Quick Question about Insulin and Weight Gain <sigh>

you’ll love it. maybe with a little salt and pepper (unless using the pepper smoked turkey, and then the S&P is unessessary.)

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Already made and eaten. :grin: all the difference… thank you, ma’am. :dancer:t2:

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which kind of turkey did you use?

The kind my mom put on it. :grin:

I’ve been using Oscar Mayer Natural stuff… at like a buck a slice. We have to do gluten free so everything is a buck a slice.

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Ain’t that the truth. :laughing: My grocery budget has gone up exponentially since going gluten/dairy free (and now more heavy on the meat/produce with LADA).

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cant you just eat fresh turkey? what is gluten anyhow? and why avoid it? my cousin has Chrones Disease, but he eats almost what we eat; nothing without gluten.

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So I would prefer to eat that, but it’s harder to find gluten free fresh deli meat. Wegman’s used to put “gluten free” on their sticker, but then they changed it to “contains only gluten free ingredients”. Which means there could be gluten in their preparation area.

My 13 year old has true Celiac disease, so we can’t bring anything containing gluten into the house. Gluten is wheat. It’s pretty intense. Exposure to gluten, or so the story goes, increases his risk for things like type 1 diabetes, autonomic neuropathy, and Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Last summer we shared a hotel room with a couple of other kids, allowed them to have bread and pizza and just tried to clean up after them, and he ended up developing episcleritis, which is a systemic symptom of the exposure. He accidentally ingested gluten not long after that, got episcleritis again, but this time it lasted almost 2 months and left his eyes solid red with blood. So we take it seriously.

And I buy the $18 box of highly processed going-to-give-me-cancer stuff. Taking one for the team.

@EricH made a comment on Saturday that he probably ate an additional 2000 calories for corrections in a 24 hour period. Now, he was operating a jack hammer for hours on end which is super unusual exercise, but he was drifting low all day after over-injecting for breakfast.

But an extra 2000 calories will probably add to body weight if done consistently enough was his thought.

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Indeed my waist size has actually gone up by an inch despite exercising rather vigorously 4-5 times a week (or 3-6 times, if you prefer). I haven’t been eating as cleanly as I did when I was at my lightest.

Good news though: “weight” isn’t necessarily all bad. I’ve built quite a bit of muscle as well, so that’s good. (note I’m in a pretty healthy / ordinary weight band, so I’m a little lackadaisical about small amounts of weight gain).

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That seems excessive, but I have a feeling it probably really isn’t all that crazy. I know I have torn through, ravaged, a disturbing amount of calories during many a crash. The worst has always been after exercise… because there’s no feeling like burning 600 calories only to pack in a thousand.

It is one of the best (and only good, in my opinion) things about auto mode and the 670G. Across the board people report dropping 15-20 pounds. It’s because it knocks out a lot of those corrections. That WAS a fantastic feeling. On the flip side, it also ran me so high there was never a good time to eat, also contributing to weight loss and not a fantastic feeling.

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Gluten is also in, like, everything. Okay, most processed things for sure. I was recently at a birthday party for a 12-year-old and one of his friends had celiac. She was incredibly well versed in label reading, and explained to a number of adults at the party exactly what food stabilizers and additives contained gluten. I was proud of her!

Also, @Nickyghaleb I’m glad you know the ins and outs about celiac. I’m in the process of doing a gluten challenge so I can be tested for celiac and recently had a GP tell me that there are “no risks of gluten exposure for someone with celiac” (he was instantly fired). Second GP insisted that all bloodwork would have correct results without a gluten challenge even though I’ve been GF for years (he’s also wrong, but I’m running out of doctor options).

Anyhow, glad to read you’re on top of it for your kiddos. :slight_smile:

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Wow. That’s like medical care in our area… where instant death is a risk in any doctor’s office.

.[quote=“TravelingOn, post:51, topic:4353”]
Second GP insisted that all bloodwork would have correct results without a gluten challenge even though I’ve been GF for years (he’s also wrong, but I’m running out of doctor options).
[/quote]

Yeah, that’s also not okay. So you’re reintroducing gluten, right?? At least weeks before an endoscopy? Blood work is not a terrible indicator, but it misses 10% of cases. And a scope and biopsy is the golden standard, but it won’t reveal a thing if you’re not consuming a regular amount of gluten in your diet. And there’s more! Even WITH biopsy, it’s one of the most commonly overlooked diagnoses because it’s considered a splotchy condition. It’s a known error, one that my own GI made (still mad), that is commonly made… that they take just one sample. The current theory is that at least 6 samples need to be taken… my kid’s GI, long before I understood that, made that very clear prior to doing his diagnostic scope. She explained she would be taking between 6-8 samples, and I remember thinking it was excessive. I later read why. So, especially if the pickings are slim in specialists, I think I’d have a conversation prior to any testing…

Just a little unsolicited advice. :slightly_smiling_face:

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:raising_hand_woman: My family seems to always fall into the small percentages. I tested negative on bloodwork until nearly 3 years after I basically self diagnosed (with doc’s agreement, based on family history, symptoms, and improvement on gf diet) and went gf…my doc had been testing me for 10 years with blood work only because she was so sure I’d develop it. I just didn’t know enough at the time to ask for a biopsy.

Ouch! I’m thankful we live near an Aldi - cheap stuff for $3.19/lb, labeled gluten free.

Why I don’t love doctors. Even the really nice ones. Especially the really nice ones. :smiley:

We have Aldi, too… though our bread there is still $4.50 a loaf… but it’s far away. Too far to make it a ritual anyway. Love their selection. Love their prices. Wish they were closer. We have to buy our GF food from Target and Food Lion. Surprisingly, only kind of, Food Lion is way more expensive. Same box of cereal, $2 cheaper at Target. But maybe it’s because Target’s food isn’t real… i swear their produce is made of plastic.

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Yes, after many years of not eating it. I did a lot of reading and came up with 6 - 12 weeks of gluten consumption before blood work or biopsy. So, I’ve dove in. My skin hates me and my guts are rapidly catching up to also hate me again.

My doc mentioned that biopsy sometimes misses the damaged sites since the intestine is a large area, so reading about your experience makes me hate him and his misinformation a tad less - although it’s still bogus to tell someone the wrong information. He really wasn’t a fan of the scope and biopsy. I’m thinking a trip out of town to a specialist is probably in order.

Thanks so much for the unsolicited advice. Seriously. I think it’ll save someone hours of trying to figure it out on their own!!! And it made me feel much less crazy!!! :kissing_heart:

That made me lol…I can’t imagine having to shop mainly at target for groceries. So expensive!

Try avocado instead of mayo (i like the taste better)!

Or, mash up the avocado with some lemon/lime juice and garlic salt and spread. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Since I went on the pump 18 months ago, I’ve put on almost 20 pounds. However, my control is SO MUCH TIGHTER. My doctor actually commented at my March appointment that the control vs. the weight gain kind of sucks. Yes, using more insulin can make you fatter. It sucks, but that’s the price of low A1cs…unless of course you seriously step up your exercise, which I am now doing. I’ve lost 8 pounts in the last six weeks. GO ME!! But seriously, what he said makes sense if I had thought about it. In the six weeks prior to diagnosis (in 2001), I lost 21 pounds because my sugar was out of control (no insulin). I checked into the hospital and my blood sugar reading was 625, A1c 10.8. After about four months and I got things under control (and was actually on a pump way back then), my sugars were pretty normal, A1c 5.9 - but I’d gained about 30 pounds. Makes me crazy but what can you do but exercise? :roll_eyes:

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That IS awesome. You should feel great about that.

This is the exact reason I started the thread… to confirm whether or not this was a fact. I also had a medical professional in an early part of my disease imply that using insulin was going to cause weight gain. It was absolutely not helpful information, and I got it into my head, with every dose, that this is what was behind the extra pounds. I’m glad I asked the question here because it turns out it’s a misconception… and a dangerous one at that. Insulin doesn’t make you fatter, the weight gain is actually an indirect consequence of either extra calories consumed while correcting lows or because we’ve eaten more foods that REQUIRE insulin. The only way it can be associated with weight gain at all is in the fact that it is the key to our bodies being able to store fat. Without insulin, we can’t store fat, which becomes evident in the weight loss people experience when not doing it. Like you described. But it’s flawed thinking to think then of insulin as CAUSING weight gain… it just stops our bodies from completely destroying itself. I’m trying to put it all together here— all of what I’ve learned about it. I’m not sure I got it right.

This is exactly what happened to me. And it was hard putting the weight back on. It wasn’t only because of the weight gain that I was upset… it was also the complete loss of understanding of WHAT I should eat. I had a jar of peanuts in my car that I would eat from in traffic. I figured they were great for diabetes. I forgot they had fat. Turns out they weren’t bad for my diabetes, but they weren’t good for the size of my rump. :smiley:

That’s what worked for me, too… go figure. I had to learn how to do ALL of my insulin, ditch the car peanuts, and put on my running shoes. And then just chip away at it. I do a lot of insulin now and have for quite some time, and I have lost 20 lbs in the last year. Turns out, for me, it wasn’t the extra insulin over the last month… it was the peanuts. Again. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

AND the cookies… dammit.

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