Diabetic and can't seem to lose

[bigbike]

Help everyone,
I am taking glucophage (1000 mg) daily to control the diabetes. I can not seem to lose weight. I have 27% body fat and weight 157 lbs (I'm 5'7"). I do 2-3 days a week of cardio, 2-3 days a week of weight training (yes I am putting on muscle). Because of the diabetes I have to space meals out to at least 4 hrs apart (blood sugars stay too high if I don't). I also can not eat after 9 pm or my morning sugar is too high.

My doctor knows little about bodybuilding and the nutrition that is suppose to go into it. He knows cardio lowers blood sugar, (so does weight training).

So I guess I am asking if anybody else on this forum has the same problem, and if so what is working for you?

[Dinah]

Hi-
I have to say I've never been "overweight" but I like to diet anyway....it's always been really really important to me to have low body fat. I've recently just lost about 4 pounds on a LOW-Carb (30 grams) diet, following the "Protein Power" diet plan. I know 4 pounds doesn't sound like much, but I know it's not water 'cuz I've been on normal carbs for 3 days and have only gained back 3 of the 7 pounds lost.

If you check "Protein Power" book out from the library, it won't cost you anything and all you have to do it read the first 45 pages to be totally riveted, learn a HUGE amount about Insulin & Blood sugar, and learn enough to keep you motivated. I lost my cravings for starches, was hardly ever hungry, felt great, and wasn't icy cold the way I am when I diet by "conventional" means.

[bigbike]

Thanks for the help. I have been told by my doctor to watch the amount of protein that I intake, cause diabetics are prone to kidney failure (it happened to my mom). I am not greatly overweight. I am 5'7" and weight 155. Its the body fat that gets me. I know that Type 2's are prone to excess bodyfat and according to my scale I have between 33 and 35% (I have read the posts saying these scales are not accurate on people who lift weights). Fat calipers tell a different but not too far off story (27%). I also know that the medication that I use Glucophage is not suppose to help store excess fat. I have a bad lower back which prevents me from doing a whole lot of lower body exercise. I am in physical therapy and am just getting my lower body moving again. (I had 2 discs removed from my very low back). I will try gradually uping my protein intake and see what happens.

[SPRWMN]

I know this is four months late, but I was doing a search on Glucophage. To my knowledge, a low carb diet is very benificial to someone living with diabetes. My step mom is diabetic and the Atkins Diet is something that she and my dad live by. Now as far as your mom is concerned, I would go out on a limb and assume that she is sedentary. A person that does not exercise is at risk in many ways.

[MsFit]

I must second the Protein Power, Dr. Atkins, Ketogenic Diet... Any of these low-carb approaches will help controlling diabetes. Learn the fact as to how carbs and insulin function in the body and what happens when carbs are eaten in excess. Knowledge is power.
MsFit

Ah, something I found on the net that might be of interest: (kinda long)
LOWER YOUR CARBS AND LOWER YOUR INSULIN LEVELS!
Of course, we all need a certain amount of carbohydrates in our diet. The body requires a continual intake of carbohydrates to feed the brain, which uses glucose (a form of sugar) as its primary energy source. In fact, the brain is a virtual glucose hog, gobbling more than two thirds of the circulating carbohydrates in the bloodstream while you are at rest. To feed this glucose hog, the body continually takes carbohydrates and converts them to glucose.
It's actually a bit more complicated than that. Any carbohydrates not immediately used by the body will be stored in the form of glycogen(a starch stored in the muscles and liver to be used when necessary (a long string of glucose energy, sugar molecules linked together). The body has two storage sites for glycogen: the liver and the muscles. The glycogen stored in the muscles is inaccessible to the brain. Only the glycogen stored in the liver can be broken down and sent back to the bloodstream so as to maintain adequate blood sugar levels for proper brain function.
The liver's capacity to store carbohydrates in the form of glycogen is very limited and can be easily depleted within ten to twelve hours. So the liver's glycogen reserves must be maintained on a continual basis. That's why we eat carbohydrates.
The question no one has bothered to ask until now is this: what happens when you eat too much carbohydrate? Here's the answer: whether it's being stored in the liver or the muscles, the total storage capacity of the body for carbohydrate is really quite limited. If you're an average person, you can store about three hundred to four hundred grams of carbohydrate in your muscles, but you can't get at that carbohydrate. In the liver, where carbohydrates are accessible for glucose conversion, you can store only about sixty to ninety grams. This is equivalent to about two cups of cooked pasta or three typical candy bars, and it represents your total reserve capacity to keep the brain working properly.
Once the glycogen levels are filled in both the liver and the muscles, excess carbohydrates have just one fate: to be converted into fat and stored in the adipose, that is, fatty, tissue. In a nutshell, even though carbohydrates themselves are fat-free, excess carbohydrates ends up as excess fat. That's not the worst of it. Any meal or snack high in carbohydrates will generate a rapid rise in blood glucose. To adjust for this rapid rise, the pancreas secretes the hormone insulin into the bloodstream. Insulin then lowers the levels of blood glucose.
The problem is that insulin is essentially a storage hormone, evolved to put aside excess carbohydrate calories in the form of fat in case of future famine. So the insulin that's stimulated by excess carbohydrates aggressively promotes the accumulation of body fat. In other words, when we eat too much carbohydrate, we're essentially sending a hormonal message, via insulin, to the body (actually, to the adipose cells). The message: "Store fat."
Hold on; it gets even worse. Not only do increased insulin levels tell the body to store carbohydrates as fat, they also tell it not to release any stored fat. This makes it impossible for you to use your own stored body fat for energy. So the excess carbohydrates in your diet not only make you fat, they make sure you stay fat. It's a double whammy, and it can be lethal.
Insulin is released by the pancreas after you eat carbohydrates. This causes a rise in blood sugar. Insulin assures your cells receive some blood sugar necessary for life, and increases glycogen storage. However, it also drives your body to use more carbohydrate, and less fat, as fuel. And, insulin converts almost half of your dietary carbohydrate to fat for storage. If you want to use more fats for energy, the insulin response must be moderated. Diets high in refined sugars release more insulin thereby allowing less stored fat to be burned. High insulin levels also suppress two important hormones: glucagon and growth hormone. Glucagon promotes the burning of fat and sugar. Growth hormone is used for muscle development and building new muscle mass.
Insulin also causes hunger. As blood sugar increases following a carbohydrate meal, insulin rises with the eventual result of lower blood sugar. This results in hunger, often only a couple of hours (or less) after the meal. Cravings, usually for sweets, are frequently part of this cycle, leading you to resort to snacking, often on more carbohydrates. Not eating makes you feel ravenous shaky, moody and ready to "crash." If the problem is chronic, you never get rid of that extra stored fat, and your energy is adversely affected.
Does this sound like you? The best suggestion for anyone wanting to utilize more fats is to moderate the insulin response by limiting (ideally, eliminating) the intake of refined sugars, and keeping all other carbohydrate intake to about 40% of the diet. Generally, non-carbohydrate foods-proteins and fats-don't produce much insulin.
Insulin responses can vary greatly from person to person. But generally, more refined foods evoke a stronger and/or more rapid insulin reaction. One reason for this is refined carbohydrates lack the natural fiber which helps minimize the carbohydrate/insulin response. Consumption of natural fiber with carbohydrates can reduce the extreme blood sugar reactions described above. Low-fat diets cause quicker digestion and absorption of carbohydrates in the form of sugar. By adding some fats to the diet, digestion and absorption is slower, and the insulin reaction is moderated.
Recommendations for them include long-term restriction of carbohydrates and an increase in dietary fats. For some of these people, it means lowering carbohydrate intake to below 40%, sometimes even as low as 20%. By moderating carbohydrate intake you can increase your fat burning as an optimal and efficient source of almost unlimited energy.
Perhaps a third to a half or more of our population is unable to process carbohydrates-sugars and starches efficiently. In many people it's due to genetics, with lifestyle contributing to the condition. This can be termed insulin resistance or IR. Like many problems, IR is an individual one, affecting different people different ways. You must determine if you are carbohydrate intolerant, and if so, to what degree. Blood tests will only diagnose the problem in the later stages, but the symptoms may have begun years earlier.
As we now know, insulin has many functions. While it can't get glucose into the cells efficiently when they're in a state of insulin resistance, insulin still performs its other tasks, including converting carbohydrates to fat and inhibiting stored fat from being burned. In a normal person, 40% of the carbohydrates eaten is converted to fat. In the IR person, that number may be much higher. Many people with IR have a family history of diabetes.
Don't think of IR itself as a disease, although left unchecked, it can create problems that lead to disease. It may be quite normal for some humans to be unable to eat large or even moderate amounts of carbohydrates. As a matter of fact, we evolved for hundreds of thousands of years from the so-called "cave man's diet," which consisted solely of meat and vegetables. With the onset of modern civilization about 5,000 years ago, our physiology suddenly was asked to digest and metabolize larger amounts of sugar and starch especially refined sugars. But if we are unable to utilize the amount of carbohydrates we eat, certain symptoms will develop.
Below is a list of some of the most common complaints of people with IR Many symptoms occur immediately following a meal of carbo-hydrates, and others are constant. Keep in mind that these symptoms may also be related to other problems.

[Roid Rage]

I recommend you goto www.extique.com and order this guy's book. One of his readers was a diabetic and lost a lot of bodyfat on his diet. Maybe this could work for you.

[SPRWMN]

I doubt that the person who first started this thread has been to bb.com in months.

[MsFit]

Originally posted by SPRWMN
I doubt that the person who first started this thread has been to bb.com in months.

~But it could be beneficial to someone else.
MsFit

[Billy Poe]

Hello Big Bike,
Well guess what, i've been going through pure hell with finding out information to help me with my diabetes as well.My problem is cannot seem to gain the muscle size in trying to It seems like everything normal weight lifters do to gain muscle size is off limits to diabetics.we heve to watch our protein and carb intake to keep our suger level normal. i'm 45 years old 5'6 and stuck at 155 lbs.my body fat is about 8-10 %. not too bad but i want to gain up to about 175 or so and no matter what i do i cannot get to my goal . as for you maybe you need to cut out some carbs and eat more protein and try some creatin and amino acids . i just found out that basically all carbs turn into suger which raises your sugar level ./also try eating 6 smaller meals a day instead of 3 and stay away from junk food as much as possible.go talk to a diabetic educator and see if can give you some help..do you remember a bodybuilder names Tim Belknap?he was also a diabetic and he was a champion so learn all you can because is IS possible to do what ever you put your mind to and stick with it ...