Can anyone suggest any proven ways for weight loss?????

Hi Sinerita,
How much do you weigh? Before I was diagnosed with diabetes, I weighed 125 pounds. Once I was diagnosed and put on meds, I put on weight. I am not saying that it was the meds. Even on meds, you still have to watch your diet and exercise. I have learned that the meds do not do it for you, weight wise.

My weight slowly went up to over 200 pounds after I was diagnosed. I am now down to 150. I started watching more carefully what I ate. I eat only 150 carbs a day and I exercise and go for walks. I started going for 4 mile walks 3 times a week. I exercise at home with my DVD for 30 minutes a day.

Do not try to lose weight too fast. You have to have a lifetime eating plan and exercise plan. Now is the perfect time of year to go out and do gardening. Keep busy and do things.

Ruth

In general, the best way to lose weight is to reduce caloric intake and increase activity.

One recent study's results indicated that T2s with impaired insulin production lost more weight by reducing carb intake than by reducing fat intake, when done as part of a program that modified behavior.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100619173919.htm

This study reconfirms the research upon which the original Atkins diet was based, more than 30 years ago. (Atkins took it to an extreme and later had to modify their program.)

Since you have type 2, and I have type 1, our situations are different, but I know that if I chronically take too much insulin it increases my appetite and I gain weight. If I don't get enough insulin I lose weight. It seems logical to to me that any medication that increased insulin production or insulin utilization would have the same effect on someone with type 2. ie too much medication > weight gain.

I found that I lost weight when I reduced my daily basal insulin by 1 unit and adjusted my lowered carb intake instead of raising my basal insulin to reach my target BG levels. I had to weigh all my food food instead of estimating portions and do extra postprandial BG readings to get this to work. I lost 30# over 90 days.

Talk to your doctor about reducing your oral diabetic medication dosage.

Shanny said:

As regards this forum, I think your second declaration is the more apropos. My experience IS that low-carb and moderate fat DO bring about weight loss. Non-insulin-dependent diabetics wind up with precious little left to eat when they try to reduce and carbs AND calories both. And for NIDs on metformin - I have found that met curbs my appetite also.

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When what you believe is based only on your personal experience, it's may be interesting, but not applicable to anyone else.

Unless you intentionally create a metabolic disturbance, the only way to reduce body mass is to somehow reduce total caloric intake or increase activity. That's Biology 101.

There's no secret to a successful diet. It's a change to a new lifestyle that can be maintained for a lifetime, but the changes are made gradually. Dramatic overnight changes in activity or intake almost always fail because of side effects or habits.

The study didn't dramatically reduce total calories; it rebalanced the diet so a lower percentage of calories came from carbs. The caloric reductions were done gradually.

My diet change was also gradual. My initial reduction in medication was about 3% - hardly enough to be noticeable. I weighed what I ate to become more conscious of what I was doing. I didn't change what I ate, just ate a little less and only when I was hungry. This isn't rocket science.

Since I'm not in the business of teaching/lecturing people on what is and what isn't, and what this or that study allegedly proves, my personal experience is what I have to offer, and if it works for me, it could work for others. All of your studies are nothing more than researchers watching the personal experiences of the subjects they've chosen for their particular project.

Since I am a type 2 and you are a type 1, our experiences no doubt differ greatly, but you're purpose in this forum is no different than mine - not to separate the wheat from the chaff either - but to relate what works for you. Whatever you've read somewhere else and the conclusions you've drawn, is of no consequence to us - we can go "somewhere else" ourselves, read the same studies/newsletters/articles as you have, and draw our own conclusions.

Furthermore, I was agreeing with you in that last post - at least I was agreeing with what you said your study said, so thank you for thanking me.

Chocolate/exercise??

Kathleen - Fair play to you for having such a good routine. However, unfortunately three of the points you make are an absolute NoNo for me. Firstly, I cannot do much exercising as I have a very bad back being spinabifida and am often in a great deal of pain, hardly being able to get out of bed sometimes! Secondly,because of the tablets I take for the pain I MUST eat something first so that rules out having a meals plan timingwise, even to the point that I need to take tablets in the middle of the night, and thirdly, I can't eat chocolate, especially dark choc, as I suffer from migraines from that.

As Shanny has so righly said, we all have to follow what suits us best and that is definitely not for me!!

Again I have to say, unfortunately I didn't have the problem of fitting in medications in years past which messes up my plans so much that it's hard to keep positive.