Weight Control and Diabetes
by Staff EditorT he vast majority of people with type 2 diabetes are over¬weight. In fact, the fat in your body may be the primary reason you have diabetes. Fat is metabolically inactive and resistant to insulin. If you have the kind of diabetes primarily character¬ized by insulin resistance, your weight may be the cause of it. Weight loss, through diet and exercise, is one of the key goals of treatment for type 2 diabetes. Lose enough weight and you may be able to normalize your blood sugar levels without medication or insulin.
Losing weight isn't easy. If you've been overweight for many years, you may have convinced yourself that you can’t lose weight. But you can! Here's the absolute truth: when you take in more calories than you burn up in the course of a day, you gain weight. But when you take in fewer calories than you burn up, you lose weight. This is a rule of nature, as certain as the ris¬ing and setting of the sun. It doesn't just work for some people. It doesn't just work for thin people. It works for all people.
There are two ways to make this law of nature work for you. One is to cut down on the calories you eat and drink. The other is to increase the amount of exercise you do to increase the number of calories you burn. Better still, do both at the same time.
Steps to Control your Weight:
To control your weight, the first step is to find out how many calories you're eating right now. To do this, you'll need to arm yourself with a book that gives the calorie counts of foods. There are several good ones available. The Complete Book of Food Counts, by Corinne T. Netzer (Dell), is one of the most comprehensive. For packaged foods, you can get the calorie count by checking the label. (Just be sure to notice that the calories given are per serving. Eat the whole package and you may be eating several servings!)
Then, start a food diary. It doesn't have to be anything fancy-an ordinary notebook or pad of paper will do. In this diary, write down what you eat and drink-every bite and every sip-and note how many calories you're getting. Total them up at the end of the day. On average, men need about 2,700 calo¬ries a day to maintain a healthy weight. Women need about 2,000. You may find that you're getting a lot more than that!
Don't set yourself up for failure by going on an extremely low-calorie diet. For the first few days, it's best not to change the way you're eating at all. Just get in the habit of recording the calories you eat in your food diary.
After a few days, when you're comfortable keeping your food diary, start trying to reduce the number of calories you're getting gradually. Save 150 calories by drinking a bottle of water or a diet soda instead of a regular soda or fruit juice. Pass up your usual between-meals snack. Swear off French fries. Stop those midnight snacks. Make small changes and continue to keep your diary. Congratulate yourself on even modest reductions in the number of calories you're taking in. Even cutting a small num¬ber of calories makes a big difference over time. It takes 3,500 calories to make a pound of fat. Cut back 500 calories per day¬-or burn 500 more with exercise-and at the end of the week you will have lost a pound. Or-if you're still eating too much-at least you will have avoided gaining a pound!
Don't let your subconscious mind sabotage what you're doing. Remind yourself, over and over, how important it is to your diabetes control and your overall health for you to lose weight-and never doubt that you can do it. Tell yourself that you are a strong, self-disciplined person. Visualize the athlete inside you who is waiting to get out. Celebrate every bit of progress you make and rededicate yourself to making even more.
Above all, remember that if you are gaining weight, it is because you are eating more calories than you are burning up. Reverse that formula-burn more than you eat-and you absolutely, positively will lose weight.
