[vulnerable26]

Thursday I went to see a diabetic nurse. She gave me a "diet" that I should follow. I told her that I was consuming anywhere from 40 to 90 carbs in a day. She looked at me and said no wonder you gained 50 pounds!

Basically I gained 50 pounds because my last Dr had me on 100 to 300 units of insulin a day! I have pcos and IR. I had been asking for months to start taking metformin to help with the IR.

I saw a new endo a month ago, put me on metformin without questions and in about a month I dropped 12 pounds. And my insulin dropped to about 40 units a day total. With help from the low carb diet.

Now that I am going on the pump, my new endo wanted me to visit the diabetic nurse to learn how to count carbs. She said that my low amount of carbs were leading to gaining weight due to the fact that my liver produces more sugar?

Anyway she now wants me to eat 150 to 200 a day! I tried that on thursday and friday and I was soo sick from it! I could barely get out of bed to exercise, so tired, and the metformin was making me sick because of the high carb/fat increase to my diet. Plus my readings were all over 200. I personally think I am just going to throw this "diet" out the window!

[PERKDOUG]

You are correct to doubt the advice to add carbs. The biochemistry is simple (but beyond the grasp of the nurse), insulin is the hormone that is the main driver in fat storage. Low glucose drives low insulin which slows weight gain. Eat carbohydrates and glucose goes up driving insulin up accelerating fat storage. The nurse's over simplified logic probably comes from the fact that fat has 9 calories/gram and carbs have 4 calories/gram. The nurse concludes fats are more fattening. It ain't that simple. I challenge anyone to try to gain weight eating all you want of nothing but fatty beef steaks. Add a few baked potatoes and you can become a blimp.

[Tiger Lily]

well, despite what the nurse had to say, i was losing weight very nicely (slow, not too fast) eating 80 grams of carbs a day

then my weight loss stalled, so i tried adding more carbs back........ just great, i GAINED weight

so, i took the carb level down to 60 grams a day, and voila, i'm losing about 1 to 2 lbs a week again

i'm pleased for myself and i don't care what the nurse has to say! LOL

[BrianSCohen]

vulnerable,

You may very well have gained weight because of your high insulin levels. PCOS and IR, you certainly have insulin resistance. Insulin enables the uptake of sugar into our muscles, but it also signals our bodies to lay down body fat. Drop you insulin levels and keep up with your low carb diet. That is exactly the thing you need to do.

Your dietician is just feeding you the ADA line on diet. Ignore you dietician's recommendations on carb targets, set your own targets, 40-90 g/day is fine. You can learn a lot about carb counting from your dietician, just ignore the other advice that does not make sense. Frankly the idea that low carb causes weight gain is just whacked.

[vulnerable26]

Originally Posted by BrianSCohen

vulnerable,

You may very well have gained weight because of your high insulin levels. PCOS and IR, you certainly have insulin resistance. Insulin enables the uptake of sugar into our muscles, but it also signals our bodies to lay down body fat. Drop you insulin levels and keep up with your low carb diet. That is exactly the thing you need to do.

Your dietician is just feeding you the ADA line on diet. Ignore you dietician's recommendations on carb targets, set your own targets, 40-90 g/day is fine. You can learn a lot about carb counting from your dietician, just ignore the other advice that does not make sense. Frankly the idea that low carb causes weight gain is just whacked.

Yes exactly prior to beng diagnosed I lost 70 pounds. As soon as I started the insulin I gained a lot of it back. recently since I have better control of my pcos as well as IR, I lost half of the the weight I gained. So when she told me to follow her "diet" just did not make a lot of sense to me!


And you are correct it was a handout off of the website. I did learn what I needed to learn which was the carb counting, my endo did not want me to get a "diet" just a simple how to count carbs..

thanks for the replys..