Hi everyone!
Just some history. I’m Type 1 and on a insulin pump, I’m not over weight, I’m 5’3" 130 lbs 22 years-old and I’m trying to loose weight so I can do some Broadway acting. even though my B.M.I is perfect, I was asked to lose 15 to 20 lbs in order to have a more lean body appearance. I’m OK with losing the weight but I wanted to know If its OK and has anyone tried decreasing their basal to promote weight loss, lets say in half and include low carbohydrate meals with exercise to prevent highs. I understand the more insulin you take the more fat you save so I decided to decrease my carbohydrate intake and increase activity so I can take less insulin and lose weight. Is this safe? please share your experience if you’ve tried this before. Thanks!
If you’re lowering carbs & increasing muscle mass & activity level, you should be able to lower basal & bolus. Not sure why you just mentioned basal rate. Of course, losing weight effects doses. As long as your readings are within range, this is safe & the ideal thing to do. Half of what you’re now taking is quite a reduction & depends on how much you eat. Be sure to get enough protein when you’re lowering carbs & increasing exercise.
I agree w/ Gerri, i think that you would do better to reduce your carb intake, which would reduce your bolus insulin which should cause weight loss. I’ve been doing that very gradually, going on since maybe the winter of 2005-6 and, in the long run, I think that as I lost weight, my basal needs may have diminished too but it’s sort of hard to say as I am a total slacker about record keeping and also got a pump, started running regularly and a bunch of other stuff. I just guessed about cutting my insulin when I started and my A1C went up so just guessing might have some negative impact but I was totally unscientific about it.
I think that having a minimum basal rate that allows you to maintain normal fasting levels is probably optimal for weight loss. But I’d also like to suggest that if your goal is to “look lean,” then one way of doing that is to become lean, independent of whether you lose weight or not. And one way of doing that is weight training and a low carb diet. If you have never weight trained before, it is quite feasible for you to train and within a month or so gain muscle at the same time lose fat. You may still weigh the same, but you will look leaner because muscle is much more dense than fat. I actually found that when I started training this is what happened for me.
Eek! That’s a lot of weight for someone your size, no? If your goal is to “look lean,” I would suggest eating fewer carbs and doing resistance training (and not focusing on the scale) . You should still take insulin to match your carbs and only decrease your basal dose as needed (i.e., if you find that you’re going low). That’s just my opinion. While I can understand the allure of being on Broadway, your health is so much more important.
That all said, I’ve definitely had success losing weight (as a T1) while eating fewer carbs. It’s not always easy, but it definitely works. When doing this, however, my basal rate did not really change. I just found that I needed to bolus less.
Decreasing basal follows eating low carb and exercise. Definitely within a month with resistance training. I dropped 10 lbs in 3 weeks. One hour resistance daily. Kept lowering the insulin as BG went lower. Keep glucose tabs handy and test often. At 105 lbs remember that 1 gram raises you 6.5 mg/dl & your insulin sensitivity will improve so one unit will drop you further than it does now.