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How can diabetic lose weight: How To Lose Weight if You’re Diabetic

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How To Lose Weight if You’re Diabetic

It is crucial to maintain a healthy weight if you have
diabetes. Maintaining a balanced weight can help control blood sugar levels and lower the chance of developing additional issues, such as a stroke or heart attack.

Choose safe methods for weight loss for people with diabetes to keep your overall health in good shape. If you attempt to reduce weight too quickly or recklessly,
side complications could result. Using safe and long-lasting ways of weight loss for diabetics can lower the risk of adverse effects and help you
keep off the lost weight.

How to Lose Weight With Diabetes?

Unexpected reduction of weight, a
cause of type 2 diabetes, have some patients wondering how to stop weight loss in diabetes. Nonetheless, suppose you have diabetes and are not losing weight. In that case, you should shed weight because it is
beneficial when you have the condition.

Losing weight for people with diabetes is vital, so you must consider several factors in selecting an effective weight-loss method. Your age, overall health, and the amount of weight you need to shed are all aspects. 

See a medical expert before beginning a new weight loss regimen is best. Anyhow, the following diet recommendations can be helpful if you are a person with diabetes to lose weight..

1. Consider Meal Replacement Products.

Meal replacement shakes formulated for diabetic patients or calorie-restricted frozen meals can make adhering to structured lower-calorie eating plans easier. According to a
study, meal replacement diets are more effective than regular diets.

You can create meal replacement drinks using whole foods and protein powder. Also, choose prepared shakes with 15 to 20 grams of protein per container and fewer than 250 calories.

This is a delicious and reliable way to lose weight for diabetics. Consider consuming fresh fruits and vegetables with your meal replacement shakes. They provide chewing satisfaction, which helps to satiate hunger and make you feel fuller and more content than if you drank the shake.

2. Apply Vegetarian or Vegan Diets.

If you have diabetes, you can
adhere to a strict vegetarian or vegan diet. These diets can help you
lose weight, fasting glucose, and waist circumference if you follow them. 

Vegetarian diets often consume animal products such as milk, eggs, and butter, but no meat. However,
vegans will not consume meat or animal products like honey, milk, or gelatin.

The
following foods are healthy for vegetarians and vegans with diabetes:

  • Legumes
  • Fruits
  • Whole grains
  • Beans
  • Soy
  • Dark, leafy vegetables,
  • Nuts

Vegetarian and vegan diets must be carefully planned to ensure that essential nutrients are not lost. By employing vegan and vegetarian diets, you must augment your diet with the
following nutrients, which are
hard to obtain from these diets. 

  • Calcium. 
  • Iodine. 
  • B12. 
  • Zinc. 

Before beginning any new supplement regimen, consult a trained healthcare expert to ensure safety.

3. Employ the DASH Diet.

The
DASH diet was designed to help lower blood pressure and has many additional benefits. It is a
balanced, healthy diet for everyone, not only those with diabetes.

Suppose you want to follow the DASH diet. In that case, you should consume
fewer portions of foods high in potassium, calcium, and magnesium, nutrients that lower blood pressure.

The DASH diet includes the
following:

  • Fat-free or low-calorie dairy products
  • Whole grain grains
  • Lean protein: fish and chicken
  • Foods derived from plants: vegetables, fruits, beans, nuts, and seeds
  • Healthy fats: vegetable oils

If you follow this diet, you should limit your sodium consumption to
2,300 milligrams per day. Additionally, sweets, sugary beverages, and red meats are restricted.

4. Practice the Mediterranean Diet.

You can implement the
Mediterranean diet, which includes food selections and cooking practices unique to the Mediterranean region. Diabetes patients have been shown to
benefit from Mediterranean diets. The average diet consists of the
following:

  • a variety of vegetables, 
  • herbs, and spices
  • olive oil
  • fish
  • eggs
  • whole grains
  • fruits in moderation
  • nuts and seeds

5. Try the Low-Carbohydrate Diet.

To lose weight, persons with diabetes often turn to low-carb diets. When you adopt
this diet, you should reduce your carb consumption and increase your intake of healthy fats and proteins.

A
study suggests that cutting back on carbs is how to lose weight with type 2 diabetes which helps to control glucose levels. On a low-carb diet, a person might have to cut back on foods
like

  • White bread
  • potatoes
  • Rice
  • Cakes
  • Sweets
  • Bagels,
  • Pasta

You should also eat a lot of vegetables and get a lot of protein from fish, lean meats, and eggs. Nonetheless, there are many different kinds of low-carb diets. Most of them involve cutting back on carbs.

6. Engage in Exercise

Exercising helps with weight loss with diabetes while
keeping your blood sugar in check. Talk to your doctor first if you haven’t worked out yet. If there are any restrictions, they can let you know. Otherwise, get
at least two and a half hours a week of brisk walking and moderate aerobic exercise to improve your health. 

You’ll need to move around more if you want to lose weight. Strength training should also be done at least
twice a week. You can use weight machines at the gym,
hand weights, or even your body weight (think pushups, lunges, and squats).

Physical activity
burns both the sugar in your blood and the sugar stored in your muscles and liver. When you have diabetes and take insulin or other diabetes medicines, you should closely monitor your blood sugar levels when you start working out. Regular exercise and working with your doctor can aid in
reducing insulin resistance.

Consult the medical experts.

If you’re looking for a “diabetes doctor near me” or a “weight loss clinic in Houston, Texas,” go to
Houston Family Practice.

Our medically supervised
weight loss program is facilitated by our expert medical professionals, who would love to assist you in your weight loss journey.

Call us today at 713-520-6016 to schedule your appointment.

Weight loss and diabetes | Diabetes UK

Weight is a sensitive issue for many people and getting to an ideal, healthy weight is easier said than done. But when you have diabetes, there are huge benefits to losing weight if you’re carrying extra weight.

You’ll have more energy and you’ll reduce your risk of serious complications like heart disease and stroke. Losing weight can help with your diabetes control too. And if you have type 2 diabetes, losing weight could even mean going into diabetes remission.

But millions of people with diabetes find keeping to a healthy weight a huge struggle. You’re not alone in this, there’s support out there to help – a good first step is to ask your healthcare team for help and advice.

On this page:

  • What are the benefits of losing extra weight?
  • What’s a healthy weight to aim for?
  • Diabetes diet plans to help you lose weight, including your weight-loss planner
  • Can diabetes cause weight gain?
  • Your feelings about food
  • Being active to help with weight loss
  • Weight loss surgery.

Around 60% of people with type 1 diabetes and around 85% of people with type 2 diabetes are carrying extra weight or are living with obesity.

    Benefits of losing extra weight

    There are so many benefits to losing extra weight – both physically and emotionally. 

    Extra weight around your waist means fat can build up around your organs, like your liver and pancreas. This can cause something called insulin resistance. So losing this weight could help the insulin you produce or the insulin you inject work properly.

    And as you start to lose weight and get more active, you and your healthcare team may need to look at your medication, especially if you treat your diabetes with insulin or sulphonylurea. This might mean reducing the dose or making other adjustments, but talk to your healthcare team about it. For some people, needing fewer diabetes medications is a great motivation for losing weight. 

    Although getting type 1 diabetes has nothing to do with weight, losing any extra weight will help you reduce your risk of complications and could mean injecting less insulin.

    And if you have type 2 diabetes, losing around 5% of your body weight can have real benefits for your health. If you have obesity, you are more likely to put your diabetes into remission if you lose a larger amount of weight,15kg (or 2 stone 5lbs), as quickly and safely as possible following your diagnosis. This could mean coming off your diabetes medication completely – a life-changing possibility. This is even more likely if you lose the weight nearer to your diagnosis and quickly. It’s a myth that losing weight slowly is better for you. 

    Most people say they also feel better in their mood, have more energy and sleep better.

    We’ve got lots of information to help you maintain a healthy weight too, to help keep you on track and prevent putting weight back on.

    “We know that losing even 5% of your weight helps improve blood pressure and cholesterol levels. This can have a big impact on your overall health and go a long way to reducing your risk of serious complications, like heart disease and stroke.”

    Douglas Twenefour, our Deputy Head of Care and dietitian

    What’s a healthy weight to aim for?

    Before you get started, you need to know what a healthy weight is and what numbers you’re aiming for. This is about working out your Body Mass Index (BMI) and your waist size. 

    Know your weight

    Research shows that the more weight you lose, the greater the health benefits, but even losing just 5% of extra weight will improve your health.  

    BMI uses your height and weight to work out if you’re a healthy weight. It doesn’t look at how much fat you have around the middle, so that’s why you need to measure your waist too. You can work your BMI out for yourself using this NHS tool  – it will show you your target range.

    For many people living with obesity, aiming for a healthy BMI may not be realistic. 

    Know your waist size

    A healthy waist size depends on your gender and ethnicity. It should be:

    • less than 80cm (31.5in) for all women
    • less than 94cm (37in) for most men
    • less than 90cm (35in) for South Asian men.

    Here’s our community champion Rohit to show you how to measure your waist.

     

    Can diabetes cause weight gain?

    If you have type 1 diabetes, when you start taking insulin, you might start to put on weight. There are lots of reasons for this, like how much insulin you take, your diet and the type of insulin you’re taking.

    Insulin is a growth hormone, and any growth hormone you take will mean putting on more weight. When you’re diagnosed with diabetes it’s also likely that you lost a lot of weight in a short space of time, as this is one of the symptoms, and the weight gain is part of the recovery. 

    The type of insulin you take can affect your weight in different ways. We’ve got more information about the different types and how they can affect your weight.

    If you’re worried about putting on weight, or you’d like some help losing weight, then we’re here to help. 

    Diabetes diet plans to lose weight

    You may have heard that diabetes can be controlled by diet. There is no such thing as a special diet exclusively for people with diabetes. There are a lot of different ways to lose weight – but there’s no one-size-fits-all diet. 

    It starts with finding a way to eat fewer calories than you need.

    A calorie (or kcal) is a unit of energy, which is in the food and drink we consume. Your body uses energy for everything we do – from breathing and sleeping to exercising. When you eat, you’re replacing the energy you’ve used, which helps you to maintain a healthy weight.

    As a general guide, government recommendations are that men need around 2,500kcal a day to maintain a healthy weight, and women need around 2,000kcal a day. But most people need different amounts of calories based on how their bodies work, how active they are and any weight management goals. 

    We’ve put together some 7-day meal plans to help you lose weight. They’re all clinically approved, nutritionally balanced, calorie and carb counted, and can help if you want to lose weight:

    • Low-carb diet plan
    • Mediterranean diet plan
    • Lower-calorie diet plans, like 1,200 or 1,500 calories a day

    Evidence shows that the best approach is the one that you’re likely to stick to. So the key is to find a plan that you enjoy and fits in with the rest of your life. Everyone’s different and what works for some may not for others.

    Low-calorie and very low-calorie diets

    A low-calorie diet is made up of between 800 to 1200 calories a day – our DiRECT study used a low-calorie diet of around 850 calories a day. But DiRECT is not a diet. It’s testing a weight-management programme, delivered in GP practices.

    Then there’s a very low-calorie diet, which means having less than 800 calories a day. 

    We haven’t created low or very-low calorie meal plans as these could be challenging for most people to make themselves at home. Most people who follow these diets use special meal replacement products, likes soups and shakes, which are nutritionally complete. If you chose to try a low-calorie diet like the one in DiRECT, speak to your GP or nurse first, especially if you use medications like insulin.

    Other diets

    A low GI diet can help you manage your blood sugar levels, but the evidence for people with diabetes losing weight is not very strong. 

    There are other popular diets, like intermittent fasting (such as the 5:2 diet) and the Paleo diet. Unfortunately there isn’t enough strong evidence to say these are effective for weight loss in people with diabetes either.  

    Commercial weight-loss programmes

    Some people feel that they need more support and choose to join a commercial weight-loss programme. These usually involve calorie-controlled eating plans or meal replacements, like milkshakes or bars.

    It’s really important to ask lots of questions about these programmes, so you’ve got all the evidence and information you need to make an informed decision. Here are some ideas:

    • Has a healthcare professional been involved?
    • Does the programme offer advice on your diabetes (especially if you’re at risk of hypos)?
    • Are you getting all the nutrition you need from this programme?
    • Does the programme give support and education?

    Whether you choose to try one of our meal plans, or another type of diet, it’s really important that you talk it through with your diabetes team first. Starting a new diet will affect your medication or blood sugar levels, so you need their knowledge and support.

    Weight-loss planner

    “I keep a daily diary and log my weight and activity. It keeps me accountable and focused.”

    Edward Morrison

    You can download My weight-loss planner (PDF, 534KB) to set goals and track your progress. By putting a plan in place and noting down your progress, you’ll be able to see the positive changes you’re making. 

    Your feelings about food

    The emotional part of trying to lose weight is important and can often be overlooked. 

    Do you feel guilty when you eat a treat? Do you eat more when you’re upset? Do you feel dejected if you can’t see progress straight away?
    These are really common feelings and tackling them can help you on the road to a healthier lifestyle and a healthy weight.

    Find out more about your feelings about food and diabetes.

    Connect with others and share tips in our online forum – we’ve made a board especially for people who are looking to lose weight.

    Exercise and being active for weight loss

    Regular exercise or physical activity has many health benefits and will help you in your weight loss journey. We’ve got more information about how much activity you should be doing and different ways to get active. 

    But before you start any new physical activity, speak to your diabetes team. They can make sure you have all the information you need about how your diabetes might be affected. Especially if you treat your diabetes with insulin  or certain diabetes medications like sulphonylureas, as being more active may increase your risk of hypos.

    Your diabetes team will support you to make the right adjustments to your medications to reduce your risk of hypos. 

    Weight loss surgery

    If you have a lot of weight to lose, ask your healthcare team if weight loss surgery is a possibility. There are different types of weight loss surgery, also called bariatric surgery. They aim to make you feel fuller sooner and eat less. Weight loss surgery can be a very effective way of losing weight, keeping your HbA1c in the target range and putting type 2 diabetes into remission for some people. 

    For people with diabetes, weight loss surgery isn’t just about weight loss. It is now seen as an actual treatment for type 2 diabetes, and the weight loss is a bonus. 

    Weight loss surgery changes the way the digestive system works, in ways that are helpful for people with type 2 diabetes. It can:

    • change how the hormones in your gut work, which in turn affects how your body makes insulin
    • increase the amount of bile acids that your body makes, these make your body more sensitive to insulin
    • improve the way your body uses insulin, leading to lower blood sugar levels.

    Diabetes weight loss medication

    Your healthcare team may be able to prescribe some medications which can help with weight loss. One of these is Orlistat. Some diabetes medications, such as GLP-1 analogues, can also help with weight loss 

    Your healthcare team can give you advice about whether these medications are right for you. Avoid buying medications online and always get advice from a healthcare professional 

    Weight loss in diabetes: nutrition, menu, activity

    Type 2 diabetes

    August 07, 2020

    In diabetes, losing even five kilograms helps reduce the risk of complications and better control blood sugar levels. In addition, losing weight helps reduce insulin resistance (insensitivity) and lower doses of sugar-lowering medications.

    Diabetic weight loss plan

    You can’t just go on a low-calorie diet or starve to lose a few kilograms with diabetes: a condition that is dangerous to health and life can develop – hypoglycemia. Therefore, you need to lose weight under the guidance of a doctor by developing a step-by-step plan 1 . As a rule, it includes the following items:

    • increased physical activity – this helps to burn calories and burn fat;

    • reduction of incoming calories due to changes in diet;

    • consumption of foods with fiber, which saturates well and normalizes digestion 2 ;

    • correction of the drinking regime, sufficient fluid intake;

    • struggle with stress, which is often “jammed” with dense and high-calorie foods.

    Before you start losing weight, you need to undergo an examination and, together with a specialist, determine what percentage of weight you can safely lose in a week or month. On average, weight loss should be no more than one to two kilograms per week. This will keep you healthy and prevent weight gain.

    What is important to know

    It is desirable that at all stages of weight loss you are constantly monitored by an endocrinologist or nutritionist. It is important to change the diet correctly, reduce the calorie content of food, while not losing the necessary vitamins and minerals. In addition, you need constant monitoring of blood sugar levels, dose adjustment of medications taken.

    It’s important that you don’t experience sudden fluctuations in your sugar levels during your weight loss period. This adversely affects the metabolism. If you experience conditions such as hypo- or hyperglycemia (low or high blood glucose levels above normal), then the diet or level of physical activity is not chosen correctly.

    How to adjust nutrition

    You can reduce your calorie intake by an average of 500 kcal per day. This will not affect the state of health in any way, but will lead to the fact that fat reserves will be gradually consumed. The total number of calories in your diet should be distributed in this way:

    • 1

      up to 55% are complex carbohydrates – whole grain cereals, durum wheat pasta, legumes, buckwheat, millet, rice;

    • 2

      about 25-35% – for fats, mainly vegetable; salads with olive or sunflower oil, dishes with avocados are suitable; it is permissible to eat no more than 10–15 g of butter for breakfast;

    • 3

      Approximately 10-25% protein foods such as lean meat, poultry or fish, steamed or grilled, boiled, stewed or baked without oil.

    It is important that the bulk of the carbohydrate components contain fiber and complex carbohydrates (whole grain bread, cereal side dishes, vegetables). Sweets, starchy foods (potatoes, corn) should be less than 10% of all foods.

    Physical activity

    Regular exercise and physical activity increase calorie expenditure. It also makes it easier for you to maintain your blood sugar levels. If you practice daily, you can gradually lose extra pounds without harm to health. If you have type 2 diabetes, you should average at least 150 minutes of physical activity per week 4 . This is about 20-30 minutes of practice per day.

    Aerobic exercise is especially beneficial as it speeds up the delivery of oxygen to the tissues. It can be classes in the gym or at home, frequent walks in the fresh air, swimming or cycling. Start with feasible exercises, gradually increasing the load. Remember that physical activity should be part of your lifestyle, even if the weight is not falling as quickly as you would like. It also helps control diabetes.

    References

    1. Modern options for the treatment of obesity in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus | Demidova T. Yu., Ametov A. S., Selivanova A. V., Roitman A. P. | “RMJ” No. 6 dated 03.03.2005

    2. Joslin Diabetes Center: “How Does Fiber Affect Blood Glucose Levels?” Ley, S. Lancet, June 7, 2014.

    3. American Diabetes Association: “Healthy Weight Loss.”

    4. CDC: “Physical Activity for a Healthy Weight.”

    OST”

    THREE VALUABLE ADVICE FROM MC DOCTOR OST

    For those diagnosed with diabetes by doctors, weight loss is both paramount and difficult to achieve. Weight loss is vital, it reduces the risk of complications of diabetes and allows you to minimize the dosage of antidiabetic drugs.

    But how to do that? Exhausting strength training is prohibited. How to lose weight with hypertension – a frequent companion of diabetes? Getting on the treadmill is definitely out of the question. Feeling hungry is also absolutely impossible. Even being nervous and anxious is not recommended, so as not to provoke cravings for sweets. So what to do if you really need to reduce weight with diabetes, what methods to use? Specialists of MC “Doctor Ost” know the answer!

    Expert opinion

    MAKSIMOVA T. P.


    CHIEF DOCTOR OF THE MEDICAL CENTER “DOKTOR OST” IN CHELYABINSK, NEUROLOGIST OF THE HIGHER CATEGORY

    Diabetes mellitus is not a profile disease of Doctor Ost Medical Center. However, patients with such a diagnosis are not uncommon in our country. Every year, endocrinologists refer to us for treatment at least 450 patients with complications caused by diabetes mellitus. These are neuropathies, neuralgia, diabetic foot syndrome, nerve inflammation, high blood pressure and post-stroke conditions. With the help of advanced technologies, we provide effective care for such concomitant diseases. On average, in 86% of cases it is possible to reduce pain and numbness. But diabetes itself needs to be treated. And weight loss in this case is a paramount task.

    It is statistically significant that weight loss of only 7% significantly reduces the manifestations of diabetes and increases life expectancy. Even more pronounced results can be achieved if you sound the alarm in time and start losing weight at the stage of prediabetes. Only 7 kg per year is enough to prevent the diagnosis of diabetes. However, it is extremely difficult to ensure such dynamics in losing weight, steadily reducing the amount of fat mass without bouts of hunger.

    The installation of catgut biothreads according to the “maixian” method opens up great prospects in the non-drug treatment of diabetes mellitus. After the installation of catgut, such patients demonstrate much better dynamics, since it is easier for them to adhere to the recommendations of doctors in the diet. They do not feel hunger attacks, notice improvements in general well-being and – most importantly – gently but steadily reduce the amount of adipose tissue.

    Diabetes: how to lose weight without harming your health?

    This disease is still mysterious: each organism reacts individually to a systemic failure. Some have an innate tendency, and diabetes, and with it, excess weight appear quite early. In others, the weight does not increase, but decreases sharply after the onset of the disease. For the time being, someone does not suspect that the usual hypertension and excess weight are caused by diabetes.

    TIP 1: DON’T GO ALONE!

    Sometimes it seems to the diabetic patient that all his efforts to lose weight are windmills that he fights unsuccessfully, like Don Quixote. In order not to fall into despair, enlist the support of professionals.

    At Doctor Ost Medical Center, you can get individual recommendations from a nutritionist. It makes sense to stick to a low-carb diet and strictly observe the hours of eating. A nutritionist will help you choose a list of allowed foods and cooking recipes, and then everything depends on the patient with diabetes. Every diabetic understands that he must monitor excess weight, pressure, hunger. but it shouldn’t turn into paranoia. This is where difficulties often arise.

    A consultation with a psychologist will help you cope with inhibitions, feel your motivation for recovery, adopt a new lifestyle and cope with stress and breakdowns. Together, you will be able to control diabetes and excess weight, high blood pressure, hunger and thirst.

    Even if a patient with diabetes sincerely tries to lose weight, it often seems to him that there is no result at all. The question arises: I do everything in order to reduce weight, why can’t I still lose weight? The reasons are obvious: high expectations.

    TIP 2: HURRY SLOWLY

    It should be recognized: a failure in metabolic processes and in the level of hormones in diabetes requires a special approach to losing weight.


    The extra weight will definitely go away, but not as fast as we would like. After all, standard weight loss programs are not suitable for people with diabetes. There are not so many ways to lose weight in the arsenal.

    In addition, sudden loads and jumps in blood sugar levels will not benefit a diabetic. This means that you need to lose weight gradually and carefully. And the best allies in this are: consistency and a psychological attitude to success without too much nervousness.

    TIP 3: USE CATGUET!

    The cause of obesity in diabetes is that sugar is poorly absorbed. Excess weight, therefore, rapidly accumulates due to metabolic disorders, but massive fat deposits, in turn, distort the hormonal background and also negatively affect metabolic processes. The circle closes, and it can be broken only by acting from the inside, if you debug the work of the endocrine system.

    Medicines, as you know, act from the outside and rather roughly. It will not work to refuse medicines, this is an obligatory part of therapy for diabetes. Reflexology will help not to become a hostage to drugs and reduce their dosage.

    The most famous types of reflexology include acupuncture, but there is also acupressure, heating.