I am going on a low carb diet as I have tried eating moderate carb and exercise to lose weight but I almost always have insulin on board and have exercise hypos even with suspending my pump!So Im going to try low carb…I did this last year or 3 months but I was eating a lot of fat…my numbers were great but the scale was going up…so I want to know do I have to eat low fat but low carb to lose weight…I was planning on eatong 2 eggs and spinach or breakast…some carrots as snack…chicken and tuna salad…snack boiled egg…dinner meat and green beans.I wont eat high fat low carb things like nuts avocado or cheese as I want to lose weight!My question is…is this the best way for a diabetic to lose weight?Do you have to go into ketosis to lose weight on a low carb diet!My other concern is that my dieticien insists that i I don’t eat at least 1500 kcals a day i will not lose weight…Do ye find this to be true??My next question is in relation to basal rates…my basal rates are high at the moment…I take a total of 31 units of novarapid basal a day…will my basal rates decrease on a low carb diet…My other question is about hunger…I feel I will be very hungry on this eating plan…did you find this when eating low carb…My final question is about exercise…how do you avoid hypos ona diet like this??I almost always have to eat extra cars to avoid a hypo with exercise…Sorry this is so long!!!I appreciate your advice!!xxxx
I don’t eat low carb but I’ll pitch in about the basal rates. Your basal rates should be set so that your blood sugar doesn’t range by more than 30 points in either direction if you don’t eat. Basal isn’t meant to cover carbs and if you are currently using basal to cover, you probably should do some basal testing to get the number right…
I don’t worry about weight so I do snack to bring by blood sugar to 120+ before exercise but on a pump you have the option of cutting back on your basal a few hours before exercise to bring your blood sugar into whatever target range you need to prevent going low.
Good luck,
Maurie
You need to remember to make a distinction between good and bad fats. Nuts and avocado are good fats, and nuts in particular are particularly good for diabetics on low-carb diets (a single paper about this is here: http://voiceofdiabetes1.com/diabetic-diet-nuts-not-carbs/ but I’m sure you can find more). Eggs contain a good form of cholesterol, but having three a day is probably excessive, I would recommend limiting it to one or two at the most.
If you’re going low carb, cut out high-GI carbs like bread, pasta, rice, and potato, and replace them with lots of fruit and vegies. Fruit and vegies will give you some good low-GI carbs, which will help prevent ketosis and hypos (including during exercise), while also giving you the benefits of a low-carb diet.
I think a lot of the “low carb” strategies involve eating stuff like nuts, avocados and cheese to maintain a reasonable amount of calories for fuel? I read Gary Taubes “Why We Get Fat” which explains quite a bit of detail about how this works and how eating fat may not be as bad as it’s made out to be in popular culture? There’s a really cool video that BSC linked to a discussion that has a guy, Christopher Gardner, who did a study of diet methodologies and found that Atkinsing was the most effective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVoits a bit lengthy but I found it fascinating. I love Gardner’s California accent too. He admits that the conclusion was “a bitter pill” since he’s a vegetarian and that’s not really a great option on Atkins but there’s people here doing that too.
A few things:
(1) Yeah, if you eat too few calories, your body will go into starvation mode and will not let you burn fat. You will lose muscle and will have nasty stress hormones (i.e. cortisol). I would work on eating a few hundred calories under your maintenance weight per day.
(2) I think you are freaking out too much about the carb-weight gain thing, at least with respect to exercise. If you take a couple of glucose tabs, or have a piece of fruit before exercising, I assume you are not going to bolus for those carbs. You are going to use up that glucose when you’re exercising and won’t store it as weight.
(3) Keep in mind that the point of exercise is not just to burn calories while you’re at the gym, but also to increase your resting metabolic rate so you burn more calories when you’re not in the gym. If you are into sprinting, interval training, rowing, playing pickup sports, Crossfit, etc. you should do those things rather than long/slow cardio, which doesn’t do a lot to rev up your metabolism. Rowing is really good because you can adjust it to your own intensity, it’s not high-impact, and it really does a ton to kickstart your metabolism.
(4) You do not need to go into ketosis to lose weight. Weight loss is also not calories in, calories out, so don’t be afraid of eating stuff like nuts, cheese, etc.
don’t forget the other point of exercise is to get studly! hee hee!
I realise I would not gain weight by eating excarbs ora workout but would I lose weight…like lets say i eat an apple 20 grams of carbs and 80 calories and do an hour o intense cycling=500 calories…I should lose weight doing this shouldn’t I?
Yes, but again, it’s not calories-in-calories-out. You will lose more than 500 calories worth of weight doing an hour of intense cycling because you will have a higher metabolic rate and will burn off more of the calories in the food you eat. If you want to lose weight you have to create a negative energy balance and rev your metabolism up to accomplish it.
Over what time period? What are you doing and eating the rest of the time?
If all you’re eating is apples and coupling that with intense exercise, you’d probably get very ill before you found out the answer.
That’s the first time I ever heard someone say they love a California accent! Of course we Californians don’t think we actually have any accents! Unless you count uptalking and new age slang.
If you are going low carb, be sure you decrease your insulin rate as you do it.
Be sure your basal rate is keeping you around the clock in your target zone which I assume is around 100.
If you do not have swings in your blood glucose, your basal rate may decrease, too, over time.
Exercise hypos and low carb can mean more hypoing, so test yourself more frequently.
I have always put protein as an important part of every meal. Since I have gotten rid of those kinds of carbs that give spikes (fruits and heavy starches), and installed fewer total carbs per meal, it’s been easier to bolus with accuracy. The protein has always prevented my being hungry between meals. I don’t think it should only be eggs. Try some shaved ham, muenster cheese, cream cheese, and fish. Enjoy finding a variety. And finally, dietitians are not the gods of the foods that we have to obey them. We take their information, say thank you, and we are the deciders!
Best wishes.
Generally I don’t find the hypos as hair raising when I’m eating less carbs because there’s less insulin involved, even with lots of running around. I like cheese a lot. I was eating quite a few nuts but when I stopped eating them, I lost 5 lbs so I only eat them very occasionally these days.