Gaining Weight After a Diabetes Diagnosis

Dear Ginger,

I gained weight after I was diagnosed with diabetes. I don't get it! I'm not really eating more and if anything, I'm eating much healthier food! Why did I gain weight?

Hey! I gained a few pounds, too, after my diagnosis. And it's totally normal. When you're first diagnosed, you're still trying to find the right balance of insulin for your body (...actually, I'm always trying to find the right insulin for my body ‘cause there are so many variables between exercise and the seasons, that it's always changing).

Anyways, when there's too much insulin in our bodies, our blood sugars drop, right? So, then we have to eat more to bring it up. We often end up eating food and calories we might not need. And for some of us, low blood sugars might make us sort of binge on food because hypoglycemia gives us strong cravings that makes our brains scream, "Eat! I need sugar! Eat! Eat! Eat!"

In the end, we eat more than we need because it usually only takes about 15 grams of carbs to bring our glucose back up, but we really ate about 50 or 60 grams' worth of food -- often, junk food.

The solution? A good place to start is to try to prevent hypoglycemia by checking your blood sugar more often and counting your carbohydrates carefully in order to keep yourself from dropping low as often. Also, how are you treating your lows? With Snickers' bars and ice cream? Try to resist the strong urge to treat low blood sugars with junk food. Instead, carry a small juice box or fruit leather or anything that is less than 100 calories and 10-15 grams of carbs with you. When you're prepared for hypoglycemia, you can treat it the right way.