Risk Factors For Type 2 Diabetes
Many factors may affect your risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes. They include:
- Pre-diabetes
- Being overweight or obese
- Having a family history of diabetes
- Belonging to certain high-risk ethnic populations, such as Aboriginal, African, Hispanic, Asian
- A history of gestational diabetes
Other associated conditions may include vascular disease, polycystic ovary syndrome or schizophrenia
How To Avoid Weight Gain & How To Lose Weight On Insulin
Not Getting Enough Electrolytes
Along with water, electrolytes tend to get lost in the process of fasting as well. This can increase cravings for starchy, salty foods, such as potato chips or popcorn. These highly starchy foods can cause a massive spike in the storing hormone insulin and work against weight loss goals. Utilizing Celtic Sea Salt or a high quality electrolyte replacement during the fasted state can help to balance electrolyte levels.
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Diabetes And Weight Gain
Weight gain is a common symptom of diabetes and other insulin-related medical conditions.
Compared with people who do not have diabetes, young adults with type 1 diabetes have a higher risk of developing excess body weight or obesity.
According to 2003 World Health Organization estimates , 90 percent of people with type 2 diabetes are either overweight or have obesity.
People who have diabetes may experience weight gain as a side effect of insulin therapy. Although insulin help regulates their glucose levels, it also promotes fat storage in the body.
Reducing excess body weight can help people manage diabetes symptoms and even reverse prediabetes and insulin resistance.
People who take insulin to manage their glucose levels may experience weight gain. However, people should not stop taking insulin or skip doses, as this can cause long-term complications.
Effective ways to avoid insulin-related weight gain include:
People Used To Call Pasta Diet Food
But over the last two decades, carb-phobia has sky-rocketed.
And now? Pasta is more commonly known as fattening.
So when folks want to lose weight, theyre often told to eliminate the rigatoni, rotini, and raviolialong with rice, potatoes, bread, and even fruit.
The reason: Carbs, of course and the hormone insulin.
Its all based on a controversial hypothesis known as the carbohydrate-insulin model of obesity.
From 30,000 feet, it looks like this:
- You eat carbohydrates.
- Your body releases insulin.
- Then, according to the model, insulin 1) keeps your body from burning fat for energy, and 2) drives fat and sugar from your bloodstream into your fat cells.
- All this makes your body think its starving, causing it to slow your metabolism and increase your hunger.
Its a beautifully simplistic explanation as to why we have a still-growing global obesity problem.
And many advocates of the carbohydrate-insulin model claim it leads to a beautifully simplistic solution: Adopt a low-carb diet.
With this approach, they say, youll create a hormonal environment that gives you a metabolic advantage, allowing you to effortlessly lose fat while eating as much as you want.
No more worrying about calories or portions.
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So Does Insulin Make You Gain Weight
It depends on what your health was like before you went on insulin, says Rachael Oxman, M.D., M.P.H., an endocrinologist at The Center for Endocrinology at Baltimores Mercy Medical Center. When diabetes is severely uncontrolled, people frequently have had unintentional weight loss despite eating normally, she explains. This is really unhealthy for their bodies. When they start insulin, they are finally able to make proper use of the calories and carbohydrates in their food and with this comes weight regain.
, medical director of the Penn Rodebaugh Diabetes Center, agrees. When your blood sugar is chronically high you are in a relative starvation state, he says. Because of this, Dr. Schutta says, youre consuming food and your body isnt properly absorbing the nutrients. Hence, weight loss.
People who experience high blood sugars for a prolonged period of time may have lost 20 pounds in a few months, Dr. Schutta explains. When you give them insulin, youre getting their blood sugars under reasonable control and generally going to regain the weight, often within a matter of weeks. While that can feel like taking insulin made someone gain weight, it actually is just restoring them to their normal weight, he points out.
Insulin And Weight Loss
So what does insulin have to do with losing weight? The key to weight loss success is to control your insulin, specifically, keeping insulin as low as possible. Here are the key points:
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Insulin Its Metabolism And Its Effect On Appetite
Starting with the first, it is well established that insulin released into the portal circulation is broken down 60% in the liver and 40% in the kidneys. With insulin injected subcutaneously the proportion is reversed. This is a small but significant difference. If more of the same dose of insulin reaches the brain, and insulin stimulates appetite, then we would have an explanation as to why injected insulin tends to make you fat.
Turning to the second step, we know a great deal about the control of appetite, as a review describes. There are a number of nuclei and pathways controlling appetite in the hypothalamus, and insulin has an effect on many of them. Insulin, then, has a stimulating, if minor, effect on appetite at several different pathways in the brain.
Weight Loss Due To Lack Of Insulin
When someone is suffering from hyperglycemia and doesnt have enough insulin circulating in their bloodstream, they will begin to experience some weight loss. This is because their cells are not able to uptake glucose, which prevents the body from being able to store glucose for energy.
Thus, the person is burning through their glycogen stores, which causes weight loss.
Excess glucose and nutrients are often expelled through urine. This can lead to kidney damage if left untreated.
This what I experienced with the onset of my diabetes condition. I was unaware of what was occurring in my body and didnt know that my pancreas had stopped producing insulin. I experienced rapid weight loss, severe dehydration, and exhaustion. All signs of losing my glycogen stores and not being able to use glucose in my bloodstream for energy.
However, once I was diagnosed and put on an insulin regimen, I began to regain my weight. The cells in my body were able to start picking up glucose again due to the impact of insulin.
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How Does Insulin Resistance Cause Weight Gain
I got a question the other day from one of my readers of this blog. And the question was how does insulin resistance cause weight gain?
That is a very good question and I will answer it by going back to the basics first.
Lets talk about how insulin resistance comes about first.
How does insulin resistance happen? You will recall from my article on high blood sugars in non-diabetics, I talked about how the food, in particular a carbohydrate meal, when broken down to glucose triggers the release of insulin into the blood stream, right?
The idea is to stop the absorbed glucose in the bloodstream from getting too high. The trigger point is 100mg/dl .
Once glucose levels exceed that trigger point, the beta cells in the pancreas will spring into action. The beta cells will release insulin to counter a further rise in blood sugar. That is the first phase insulin release. This happens following food digestion and glucose absorption from the digested food.
If the blood glucose level does not settle, a second wave of insulin is released by the pancreas to complete the job. The interval between the first and second wave insulin release is about 20 minutes.
In a healthy person whose metabolic pathway is well integrated and functioning well, this mechanism of blood sugar regulation works so well that within 90 minutes of commencing your meal, your blood sugar levels will be back to your pre-meal level of around 80mg/dl .
Thats where the problem lies with insulin resistance.
Do People Lose More Weight On Low
Yes? No? Maybe? Sometimes?
In many studiesranging from a few weeks to several monthslow-carb diets have often outperformed high-carb diets.36,37,38,39,40,41
But is this specifically due to a metabolic advantage? Or do low-carb diets offer other benefits?
One popular and logical explanation is that people eat fewer calories on a low-carb diet versus a high-carb diet.
Most studies that show a low-carb diet leads to greater weight loss arent protein-matched, calorie-matched, controlled-feeding studies.
Instead, they frequently provide dietary counseling and menus to participants, advising them what to eat, but not monitoring food intake closely.
This is a downside in terms of observing the specific effects of each diet. But it could be a positive when looking at how these diets work in everyday life.
After all, this is how the average person follows a diet plan.
Why might a low-carbohydrate diet cause people to eat less? There are a few potential reasons:
All of which sounds pretty ideal .
Theres a problem, though: Over time, adherence to energy-restricted low-carb diets wanes, just like it does with other diets. So much so, that after a year, weight loss tends to be either underwhelming or not significantly different between low-carb and low-fat diets.39,40,41
Thats not a knock on low-carb diets. Instead, it speaks to the difficulty that most people have of maintaining any restrictive eating approach for an extended timeframe.
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It Starts With Finding A Way To Eat Fewer Calories Than You Need
A calorie is a unit of energy, which is in the food and drink we consume. Your body uses energy for everything we do from breathing and sleeping to exercising. When you eat, youre replacing the energy youve used, which helps you to maintain a healthy weight.
As a general guide, government recommendations are that men need around 2,500kcal a day to maintain a healthy weight, and women need around 2,000kcal a day. But most people need different amounts of calories based on how their bodies work, how active they are and any weight management goals.
Weve put together some 7-day meal plans to help you lose weight. They’re all clinically approved, nutritionally balanced, calorie and carb counted, and can help if you want to lose weight:
- Mediterranean diet plan
- Lower-calorie diet plans, like 1,200 or 1,500 calories a day
Evidence shows that the best approach is the one that youre likely to stick to. So the key is to find a plan that you enjoy and fits in with the rest of your life. Everyones different and what works for some may not for others.
What Is Insulin Resistance
At times, the cells in your muscles, liver, and fat may not respond well to insulin, meaning you cannot use glucose for energy . This is referred to as insulin resistance. To solve this, your pancreas is forced to make more insulin. However, your blood glucose levels will increase over time .
Insulin resistance is caused by several factors, which are risk factors. According to WebMD, these causes of insulin resistance include :
- Obesity and belly fat
- Medical conditions, such as polycystic ovary syndrome and fatty liver disease
- A diet rich in refined carbs
- An inactive lifestyle
- Sleeping disorders such as sleep apnea
- Age
You cannot tell if you have insulin resistance judging from how you appear or even how you feel. The most reliable way is by doing a blood test for your blood sugar levels. Noting this, some signs of insulin resistance that doctors ask you to watch out for are :
- A blood pressure reading higher than 130/80
- A waistline of over forty inches in men and thirty-five inches in women
- Skin tags
- A fasting glucose level of more than 100mg/dL
- A fasting triglyceride level of more than 150mg/dL
- An HDL cholesterol level less than 40 mg/dL in men and 50 mg/dL in women
- Acanthosis nigricans
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Reduce Doses Whenever Possible
Along the same lines, look for every opportunity to reduce your insulin requirements. Cutting back on carbohydrate intake is one way to accomplish this.
Eliminating carbohydrate-containing drinks is a good place to start. So is cutting out between-meal snacks. At mealtimes, reduce your portions of carbohydrate-rich foods such as potatoes, rice, bread, pasta, and cereal. Instead, increase your portions of lean meats and non-starchy vegetables.
Physical activity can also help lower your insulin requirements by enhancing how well your insulin works. Extra walking throughout the day may allow you to lower your dose of long-acting insulin.
Moderate exercise after meals may allow you to significantly reduce your rapid-acting mealtime insulin. Talk to your healthcare team about making these kinds of adjustments.
Also, look for ways to cut back on your stress levels. Emotional stress makes your body resistant to insulin. Learning to relax can go a long way towards reducing your insulin needs. It can also put you in the right frame of mind to eat and exercise the way you should.
How Does The Glycemic Index Work
The glycemic index is pretty simple to use. The numbers can be broken up into three levels:
- 55 and less: Eat these foods to lose weight. This includes beans, nuts, vegetables and most fruits.
- 55 to 75: Eat very few foods in this range. This includes foods like white bread, crackers, bagels and most sodas and colas.
- 75 or more: Eat almost no foods in this range. This includes foods like potatoes, sports drinks, waffles and instant oatmeal.
If you are struggling with your weight, make it a point to follow this easy system. Your goal is to make sure the majority of the food you eat is non-processed, free of refined sugar and white flour and ranked at 55 or less on the glycemic index.
Most food labels do not list the glycemic index number, but its easy to find just about any foods ranking with a quick Internet search. For example, Harvard Medical School published a list of glycemic indexes for over 100 common foods.
Before you go grocery shopping or sit down to a meal, look up the glycemic indexes of the foods youre planning to eat. In the beginning you may be surprised the indexes often are not what you would expect. In time, though, you will develop a good sense for what will make you gain weight and what will help you achieve your health goals.
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What Is Used To Lower Blood Sugar Fast
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