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Weight As A Proxy For BG Management

Grateful

Well-Known Member
Messages
1,399
Location
Kent, United Kingdom
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I don't self-test my BG levels and rely entirely on the HbA1C test every three months. This is because:
  • The A1C is totally under control
  • I am an anxious type and would probably obsess over the numbers if I were testing daily
However, I do weigh myself daily. For the past six months this has been a horizontal line on the graph, at 71KG. My reasoning is that if my weight starts creeping up again, it will be telling me something about my eating habits and perhaps I should reduce the portions, or reduce the carbs even farther, for instance.

My hunch, and it is nothing more than that, is that this frequent weight-checking may be a rough-and-ready "proxy" for my success in managing BG. Does anyone think there is any scientific basis for that, though???
 
I'm not at all sure that weight loss/gain correlates to BG control. I lost a third of my body weight but it was at least a year of maintenance after that before I could say my BGs were where I wanted them to be, and 3 years since I have been confident about my BG control.

Then there are plenty on this forum that are not losing weight but are seeing improved/good control, and plenty who have never had any weight to lose.

However, I still weigh myself at least weekly and panic if a pound goes on. Stupid, I know.
 
My weight hasn't shifted more than a pound or two either way in the last 3 years, yet during that time I have had various ways of eating and glucose control. From <20g carbs a day for months, intermittent fasting over several months, gluten free low carbing with more fluctuation, and the odd day of carbs approaching 100g or even more.

I occasionally get a bit of fluid retention from carbs, but that disappears when I drop the carbs down again.

For me, despite a lot of wishful thinking, my weight and glucose control are unrelated.
EXCEPT that if I were uncontrolled (Eatwell plate, carbs as a mainstay of the diet, yada yada) I would be gaining weight at horrifying speed. Been there, done that. Don't intend to ever try it again.
 
Bluetit1802 said:
However, I still weigh myself at least weekly and panic if a pound goes on. Stupid, I know.
Click to expand...

Mine fluctuates between 70KG and 72KG at the outside. I always weigh myself first thing in the morning, before breakfast.

I would like to start "resistance training" exercises soon to add some muscle to my weedy body. When I do that, it should turn some of the fat into muscle which apparently also helps with BG control, albeit with the side-effect of raising weight. Apparently, the muscle weighs more than the fat it replaces.

I would like to put on a bit of weight but only if it is done in a healthy way. (Edited to remove some irrelevant stuff about waistline.)
 
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So perhaps, just perhaps, it works this way. Again, we are in the domain of "hunches" not science:
  • Maintaining a steady, or healthy, weight says nothing about BG control
  • However, a sudden upward (or downward) spike in weight should be treated as a possible indicator of deteriorating BG control (assuming you are not actually trying to gain or lose weight)
Tracking one's weight is easy, and extremely low-tech. I use an old fashioned analogue bathroom scale that I bought decades ago.
 
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If I gained one quarter of a pound every time my bg went over 2mmol difference in readings I would be huge. I'm not sure weight as a guide to bg control is a sound mechanism. Weight gain as a result of IR is just a symptom that some people suffer and some people don't. Some people manage to lose weight on a strict calorie reducing diet but it does not follow that they can always see better bg management.
 
Grateful said:
albeit with the side-effect of raising weight. Apparently, the muscle weighs more than the fat it replaces.
Click to expand...
I have always assumed it is fat that we want to avoid and weight is a way of measuring this.
Within reason (and within my capability which will never be a body builder), muscle is good whether it raises your weight or not.
This is one of the reasons why BMI is often described as a bad way of measuring healthiness - some very fit sportsman have high BMI due to their muscle.

It is also one of the reasons why I don't weight myself or get obsessed by what I weigh but more by how well my clothes fit.
 
helensaramay said:
This is one of the reasons why BMI is often described as a bad way of measuring healthiness - some very fit sportsman have high BMI due to their muscle.
Click to expand...

Also a bad way for people like me, even without much muscle. My lifetime BMI reached its maximum just before T2 diagnosis but it was still "only" 21.7 which is bang in the middle of the so-called "healthy" range. But I had a big "beer belly" and my waistline was 40 inches, which was way too much for a thin type like me. Another measure, the waist-to-hip ratio, categorized me as "obese"!!! (Nine months later, the waistline is 35 inches.)
 
Not for everyone. MONW (Metabolically Obese Normal Weight) better known as TOFI store fat more viscerally with few if any outward signs of obesity. We look, and are, physically 'normal' weight.
 
Resistance training is brilliant. I have been doing it for years and in addition to the many health benefits we are told about, I can see that my 75 year old arms are some of the most shapely in my gym, despite the fact that it is frequented mostly by students and young working people. However, it will not turn your fat into muscle, any more than your muscles will turn to fat if you stop training. If you gain muscle you will then have new muscle + whatever fat you already had, unless the additional exercise puts you into a calorie deficit. Tricky, though IMO not impossible, to gain muscle at the same time as losing fat. They tend to melt away together.
 
Weight alone can rise or fall due to fluid gain/loss. Bathroom scales that measure fat% as well as simple kilos are IMO very helpful, especially when we are changing our carb intake.
 
Here's another way of looking at my hunch that weight is a proxy for BG control.

If you look at my stats (see signature) my BG has been well-controlled ever since I stabilized my weight following rapid weight loss at the onset of the low-carb diet.

So there is a strong correlation between the two statistics.

But the scientific method requires us to remember that "correlation is not causation." So it's tricky. Perhaps I will find a good correlation for the next few years and that remains to be determined since I am relatively recently diagnosed. But that is still at the mercy of a "falsifying event" i.e. a breakdown in BG management even though the weight is well under control.

The good thing is that my silly hunch is scientifically "falsifiable" by adverse data. That makes is, in its little way, a scientific hyphothesis albeit one that "feels" terribly bogus. (Especially after reading the thoughtful comments above.)

(This "falsification" test was developed by philosopher Karl Popper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability).
 
Proxy no, smoking gun for some, yes.

If one is seriously overweight and has a gastric bypass and had blood sugar issues, restricted diet helps their T2D. As does low carb and the Newcastle approach.
Losing weight has not helped my Hba1c come down very much, just 10%. And now, as they said to me in my political incorrect youth in Lincs..I look like a long streak of xxxx.
However, low carb has stopped my RH dead in its tracks and reversed my NAFLD.

We are all different and have different types or shades of disease.
Derek
 
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OK I managed to decipher NAFLD, but the only remotely probable option I can find on Wikepedia for RH is Reproductive Health! I am left wondering ...
 
My weight and HbA1c values have edged upwards over the years ..but I believe these metrics are ✻mutually exclusive✻ in my case.

I've become more apprehensive about that which can't be easily measured ..the long-term damage diabetes is ✻silently✻ doing to my kidney function, arteries, eyes, etc.

I do my best to manage my diabetes ..but I don't feel in command of it.
 
Don't know if I've got this skewed but eating lots of 'good' fat should increase your weight but not glucose levels. Hence weight is not an indicator of BS levels.
 
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