Hi there. You might want to have a look at the Blood Sugar 101 website (link in my signature) for info about the benefits, side effects and risks of each of your meds. What is your fasting blood sugar level now? (and/or HbA1c?)

I used to have a BMI of 46 and I got it down to 27 through low carbing. I considered bariatric surgery and decided the risks were too high and I probably didn't need it. This turned out to be true as I lost all that weight just by low carbing.
 
Back
Top