I'm pretty new to this whole diabetes thing and need some help with some questions about diet plan for a muscle gain regime.
I know there are some dangers with excessive protein consumption and was wondering what is the best diet plan to lose weight and gain muscular mass
Additional info; I have a super tight control of my diabetes. My last 3 HbA1c results have been 5.6,5.8, 5.8 (from most recent to oldest)
Unfortunately I have also been hit with some pretty severe complications from the onset of my diabetes. Just a few months after I was diagnosed I started to get tremendous leg pain, which sadly has now been diagnosed as a severe and unusual form of Peripheral Neuropathy. Along with this I suffer from depression and anxiety which are controlled by heavy medication.
I wouldn't worry too much about increasing the amount of protein in your diet, especially if you intend to hit the weights hard to increase your lean body mass. You will have to if you want to put on muscle mass.
I don't know if a Bernstein type low carb diet is suitable for someone looking to put on lot's of muscle mass, but there are plenty of people here on very low carb diets to control both BG and weight who substitute protein for a glucose source and fat as calorie source with good results. The point being, increasing the protein content of your meals does not present much danger to an otherwise healthy diabetic at all.
I haven't done this but know some people who are pretty into body building/ getting bigger and they are really on top of their macros, or the ratios of protein/ carbs/ fat and their advice is to go 40/40/20 to get bigger and 50/30/20 to lose weight. It's not a huge difference however it seems to work very well for them, along with lifting weights a lot. I've found it pretty easy to monitor these targets with an app called "Lose It!" which is very similar to my fitness pal but I like the food increments in the app better. It will track this stuff all day and you can use it to aim at targets and maybe make healthier/ cleaner choices to round out your numbers. Planning ahead always seems to help me with this stuff.
Also, just for your information: insulin is one of the most effective doping substances in the whole body builder/ weight lifting area. Insulin helps putting the carbs and also proteine ino your muscles, so you with an external insulin source should be able to take advanage of that. But BE CAREFUL!!!
Although I am T2, I have had similar goals. There are two dangers with excessive protein consumption. If you have impaired kidney function, you should limit protein as studies seem to associate higher protein intakes with accelerated kidney decline. And you should keep protein to less than 35-40% of calories and always make sure you take in a healthy amount of fat. This is because your body can only process 250-350 g of protein per day. Exceeding this amount can cause a condition called "Rabbit Starvation."
And in my view the best way to gain weight is to lift heavy weights to challenge your body and to eat a high protein excess calorie diet. Unless you are just starting out with diet and exercise, losing weight and gaining muscle won't happen at the same time, they are conflicting goals.
ps. I really like the weight program Starting Strength and it's emphasis on squats and deadlifts.
