Insulin alone, nor use of a pump alone, causes weight gain… And NO ONE was claiming that.
You use 5 units of Lantus a day for about 3 months, if that. You need to take a nerve pill to take that. Tell me, how much experience do you have using insulin?
I was thrilled to hear that people gained weight after going on a pump. Actually it was one of the biggest selling points. In my pump classes the issue was raised and the instructor was clear that the reason is that it is easy to get careless on a pump. That's the other side of not having to skim off an ounce of milk from the glass to better match the bolus to the nearest half unit.
DWQ has made a substantative point that an increase in insulin usage in itself tends to make Type 1s under good control gain weight. I'd be happy to look at the scientific studies that support the assertion but I haven't run across anything in my reading that supports the claim.
On a personal level, I get a little ticked when someone seems to argue that if you eat more than 45 carbs per meal, you're stuffing yourself silly. I won't say that DWQ is saying that but it isn't clear that she isn't. I am always happy to stand corrected.
Maurie
Maurie, while I myself cannot eat very many carbs at meal times without spiking terribly… I think people need to just eat to their meters. If a person can use a reasonable amount of insulin, for their meal, and be in control… and not have a lot of errors or swings… then that is probably okay for them. Our bodies are all different. I wasn’t trying to advocate that the OP go on a low carb diet, but more like examine their total carb intake… Are they allowing themselves a lot of things more than usual now that they are on a pump? Are they simply needing to reexamine their diet because from diagnosis onward, this takes all kinds of tweaking on our part, as to what will work or not… Regardless of whether a person follows a low carbohydrate diet, we all have to treat carbohydrates sensibly, and especially considering our levels of activity.
Funny because you deleted your Wendy posts on the ADA board but you used the same pic here as you had there - I am NOT the only person that noticed. Then you came to ADA as Sarahbee (although you changed that name also). You slipped up and you both go to Ira Hirsch. You both posted the same thread about your endos thinking a BS of 200 was OK. You both about wanting to eat low carb but your doctors did not want to. So, yes you are Sarah on ADA and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it out. Since Sarah takes a nerve pill, it is obvious that your Lynne personality does also. You should get a bettery memory and keep your personalities straight. While you are over there, take a look at what I posted in the discussions feedback section about YOUR multiple user names. When I first saw your pic here, I sent the link to Lizzy (who you like) and she agreed that you were the same person.
I thought it was established fact that one of the side-effects of insulin therapy is weight gain? At least this was what all the doctors told me when they started me on it. Obviously I don’t have a choice about taking it but I agree that it is sensible to try to minimise the dose.
I lost weight ( well, not that much 6-7 pounds ? by starting to use an insulin pump in 2001) several months later ...Lantus, Levemir not available to the Canadian public then .Same amount of food then plus feeding the lows .
My favourite 2 words : Mindful Eating .......( for those with diabetes and those without D )
I think that Kim has answered for her, her own question " My plan right now - exercise daily, drink more water and less diet soda, watch calories, and limit carbs to 45 or less per meal " .
PS using insulin close to 28 years.
I eat to my pants. I was 44" a few years ago and noted that that seemed to be the 'last' size @ department stores. That was another wake up call.
A lot of my 'experience' of low carb diets was people at work eating 1) bacon 2) eggs 3) pork rinds 4) bowls of meat, none of which seemed like it was tremendously healthy although some of them lost weight? Perhaps they were finding the things they were the most comfortable with on 'the list' in whatever source they were using.
I think that if you are at x lbs and want to be at .75x lbs, it's reasonable to eat .75 * (# of daily carbs) and see what happens? It bothers me a lot that doctors don't seem too interested in helping out with this sort of calculation? I was seeing only a GP @ the time and he was enthused about weight loss but concerned when my A1C went up to 7.2 and then 7.7? I was concerned too so I got a pump but, all along, I kept losing weight. Slowly and steadily works well when you only see the doc every 6 months too, as the results seemed to *pop* more.
Still, I was bothered when I saw both the CDE and the dietician and said "I want to keep losing weight" and they were recommending 3x 45-60 G of carb meals and 3x 15-30G snacks, not what I considered a realistic weight loss plan? If the medical industry can't figure out how to lose weight, perhaps it's more their fault than ours (generally obesified US population...not PWD...) that the population has grown? I would like to know how little I can eat, not how much, but that didn't seem to enter their minds. Currently, I am intrigued by eating chia pets...
My point in saying it was because you just stated you do not take a nerve pill to take insulin - that is NOT what you posted on the ADA board. Your personality on that board does take nerve pills to take insulin. Also, your Wendy personality that you used the same pics her took a nerve pill to take Metforim. I was a member both there and here before you were even diagnosed. I am not following you. As I stated before, I posted in this thread BEFORE you did. People on the ADA board have a problem with YOU, not with me. Jeremiah was the only other person and he was banned - he did not leave by choice. Actually when that crap with him happened, I had plenty of people stand up for me, as I told you on that board. I could care less if you like me or not. When I see wrong information out there, I will point it out. I could care less if you have a problem with that or not.
That's a good way to put it, acidrock. I do find it kind of disturbing to be given just "averages," for the so called average person, and not work with a person where they are, and what might be reasonable to them.
This all reminds me of when I was young, and was on Weight Watchers. My mom had put me on sooooo many diets (which would not work due to my PCOS issues)... And they wanted me to drink so many glasses a day of water. I said "Why can't I just drink to thirst? Drinking more than that seems painful." And everyone would argue with me.... Now, it is different... Now the establishment is actually admitting we all must drink to thirst, instead of a set "average" number of glasses... Go figure. :)
AcidRock is not just a name it's a way of life...
By personality disorder, I meant that you have used about 5 different user names on the ADA board alone. That is not being open or honest.
A big thing that I like about the pump is that I can blow off eating. If I wake up on Saturday and the midwest weather cooperates for a long bike ride, I will try to get chores, groceries, etc. done in the morning and just have a very small amount of some kind of bread for fuel. I don't want to run up but I don't want to run out of BG either. Gatorades are like 20 or 30G per bottle, about 1/2 that per serving but I don't think that you need to chug the whole bottle. I might only be 'cheating' by shaving off 5 or 10G of carbs/ workout but if I have 2 or 3 small carb snacks, it might be the same as one big one but the 'curve' on my CGM will be a lot smoother and easier to 'clean up' on the back end of the workout, which makes the rest of the weekend after that more fun and relaxing.
It may just be too that it's like a video game and I'm sort of seeing what I can get away with and I always have like 60-80G of carbs with me, just in case. I've had a few times where I left the jelly beans on the counter and that's not much fun either but, at the same time, it's still some more data. If only I kept track of it!
Agreed!
Maurie
Type 1's are not immune to the ravages of the metabolic syndrome. So some of them develop high cholesterol, high blood pressure, large waist circumference and insulin resistance.
Type 2's are not immune to total beta cell loss and resultant need for insulin to live. And some of them do have antibodies, yet are not LADA.
Which is why I prefer to look at diabetes as a spectrum, rather than an either or.
Me and Lila are Type Weirds, and we like it that way, LOL!
Even better would be a hard and fast rule that all Type 2's are skinny, LOL!!!
Then we could all be skinny together! :-)
Natalie: My sister (of the same biological mother and father) has the same genes I do… and yet she weighs about 95 lbs, wet. lol She eats, easily, two or three times more than me. heh My oldest sister is overweight, but has never had ANY health issues of any kind, along the health issues I have: PCOS, Hypothyroidism, Type 2 Diabetes, Carpal Tunnel, etc… Not even so much as sinusitis. lol My brother, who was an athlete all his life, also got Type 2. heh A professional cyclist and bmx’er. Crazy, huh?
I lost weight when I went on insulin. Maybe it was because I wasn't so hungry any more.
When you first go on insulin, you may experience edema, water weight, and so your scale will show what looks like weight gain but really isn't.
Someday the dietitians will figure out that we don't need so many carbs as they push on us, especially the nutrition-free ones, and voila! the insulin causes weight gain myth will disappear!
Lizmari, the thing is you DON'T have the same genes as your siblings. We all get half of our father's and half of our mother's genes, but we don't get the same halves.
The greatest likelihood is that we share SOME genes with our siblings, on average half of our genes are shared, but that's just an average -- some siblings may share more, and others less.
Neither my brother nor my sister has diabetes, nor did either one of my parents. Something just combined in me to cause it, and not in them. I'm happy for them -- I wouldn't want to put them through this. I'm just hoping that my son doesn't get it -- he has half of my genes; let's hope they're the right half!
often weight gain and insulin is actually a symptom of not being in good control. If your numbers are high, your body will attempt to store all that extra sugar as fat. If you have lows, it is to easy to over-correct, once again pushing the numbers higher and leading to excess weight