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Stopping weight loss with low carb diet?

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ppp

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Type 2
Hi All,

My family history, on both sides, is filled with people with type II. Not just parents, but grandparents, uncles, cousins etc. My fasting plasma glucose levels had been rising for a while and were regularly hovering just below or above 7.0. So to stop the inevitable I've switched to a low carb + fat diet. My glucose levels are lower, mostly stuck around 6.0 now. But I've also lost weight, which is where my problem comes in.

I wasn't over-weight in the first place, but now I'm below my recommended weight and it's still going down. I've lost about 10% of my starting weight (I'm around 9 st 8ibs now). So, my question is does the weight loss from low carb stop eventually? Is there something I should add to my diet so that the weight loss stops but my blood glucose carries on going down?

Any advice gratefully received...
 
ppp said:
Hi All,

My family history, on both sides, is filled with people with type II. Not just parents, but grandparents, uncles, cousins etc. My fasting plasma glucose levels had been rising for a while and were regularly hovering just below or above 7.0. So to stop the inevitable I've switched to a low carb + fat diet. My glucose levels are lower, mostly stuck around 6.0 now. But I've also lost weight, which is where my problem comes in.

I wasn't over-weight in the first place, but now I'm below my recommended weight and it's still going down. I've lost about 10% of my starting weight (I'm around 9 st 8ibs now). So, my question is does the weight loss from low carb stop eventually? Is there something I should add to my diet so that the weight loss stops but my blood glucose carries on going down?

Any advice gratefully received...
Click to expand...

Stop low carbing and switch to moderate carbs to gain weight and then walk up through the quantity and quality of medication to balance that with acceptable bgs.
Or simply follow calorie recommendations - 2500 for a man and 2000 for a woman and increase quantity and quality of meds to maintain healthy weight and healthy bgs on that.

Diabetes Uk/NHS recommend those limits with a Low GI , Mediterranean style diet with ...
45- 60 % of calories coming from carbs depending on level of work/physical activity
upto 35 % of calories from fats including at least 25% from "good" fats
10-20% of cals from protein

The NHS is currently big on Carbohydrate Awareness for T2s - seeing 15 grams of carb as a Carb Portion and having between 8 and 15 of them a day depending on physical build and amount of physical activity.
 
How many calories do you get per day as a rule? IMO, low carb/GI/salt/fat is fine but you need to ensure your intake is enough to meet the calorie needs of your body.
 
AlisonM said:
How many calories do you get per day as a rule? IMO, low carb/GI/salt/fat is fine but you need to ensure your intake is enough to meet the calorie needs of your body.
Click to expand...

I've not really counted to be honest. I figured so long as I wasn't feeling hungry all the time I must be doing OK. I guess I should start counting from here on...
 
mcdonagh47 said:
Stop low carbing and switch to moderate carbs to gain weight and then walk up through the quantity and quality of medication to balance that with acceptable bgs.
Click to expand...

I'm not medication at the moment. I'm trying to use diet to stave off metformin. My GP agreed, but we'll see at my next blood test how well the numbers I see at home match what the HbA1c says...
 
As others have said, you do need to make sure you are taking in sufficient calories, while also trying to choose low GI foods.

I wonder if it might help increase your sensitivity to insulin if you schedule any exercise you do to follow a meal. Speaking from a type 1 perspective, my son needs less insulin to cover a meal if he is exercising afterwards, so in theory the same should be true of a person who is still producing his or her own insulin. Just a thought.
 
Redkite said:
As others have said, you do need to make sure you are taking in sufficient calories, while also trying to choose low GI foods.

I wonder if it might help increase your sensitivity to insulin if you schedule any exercise you do to follow a meal. Speaking from a type 1 perspective, my son needs less insulin to cover a meal if he is exercising afterwards, so in theory the same should be true of a person who is still producing his or her own insulin. Just a thought.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the thought. I'll definitely be adding that. It seems to me that it's the last meal of the day that's the trickiest, so I'll need to make sure that I get some exercise after that.
 
I would have though you could increase you'd saturated and monounsaturated fat intake to gain calories if your carb intake is fairly low without troubling your cholesterol level/splits. Low-moderate carbers seem to have better chol/splits even when eating more saturated fats
 
Lots of good advice here. If everything else fails a dietician might be able to help. Good luck with it all
 
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