Back in August i was admitted to hospital for poorly controlled diabetes, I started working hard to better controlled but am now getting disheartened as I have put on so much weight since I started taking my insulin correctly. Is there an alternative insulin that will not have this side affect?
-
Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »
Weight Gain Due to Insulin
- Thread starter Pebbles79
- Start Date
CarbsRok
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 4,688
- Location
- uk
- Type of diabetes
- Type 1
- Treatment type
- Insulin
- Dislikes
- pasta ice cream and chocolate
Pebbles79 said:
Hi Pebbles,
your body is probably giving a huge sigh of relief at having the correct amount of insulin. Your weight gain is due to your body not starving anymore due to lack of insulin. Things will settle down soon then you can look at how much you are eating and the type of carbs.
Can you also up your exercise a bit, this will help as well?
Hi Pebbles!
My advice would be to adopt a low-carb diet and reduce your insulin accordingly. Here's a post I made to someone else recently on another tread - sorry for cutting and pasting it, but it is a relevant response to your question and it saes me writing it all out again :wink:
I have a slow-onset form of Type 1 called LADA. At diagnosis, I got the advice to eat plenty of starchy carbs - i have ignored that advice and gone for a low-carb diet. All carb turns to glucose in your blood and you have to inject enough insulin at the right times to cover this. Injecting insulin can never be as precise as your own body would produce, so there is plenty of scope for getting it wrong and having too high or too low blood glucose. This is the key reason why I restrict my carbs. However, I believe there are several benefits to low-carbing for Type 1s, some of which are:
1. Lower carb = less injected insulin
2. Less injected insulin = smaller mistakes
3. Less carb and less injected insulin means smaller swings of blood glucose - more stable
4. More carb = more insulin = weight gain
5. Weight gain = insulin resistance = more insulin = weight gain
I keep my carb intake to around 50g (or less) a day, and never more than 25g carb in a single meal. In the three years I have had diabetes, this has kept my HbA1c to around 5.9% with no serious hypos. I take only smaller doses of insulin (8 units a day basal, split morning and night and around 1:8 bolus to carb ratio). This keeps my BG as stable as LADA can be (it is a particularly spikey condition). I still get spikes I would rather not have at times, and I am working on that!
Anyway, I know this approach doesn't suit everyone, but you will get plenty of advice on eating lots of starch as a Type 1 and on matching insulin doses to 'normal eating'. IYou need to discover what works best for you. I just wanted to show you that there is an alternative approach.
All the best
Smidge
My advice would be to adopt a low-carb diet and reduce your insulin accordingly. Here's a post I made to someone else recently on another tread - sorry for cutting and pasting it, but it is a relevant response to your question and it saes me writing it all out again :wink:
I have a slow-onset form of Type 1 called LADA. At diagnosis, I got the advice to eat plenty of starchy carbs - i have ignored that advice and gone for a low-carb diet. All carb turns to glucose in your blood and you have to inject enough insulin at the right times to cover this. Injecting insulin can never be as precise as your own body would produce, so there is plenty of scope for getting it wrong and having too high or too low blood glucose. This is the key reason why I restrict my carbs. However, I believe there are several benefits to low-carbing for Type 1s, some of which are:
1. Lower carb = less injected insulin
2. Less injected insulin = smaller mistakes
3. Less carb and less injected insulin means smaller swings of blood glucose - more stable
4. More carb = more insulin = weight gain
5. Weight gain = insulin resistance = more insulin = weight gain
I keep my carb intake to around 50g (or less) a day, and never more than 25g carb in a single meal. In the three years I have had diabetes, this has kept my HbA1c to around 5.9% with no serious hypos. I take only smaller doses of insulin (8 units a day basal, split morning and night and around 1:8 bolus to carb ratio). This keeps my BG as stable as LADA can be (it is a particularly spikey condition). I still get spikes I would rather not have at times, and I am working on that!
Anyway, I know this approach doesn't suit everyone, but you will get plenty of advice on eating lots of starch as a Type 1 and on matching insulin doses to 'normal eating'. IYou need to discover what works best for you. I just wanted to show you that there is an alternative approach.
All the best
Smidge
