Weight gain and Complications

Hi Megan,

I am not a type 1 diabetic, but I can sympathise with your frustration with your weight. As someone who was very overweight for most of my adult life I can understand - all I seemed to get from doctors was "lose weight and everything will improve" - ah if it was that simple!! I too had issues with joints due to weight.

You don't state how much insulin you are on - but I am guessing you have been put onto Metformin to assist you with assimilating the insulin you are using. One of the key areas that doctors don't tell you about is insulin resistance and this was a factor in my weight as well.

From what you have mentioned about your diet it sounds very high in carbohydrate. If you are anything like me you had doctors telling you that must eat starchy carb with every meal. That advice made me pack on the pounds over the years. It was only when I started regulating the amount of carb I ate and increasing the amount of fat and protein in my diet then the weight started to come off.

May I suggest you have a look at the low carb section on this site to give you some ideas?

megan2002 said:

Thanks for the reply.

I struggle badly with food as very poor eater and fussy however they want to get my insulin intake sown to try and help with weight.

I am looking for inspiration as what to eat but not going down the no
n typical food first as want it to work and most low carb receipies I have seen so far are too different.

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Well if you want to be able to reduce insulin and still keep good control of your bg levels you will have to lower carbs. So you say you don't like low carb recipes fair enough, so eat normal meals but not the carby parts of the meals.

If you always do the same things you will get the same things in return, you need to be flexible to make changes, you have all these symptoms, your body is crying out for help, for you to do something different............

Good post, WhitbyJet.

megan2002 said:

I was actually looking for some hints , tips , advice What do people so in my situation What do they eat and what works

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I cannot give you advice, I am type 2 and not on insulin, I wonder do you know how to carb count, have you ever done ad DAFNE course?
All I know is that if you are reducing carbs you will need to reduce insulin, make sure you do lots of testing, and ask your HCP for advice.

In regards to lowering carbs, its not possible to tell you what works, only you can find out by trial and error, but dont worry, reducing carbs doesnt mean that you have to eat outlandish things you dont like. You could try a mixture of lower carb, low GI and portion control, dont go thinking that you need to go to extremes.
I have no idea how low carb you want to go, but probably best to ease yourself in gently, start off by reducing carbs in every day meals, eg if you normally have a 5oz steak with 5 spuds, you could go for a 7 oz steak, 2 spuds and add a pile of low carb veggies, if you have shepherds pie, dont top it with a pile of mashed potatoes, top with cauliflower mash or a mixture of potato and cauliflower mashed up or a layer of very thinly sliced new potatoes. If you have spaghetti bolognaise, you could reduce the amount of spaghetti and mix in with cabbage shredded and sauteed in butter or make noodles from courgettes, mix in with the spaghetti to still give you a full plate, top with bolognaise, parmesan, etc
Only you can find out what works for you, I dont know your circumstances, your lifestyle, your likes and dislikes when it comes to food.
I hope some of this makes sense? Good luck to you, hope you feel better soon.

Hello Megan

Unfortunately, for you to lose weight means eating less food (carbohydrate is the main culprit) which will also mean lowering your insulin dose in order to balance you out and doing some walking every day to speed up your metabolism

Eating less food is not as hard as it might appear. A smaller dinner plate works very well. Subsituting the starchy carb like rice, pasta and potatoes can be done by eating more in the way of vegetables which contain very little carb. Lower carb bread can now be bought in supermarkets and is fairly nice to eat. Subsituting biscuits with fruit is also possible.

All the things that you do to the diet you eat will make a difference to your weight. We are what we eat and drink!!

Just to add that I have joints problems and lumbar spinal stenosis so I can do very little exercise - even walking to the shop is a problem - but I can still lose weight!

I'm a Type 2, controlled by low-carb diet and Metformin, so you really need help from a low-carb Type 1 to tell you how to go about adjusting your insulin. However, I can tell you that too much insulin makes you fat. If you have insulin resistance, either to naturally-produced or injected insulin, it means that your muscle cells are resistant to the glucose that the insulin is trying to push into them for energy, so all that glucose gets shoved into your fat cells instead! :shock: That's why they've given you Metformin.

So if you eat a high-carb diet - all the carbohydrate turns into glucose in your blood; your muscle cells won't take it, so it all gets turned into fat.

If you eat a low-carb diet, there is not so much glucose in your blood, and your body eventually starts burning fat for energy.

The diet I use - Viv's Modifed Atkins Diet - is a Sticky Thread on the Low-carb section of the Forum. It gives a list of foods you can happily eat without worry. It is possible to live on meat and two veg for every meal, as long as there are no carby vegetables.

I would not advise a Type 1 to go straight on to this diet unless you are completely sure you can manage your insulin over the change. That's why you need input from a low-carb Type 1. But follow WhitbyJet's advice on substitutions and small portions, and you should be able to get your carb intake down.

If I was to suggest you cut one thing out first, it would be anything to do with wheat. Some of us humans are apparently wheat intolerant, but with no obvious symptoms to make us realise. Sluggishness, digestive problems and abdominal bloating can all be signs that we are eating too much wheat. It's worth thinking about how you can cut down. Maybe Google round and see if you can find out any more?

A lower-carb diet will give you more energy; you'll feel better, and many of your aches and pains could well disappear. It's worth trying!

Hope this helps

Viv 8)

Hi.

I am a type 1 diabetic who has been low carbing since January and it really hasn't been as bad as I imagined. I've used websites online to find low carb alternatives to pasta etc and now I am really quite enjoying it, but small changes are best.

I am also on a pump (nearly a year now). It's definitely worth attending the information evening, but they are a lot of work to set up (I'm still working on getting all my levels sorted out which has been a slow process partly down to my job and appropriate times to test and make changes to my insulin levels). Personally my insulin requirement didn't go down when going on a pump, but I know a lot of people's do (might be worth enquiring about pumps in the pump forum), but low carb has reduced my bolus insulin requirements.

An interesting book to read is dr berstein's one - diabetes solution I think it's called. It's about low carb and diabetes.

Hi Megan, I am type 1 and eating low carb after reading Dr Bersteins book, it's well worth a read as he covers all aspects of diabetes management with a lot of practical advise. Try writing a food diary for a week along with you bolus doses and see if you can review with your DSN - once you start managing your diet better it will make you feel better mentally and in time your body will improve. It can be done Dr Berstein suffered a lot of the side effects of being type 1 and from better management has reversed many of his medical complications.

Good luck.