How does a Type 1 Diabetic lose weight?

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#1

I have tried almost everything to lose weight? Does anyone have any suggestions?

This is my regime on carbs and exercising.
For the past 4 months my sugar has had a weekly average of 6, montly average of 7.
Started exercising again on the 21 November 2011 - had to wait for my eye doctor to say yes to exercises.

Breakfast
1 carb - 3 units of Apidra & 28 units of Lantus

Lunch
2 carbs - 6 units of Apidra

Dinner
1 carb - 3 units of Apidra

I have worked out my 15g (1 carb) ratio for insulin = 3 units of Apidra
Please note that I also include protein and veggies in my diet, but they don't affect my sugar, so I didn't list them.

Exercises
Monday, Wednesday, Friday - 20 minutes of Interval Training on my stationary bike

In the 4 months that my sugar has been excellent and my eating habits excellent, I have only lost 1kg?
I know its a slow process, but come on! :-(

Any advise would be appreciated :-D

some weight loss links here on TuDiabetes (added by the Admin Team)
http://www.tudiabetes.org/group/weightlossteam
http://www.tudiabetes.org/group/weightwatchers
http://www.tudiabetes.org/group/drbernstein (low carb)
https://forum.tudiabetes.org/topics/type-1-can-t-seem-to-lose-weight-help
http://www.tudiabetes.org/profiles/blogs/less-insulin-weight-loss

#2

I seem to be able to lose weight most readily when I cut out some carbs although it doesn't look like you have too many to cut out? Maybe lunch, go to 1 carb (15G of carb) to see if it sparks a result although that's not a whole ton of food. I had been 275 lbs and am now around 185 so I have lost quite a bit of weight but pretty slowly using that method. Every now and then I'll get a bee in my bonnet about losing more and figure out some more carbs to cut out and it usually works. I had read Jeff Galloway's book about running where he mentions that you burn fat exercising more than 45 minutes so maybe a longer ride (perhaps on the weekend?) would give you some momentum? At the same time, it can be hard to balance BG when exercising without tossing in some more carbs. Gary Taubes' has written some books (including the very interesting "Why We Get Fat") where he kind of questions whether exercising is the way to go, as you have to replace the carbs you burn off.

#3

Thanks for the comment. I still get a little too hungry cutting out my 2nd carb from lunch time. I use to eat 2 carbs at night as well, so I am cutting them out slowly for my body to adjust. Otherwise I am hungry all the time. I will definitely be adding some more exercise as I get fitter. I do interval training, where I cycle fast for about 20 seconds and then slow to a steady pace for about 1 minute and then I repeat this, until 20 minutes are up. I'm just gonna keep at it. I will check out the book you mention as well. Thanks!

#4

A pound of fat = 3500 calories. Reduce your input or increase your exercise 500 calories a day and you should lose about a pound a week over time. Remember to reduce your insulin correspondingly or your BG will drop and you'll have to intake additional calories. Keep up your protein intake, or increase it and remember to do resistance exercise in addition to cardio in order to build calorie burning muscle mass.

#5

I think it is not so much about carb intake or insulin dosages. Low carbing is an eating style that will most likely hurt the tissue that is responsible for a high basal metabolic rate of your body. Especially the amount of muscles is important for this rate. The more muscle you gain the more glucose these muscles will consume. This will normalize blood glucose levels and at the same time the glucose is more likely to be burned than stored away. You will find multiple stories for people going low carb and are still gaining weight. Here low carbing gave the body the incentive to reduce muscle mass because these cells are consuming much carbs / glucose. Without these muscles more glucose is floating in the blood stream. This in combination with insulin gives the incentive to store that away in the fatty tissue. The growing fatty tissue will more often bind to insulin and this will prevent the insulin from being used at more important places. At the end it can lead to a vicious cycle leading to a high sensitivity for even small amounts of carbs. This will result in high glucose deviation because the muscles acting as a buffer for carbs can not be utilized anymore. So I would encourage you to increase your sports activities. Not 20 minutes but more than 40 because for the first 20 minutes the body will just utilize the glucose stores. Just after 30 minutes we will start to burn fat in addition to carbs. Three times a week looks good. If you happen to do it 4 times a week you will reduce the risk for heart attack or stroke by 50% (very ambitious I know). The increased training will make you gain muscle mass with all the positive effects I have mentioned. But do not forget to feed the muscles with additional carbs otherwise they will not develop as fast as you would like.

#6

Well, you are eating pretty low carb (60 g /day), your blood sugar is doing pretty darn good and you are doing some exercise. I do think your insulin regime seems a little off to me. You are taking a unit for every 5g of carbs, which seems a little high compared to your basal level. But everyone is different.

The thing I'd like to point out is that you have struggled with thyroid issues, and that can really affect weight. You might check to see if that is affecting things. You might also try working in some resistance training. I took up weightlifting with a low carb diet and gained significant muscle and lost a bunch of fat. I also eat a fair amount of protein.

#7

Thanks for all the comments. :-)
I am already only eating about 1300 calories and I don't want to make it any less than that, otherwise my body will think its starving and will hold on to every little thing I eat, so calorie wise and carb wise I think I am doing pretty well.
I agree with Holger - I might need to add more muscle to my body. I am currently not allowed to do any weight training due to my retinopathy in my left eye. My doctor has only allowed cycling. Any other ideas?
As for my thyroid, It was removed in January 2011, due to cancer. I am on thyroid medication and my levels are tested continually to ensure good results. So my thyroid levels are perfect, although I do have Hashimotos and Fibromyalgia. I don't know if this will also play a role?
I know I need to up my exercise, but am doing this slowly , as the cancer I had really broke down my body.
I only need to lose about 8kg.

#8

Why is my sugar going up after exercise? I set my bike to climb hills last night, and my sugar just went up?
I started with 6.5 and by the time I was done it was 13.2 and then 2 hours later 19.9??? Aaargghhhh!!!
My sugar hasn't been that high in 4 months?
How frustrating!
Could it be that I need to inject more when I exercise, because the body realeases more glucose when you exercise?
Please help?

#9

Hi, I know this is practically a year after you posted this, but I’ve recently been researching how to loose weight as a type 1, and thought I share the answer incase you haven’t hear it yet. Among all the lovely triggers that make us go high or low, stress being a big one as im sure you know. when you work out, you’re putting a lot of stress on your body so you go high but then youll notice later in the day you drop or you need less long acting insulin. The advice I’ve been given if you do not have a pump is to correct for the high you will get pre work out and then eat soon after ( not right after ) some kind of stabilizing protein should work .

#10

Hey, I know this is a few years late, but maybe others will read it too. As for your bs going up during exercise. I'm a chemistry student and asked one of my teachers who has a PhD in biochemistry the same question so: When you exercise the cells in your muscles release glucose (your muscles aren't actually breaking down during exercise they're just releasing energy stores), they do this to give your body energy during exercise, they also make other byproducts in your body causing different reactions like breathing heavily to release CO2. Any whooo, since your not making enough insulin (being no insulin) to transport this glucose (insulin is essentially a hormone that helps in the transport of glucose into your different cells that results from eating foods and also the glucose released from your fat cells and liver, etc) it is raising your bs levels. Even after exercise your muscle cells still release a certain amount of glucose into your body. I don't really know the European bs levels, but if your starting at a slightly higher bs level and exercising with a very low basal rate or no to little long acting insulin in your body then your bs is going to start rising and your going to start spilling ketones causing liver and kidney damage. Talk to your doc immediately and come up with a plan and if you start feeling very exhausted or even a little strange during exercise stop immediately, drink tons of water (it will flush out the ketones faster) and don't exercise until your bs stabilize. The rise in bs and the dropping of ketones can actually work against you when trying to exercise,lose weight and gain muscle.

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