Diet Strategies for Diabetic Women

Often, women with Diabetes try to reduce their insulin intake, when they discover that doing so might help them lose a few kilos in a few days. But when they get back to their regimen of taking insulin normally, they begin to gain weight. Women with Diabetes usually face problems in keeping their weight constant. This could affect their nutrition intake, since they also tend to vary the amount of food they take according to the changes in their insulin intake.

People are comfortable about the fact that they manipulate their insulin dosage to lose weight. What they do not realize is that it is not their insulin level that is making them gain weight or preventing them from losing it. Although reducing insulin dosage does help in weight reduction, weight loss happens mainly due to water and muscle being broken down, and not all fats. And losing weight at this rate could be hazardous and unhealthy - not to mention the fact that keeping blood sugars high could make the patient increasingly prone to long-term Diabetes complications.

When insulin dosage is incorrect, the blood sugars run high, a condition that can cause dehydration. This is usually thought of as weight loss, but actually what is lost is just plain water that was being retained in the body. But when the dosage is corrected, the fluids are regained, and this feels as if weight is rapidly being gained. Proper insulin intake just enables body to use food in a better manner and maintains the water balance. Since women tend to be more conscious of weight gain they find that the best way to keep trim and fit is by reducing their insulin levels.

Apart from increasing susceptibility to hyperglycemia, a reduction in the use of insulin also makes one hungrier because the food taken is unable to get into the cells as energy to nourish the cells. Often, when a patient observes that she has lost considerable weight, she gets back to taking her normal dose of insulin and continues to eat same amount of food. But now, due to the availability of sufficient amounts of insulin to process the food eaten, weight is gained. Others using intensive insulin therapy may find they are gaining weight simply because they are over-treating low blood sugar reactions with too many calories.

Weight Gain Principles

Women are more prone to weight gain, whether they have Diabetes or not, for a variety of reasons, including biological and evolutionary ones, and their lifestyles also contribute significantly to weight-gain. Women store fat more easily than men because female hormones tend to promote the formation of fat. Before puberty, boys and girls have about the same amount of body fat, but after (at around twenty years of age), girls have 22 percent body fat, and active boys only about 10 percent.

To be precise, male hormones keep muscle mass high and fat levels low, while female hormones do just the opposite.

The ways in which men and women gain weight is different too. Women deposit fat from bottom up, beginning with the thighs and buttocks, then the stomach, and finally on the upper body, arms, etc. Men gain weight first in the stomach - the classic big beer belly. The area where fat is gained first is the area where it will be lost last - which is why it is so hard for women to lose weight on their thighs and rear end, and weight loss seems to happen first in the face, neck and upper body.

Lifestyles also affect weight gain. Skipping meals actually causes the body to gain weight. When a meal is skipped, the body feels the need to conserve calories instead of burning them, and cuts down on its rate of metabolism. It also stores more calories as fat, doing so to store its reserves and to protect itself from being caught short next time a meal is missed.

This happens to those who go on super low calorie diets too. Metabolism slows down and the body adapts to being starved, which is rather unhealthy.

If you are Diabetic and overweight, you must realize that real weight loss only begins when you stop fooling around with your insulin dosage, stop skipping meals and stop following the fad low-calorie diet of the week. Allow your body a controlled yet nutritious diet and exercise. Weight loss is a slow process, but it will happen if you use the right approach.

The Key to Weight Loss

The best way to lose weight is to speed up your metabolism by spreading your calories over the day.

Women with Diabetes must exercise regularly and not skip meals. They must learn to follow a proper diet, with adequate calories, and make sure that they don't starve the body of them. If you follow a diet of 1500 calories a day, then it should be spread over three meals and one to two snacks throughout the day. This ensures that fewer calories are stored as fat than if you ate all of them at one time. This keeps metabolism steady.

A set point theory can be followed which goes by age, that is, increasing the diet according to increase in age. Fat in the diet must be reduced.

Exercise

When trying to lose weight, people should focus on the quality, and not just the quantity of the food they eat. If there is a change in the quality, then it is most likely to lower the set point. So once the set point is lowered a normal low-fat meal can be taken and set point weight maintained.

Women look out for the perfect diet, but there isn't one, and that's the reason why there are so many diets around. There are people who define food as good or bad, and some whose entire day revolves around food. Many of us take our failure to lose weight as a personal failure. Some lose a lot of their self-esteem, when the real truth is that diets just don't work unless they are individualized and relevant to one's lifestyle, and food preferences and are supported with an active lifestyle.

Many women with Diabetes let their sugars run high to lose weight, risking long-term health and well-being. They ought to realize that there are programs to help people lose weight sensibly and healthily, and use these programs.

For those whose problem isn't just weight, but an obsession with food, thinness and losing weight, there are also people and programs that can help. Certain antidepressant medications have been known to help patients with eating disorders begin to put food and their weight in perspective.

One shouldn't let food, and the desire to be thin, run their life. It high time we stop conditioning our minds around notions about being fat or thin. After all a person is considered more for the health he or she radiates than for the picture they present. Agreed that being obese is bad for health, but a proper diet under the guidance of a dietitian could be a better alternative than cutting down on insulin shots and putting your life in peril. Women have to stop feeling guilty and punishing themselves around food and weight gain.