Type 2 Diabetes, insulin, and weight loss

Carbs cause high blood sugar, but maybe your body is adjusting or it's too soon to see the effects on your blood sugar?

Most doctors recommend low carb diets to people with diabetes. Can you consult with an endocrinologist? Insulin may be needed to keep your blood sugar in check while you lose weight but I'd strongly hesitate to increase carbs. That sounds... like a second professional opinion is needed.

madisonboukas wrote: »

It's been slow but over the last few months that I've lost 15lbs which is a big deal for me. I still need to lose 40 more. I found this success finally from a low carb high fat diet. Unfortunately my blood sugar has been out of control and my doctor says it's because I'm not eating enough carbs. So now I'm supposed to be eating between 100-160 carbs a day. I've also been put on insulin and she said to expect to gain weight with these changes. I'm really upset and don't want to slide backwards, does anyone have experience with dieting on insulin?

Yes! I've finally got my diabetes & binge eating under control and have been logging "everything" here on MyFitnessPal (food, drink, diabetes medications, insulin taken, glucose measurements) at each meal for each day since May 22, 2017 to the present and have lost 63 pounds since 1/1/2017.

Since I'm diabetic, I found it best for me to eat my meals (4 of them per day) about every 3 hours from 9am to 6pm (I'm more of a morning person and retire early). My diet is 2000 calories/day with 30% carb (150 g), 30% protein (150 g) and 40% fat (89 g) & inject about 4 units of fast-acting insulin (Novolog) with my meals (carbs per meal < 50, if more than that, I'd need more insulin). I do try to moderate my intake of high-glycemic carbs like bread/rice/noodles/sweets/etc as these type carbs can really jack up my blood sugar when I eat them. My blood sugar goals are to keep my blood sugar < 140 two hours after the start of a meal (I can get hungry otherwise) and more importantly, keep my blood sugar from exceeding 180 at any time to keep from triggering a binge eating episode which would drive my blood sugars through the roof!

My diary is open to the public & updated daily (& eventually will be updated back to May 8, 2017 (with my meal times, insulin doses & glucose readings) when I get the time to do so).

I'll post more later as I'm at work now & have to get back to it, but, if you have any questions, just ask or message me. I do agree with what others have said, see if you can visit with an endocrinologist--they are better at this diabetes stuff than Primary Care Physicians, especially one that says to eat more carbs when your blood sugars are high. I'm also guessing your doctor put you on a slow-acting insulin (like Levemir) rather than a fast-acting insulin taken at meal time (that's what was done for me, which I injected at night, when I first was diabetic along with being prescribed a pill called Metformin that I took twice a day with meals--and still do, along with a slow-acting insulin (Levemir) but a lower dose now).

Echoing if you haven't seen Endo to get a referral.

And on the bright side with type 2, once you find your balance and continue to lose weight it is very possible to manage it without insulin or other medications.

Get your blood sugar under control, and then worry about getting the weight off. It can happen. It may be a little more difficult with the insulin, but it is worth it.

Did they place yoy on long acting insulin? or both long acting and fast acting?

Even though I am one of the happy people for whom my diabetes has gone in to remission from significant weight loss, there is no such thing as reversing diabetes. I maintain a discussion board cannot have all the details on a person's condition and we should not be advising people to ignore their doctors.

All food, if there is not enough natural insulin, will create a sugar rise. All foods break down at different rates. Whey and sugar are the fastest, followed by the starches, proteins, and the slowest are the fats. A diabetic may see a sugar spike eight hours after a high-fat meal.

Not all diabetics no matter how conscientious can control their condition with diet alone. The pancreas may not be up to the job. I tried to control with diet for a few days when my pills ran out and even going in to near starvation was not enough to bring my numbers down.

The only thing that worked for me was significant weight loss and bariatric surgery.

madisonboukas wrote: »

Thanks for all of the replies. These instructions were given by a diabetic educator at our metabolic health center. I've been eating low carbs for months and it helped at first but I have spikes of more than 200 points a day and my sugar goes up overnight. She says that my liver thinks I'm not getting enough food because of the lowered carb content so it is releasing the extra sugar causing the spikes. Due to my insurance I've been unable to see an endocrinologist for about a year and won't see one until August so I'm following the educator and my primary care's advice for now.

How high are your overnight readings? It sounds like what's known as 'dawn phenomonem', which has nothing to do with eating low carb.

https://diabetesdaily.com/learn-about-diabetes/understanding-blood-sugars/fixing-high-morning-blood-sugars-dawn-phenomenon/

When I was first diagnosed, my overnight readings were often higher than my post meal readings (typically 7.2 - 8.0/130-144 first thing in the morning). I found that eating a snack right before bed (handful of almonds) helped with this for me. Since switching to Keto 2 months ago, my overnight readings are typically in the 4.7-5.5/85-99 range, and post meal 5-5.8/ 90-104.

I'm not on insulin, so I can't speak to how it affects dieting.