Tag Archives: bigbluetest

Weight Gain With Insulin Pump Therapy

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A couple of days ago, a young diabetic Twitter friend from Baghdad asked me if insulin can make you fat.  The quick answer is yes, absolutely.  I thought that would make a good blog article, so here goes.

I don’t remember exactly when I started my insulin pump therapy, but I think it was 6 or 7 years ago.  When I started asking around about it before getting my first pump, everybody told me that I should expect to gain about 20lbs.  I said “WHAT?!!!”  There was no way I was going to get a pump if that was a side effect.  Well, when I checked into it, many people do gain weight, but it’s because using a pump is so much easier than shots, that people just start gorging their pie holes with carbs like they’re no longer diabetic.  More carbs + more insulin = more fat.  I was working out like a bodybuilder at the time, in the gym 4 days a week, lifting seriously, and I knew I could avoid this pitfall.  So I went ahead and got my pump, . . . and never gained a pound.

You see insulin is an anabolic hormone.  That’s a fancy scientific word that means it’s a growth hormone.  When you eat carbs, first they are turned to glucose for transport in the bloodstream, and then they are stored in your muscle cells and liver as glycogen.  When the muscle cells and liver are full, the rest of the glucose is stored as fat.  Insulin is the key to this process.  Without insulin, muscles won’t grow, and neither will fat cells.  So if you’re body can only store 20 carbs per meal (just as an example) in muscle and liver, but you’re eating 60 carbs per meal, and you’re bolusing for 60, then 40 carbs per meal will be stored as fat.  That ratio of what you store in muscle vs. what you store as fat, is different for everyone.  So I’m afraid I can’t give you a magic formula to help you lose weight.  What I can tell you, is that when you start insulin pump therapy, don’t go crazy eating whatever you want just because you don’t have to take shots anymore, and you should do fine.

If you’ve recently become diabetic, and you’re not on a pump yet, like my friend from Baghdad, a different scenario applies.  You see, if you’ve recently been diagnosed as type 1 diabetic, then you’ve not had the right amounts of insulin for a while.  This means limited muscle growth, and limited fat storage.  This is what causes the symptom of sudden, un-explainable, and rapid weight loss before you’re diagnosis, which is a telltale marker of un-diagnosed type 1 diabetes.  So now you get diagnosed, you start taking insulin, and now your body has what it needs to store the glycogen and fat properly.  So you start to gain weight again.

The key for everyone, diabetic or not, is that to control your weight, you have to control your insulin.  To control your insulin, you have to control your carbs.  Low fat diets won’t make you lose weight, and they won’t reduce your cholesterol.  A lower carb diet will (not necessarily low carb, just less carbs), and there’s science to explain why it will.  It’s not calories in, calories out, like so many trainers, doctors, nurses, and dieticians will tell you.  Insulin control is the key to weight loss.  For an amazing book that can teach you about insulin, that’s disguised as a simple diet book, read “Protien Power“.

********** Now ya know, and knowing is half the battle.  Go Joe!!! **********

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I Support The Big Blue Test

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I’ve been seeing posts on Twitter and Instagram with hashtags (#) for the Big Blue Test (#bigbluetest) ever since I started using Twitter at the beginning of the year.  The posts never really describe what it is, and I didn’t get curious enough to click on it until now.  I love the goal, and the idea of the Big Blue Test.  What’s the Big Blue Test?  It’s something designed to motivate people to get active, and improve their diabetes, while teaching them responsible habits about diabetes and exercise.  Watch the video below to see exactly what the Big Blue Test is trying to accomplish.

So you can see that the Big Blue Test is:

  1. Raising funds for people with diabetes who otherwise wouldn’t receive proper care.
  2. Teaching diabetics about the importance of exercise in your treatment plan.
  3. Teaching diabetics the importance of testing both before and after exercise.
  4. Motivating diabetics to get active, while building community and support around it.
  5. Raising awareness for both type 1, and type 2 diabetes.
  6. Promoting World Diabetes Day, which is November 14th.

What the video doesn’t have time to explain is exactly “why” your blood sugar drops after exercise, and how it helps control your diabetes.  It does this same thing for everyone, not just diabetics.  I’ll try to explain this for you now, from the perspective of a diabetic first, and then explain why it helps a non-diabetic.

First, I need to explain a little science.  Don’t worry, it won’t hurt.  I promise.  You see, when you exercise, depending on what kind of exercise you do, you’ll burn either glucose or fatty acids.  Aerobic exercise (running, biking, cardio) burns mostly fatty acids, because it provides the body with oxygen, a necessary component for burning fat.  Anaerobic exercise (weight lifting, HIIT training), burns mostly glucose, because there’s little oxygen available.

Now for insulin’s role here.  More science, I’m sorry.  I just a geek at heart I guess.  So insulin is an anabolic hormone, which means it’s kinda like a carpenter, because it builds things.  Muscle, fat, cholesterol, and much more.  There are also catabolic hormones like glucagon that are like demolition experts, who’s job is to burn fat.   They don’t co-exist well.  If insulin is present, glucagon won’t be, and vise versa.  Remember this for later.

When you eat carbs, they’re turned into fuel (glucose) and then insulin is like a key to the muscle cell so that fuel can get inside, providing the muscle what it needs to operate and grow.  Type 1 diabetics have no insulin, so we inject it.  Type 2 diabetics have worn out their natural insulin pump, or plugged up that key hole in the muscle cell from overuse, and they’re insulin is low, or doesn’t work very well anymore.  Non diabetics have a perfectly functioning checks and balances system for insulin, that keeps them supplied with just the right amount of insulin for what they eat.

I know, I know.  What does all this have to do with the Big Blue Test?  Here’s the secret behind the importance of the Big Blue Test.  When you exercise strenuously (remember what I said about anaerobic exercise), your body doesn’t need insulin to get glucose into the muscle cell.  This . . . is . . .  huge.  For EVERYONE.  Here’s why.

You do some HIIT training like Insanity or maybe some strenuous weight lifting, leaving you out of breath.  You do this for 20 – 40 or so minutes.  After your workout, diabetic or not, your blood sugar’s gonna drop . . . . . and it can keep dropping for up to 8 hours.  (A great time for P90X Results and Recovery formula with 40 grams of dextrose)  Your need for insulin is reduced because that strenuous exercise can allow your muscles to utilize glucose without insulin for up to 8 hours after your workout.  Sounds good right?  But why?  Because reduced insulin for up to 8 hours means you have improved insulin resistance (type 2 diabetics might reverse their diabetes), you burn more fat because insulin is low (remember what I told you about glucagon), you can’t store fat because insulin is required to store it (remember what I said about insulin), less daily insulin means less money spent on diabetic supplies, and the almighty blood sugar will be lower leading to a better A1C score.  Reducing insulin levels in your blood stream improves your health in to many ways to list in this article.

How do you optimize this for fitness and diabetes?  Don’t eat carbs for 3 hours before your workout, diabetic or not.  That leaves low insulin amounts in your blood stream.  If you’re type 1, of course you may not have a choice sometimes if you go low in that 3 hour window.  Such is life.  Anyway, you’ll burn fat like crazy during your workout with low insulin levels.  After your workout, take a good protein recovery shake with a 2/1 ratio of carbs/protein for serious athletes, or 4/1 for everyone else.  This is the only time of day a diabetic will want to eat high glycemic carbs.  Everybody will want that in your blood stream ASAP.  This will help a diabetic recover from the ensuing low blood sugar, and it just plain makes everyone heal and feel better.  It’s also important for non-diabetics to do this.  This will help in your weight loss results, but the reason why is another whole blog article.

So the Big Blue Test is doing a great deal more for you than they are able to tell you in a short 1 minute video.  I hope this article has helped you understand what’s going on behind the scenes in the Big Blue Test.

If you have any questions about what I’ve explained here,
find me on my social networks in the right hand column.
I’d love to hear from you, and hear your story: —————>

Now for my first #bigbluetest results:

    

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