[traughber]

Can moderately high blood sugar make you gain weight?

I am currently on the low-carb diet The 4-Hour Body (or the slow-carb diet as they call it). I eat 4 times a day and am getting around 40% carbs, 40% protein, and 20% fat per day. However, I'm not losing any weight. I have currently been taking Metformin and 30 units of Lantus insulin daily. I was reading that insulin can cause weight gain. So, I've been doing a little experiment this week. I stopped taking my Metformin and insulin (I know. Not smart, so let's skip that in the discussion for now) to see if I started losing weight and to see how well I could control my sugar with just food. My doctor originally wanted to get my sugar down below 130. He said that would be a good number for me. Since I've been off my meds this week, It has been between 130 and 160 throughout the day. So, I'm getting close by controlling it with just food.

However, I still haven't been losing any weight. I've been watching sodium and calories to make sure I don't eat too much, but still no weight loss. So, I'm wondering if my higher sugar levels can cause weight gain or at least stop weight loss. I know that when your numbers are up in the 200's and higher, you'll generally lose weight from all of the sugar that you're peeing out (that happened to me years ago), but my numbers aren't so high that I'm peeing too much. So that leaves me to wonder if moderately elevated sugar can prevent weight loss.

Like I said, let's focus on that question instead of the general prudence of my experiment.

 

[Joshua Shorter]

Generally you want to eliminate carbs from your diet to keep your number under 140. If you were to cut more of the carbs from your diet, then you would see some weight loss. Probably.

 

[traughber]

Generally you want to eliminate carbs from your diet to keep your number under 140. If you were to cut more of the carbs from your diet, then you would see some weight loss. Probably.

Almost all of my carbs come from vegetables. Do you not eat any vegetables at all? Are you eating only protein and fat?

 

[jwags]

When you say your doctor wants you at 130, is that fasting or after meals. No one knows where damage starts. My goal is below 100, because that gets me closer to what normal people are. Occassionly I will spike to 130 but not often after meals. Losing weight is tricky you need to get your body into Ketosis to burn off fat. What are your total carbs per day? I am not familar with that diet. I have found that I cannot tolerate any processed food at all. Eliminating it has allowed me to keep my bgs around 100 or lower. The only bread I eat is made without flour. I usually make my own crackers from bran or flaxseed. I don't eat cereals, pastas, potatoes or rice. Use your bg meter after meals to see if your diet is a good one. We all have different goals but I think 130-160 does sound high. Even waking up with bgs in the 70's and 80's I still stay on my medication to keep it that way. I would not be trying to drop your metformin so soon. After 4 years on a moderately low carb diet 50 carbs/day I have lost about 35 pounds and am down to 116 pounds.

 

[Shanny]

Almost all of my carbs come from vegetables. Do you not eat any vegetables at all? Are you eating only protein and fat?

Yes, I'm basically eating only protein & fat. I eat high-fiber vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, cabbage, artichokes, celery, various leafy greens, etc., to keep my digestion moving smoothly through the alimentary canal. I also eat a LOT of nuts/seeds like almonds, pecans, cashews, sunflower kernels, and I add whole flax seed to many things. But low-carb high-fat is a very successful program for PWD (persons with diabetes). The people who are pushing "healthy" diets with whole grains, etc., etc., are NOT considering what those foods do to blood glucose levels. They are usually not good choices for diabetic diets.

 

[beefy]

Almost all of my carbs come from vegetables. Do you not eat any vegetables at all? Are you eating only protein and fat?

Over the past week I've reduced my carb intake to around 20% of my calories. I still get the vast majority of those carbs from veggies, with a little bit from berries. This has made a very noticeable difference in my blood glucose levels, and my weight has started dropping a bit faster than it previously was. (My weight loss had slowed as of late.)

Proper, healthy diet combined with exercising 40+ minutes every day will really help.

If you're wondering, my diet's macro-nutrient breakdown is about 20% carb, 45-50% protein and 30-35% fat.

 

[jwags]

I had never heard of this diet so I googled it. One of the things that surprised me was there was a binge day, every week. Are you also following this binge day advice. That could be part of the problem. Advice for diabetics is different that advice for normal functioning pancreases. Most of us cannot handle a binge day because the extra carbs will get stored as glycogen in our liver. This extra glycogen will be available for many "liver dumps" which will keep our bgs above 130. The only way to get bgs under 130 is to reduce the glycogen in your liver. The way most of us do this is by finding the exact amount of food necessary in a meal to keep our bgs as low as possible preferably under 120. I feel if you keep your bgs higher you will have trouble losing any weight. I have found with the lower bgs some of my pancreatic function has returned because I am not taxing my pancreas anymore.

 

[traughber]

Thanks for the posts everyone. A lot to think about.

 

[traughber]

I had never heard of this diet so I googled it. One of the things that surprised me was there was a binge day, every week. Are you also following this binge day advice. That could be part of the problem. Advice for diabetics is different that advice for normal functioning pancreases. Most of us cannot handle a binge day because the extra carbs will get stored as glycogen in our liver. This extra glycogen will be available for many "liver dumps" which will keep our bgs above 130. The only way to get bgs under 130 is to reduce the glycogen in your liver. The way most of us do this is by finding the exact amount of food necessary in a meal to keep our bgs as low as possible preferably under 120. I feel if you keep your bgs higher you will have trouble losing any weight. I have found with the lower bgs some of my pancreatic function has returned because I am not taxing my pancreas anymore.

How do you get enough fiber?

 

[beefy]

How do you get enough fiber?

The USDA recommends 12g of fiber for women, 17g for men. That's pretty easy to get just with veggies. Eating things like raw carrots, broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, etc. easily gets your daily fiber in...

 

[traughber]

The USDA recommends 12g of fiber for women, 17g for men. That's pretty easy to get just with veggies. Eating things like raw carrots, broccoli, spinach, cauliflower, etc. easily gets your daily fiber in...

The American Heart Association says 25-30 g. You'd think they'd all get on the same page.

 

[Shanny]

As I look back over a few random days' food logs, I find some days as low as 14g, and other days as high as 43g. It never occurred to me to shoot for a certain fiber goal . . . I just eat fiber to stay "regular" & keep the BGL in control. If that's all working smoothly, I don't pay any attention to how much.

I love the high-fiber vegetables like asparagus, broccoli, cauliflower, artichokes, et.al., and I eat all I want of those. To perk 'em up sometimes I use butter, cream sauces, hollandaise . . . it's all good! Never a problem getting enough fiber!

 

[jwags]

How do you get enough fiber?

I get tons of fiber from nuts, seeds and lots of green veggies. I do a lot of my baking with ground flaxseed, coconut flour or almond meal. The only crackers I eat are Scandanavian Bran Crisps from Netrition. They have 5 grams of fiber per cracker. I usually eat 2, so that is 4 net carbs. I spread them either with cream cheese, coconut oil or raw almond butter. I probably get somewhere between 30-40 grams of fiber most days. I aim for 10 per meal, and 5 per snack.