Losing Weight with Diabetes - Interview with Andrew Berry

As for eating “clean” foods, I know you wrote about that recently in your article, “What am I supposed to eat?” You (Ginger) have been eating “clean” for about a year now and seen the results really pay off! But also, if reducing carbs is too much to think about at first, just focus on eating less junk food. Less ice cream and chips,  less bread and butter and cheese. Less candy. Etc.

Ginger: Ohhh, yeah! I love it, actually, because it’s so much easier to control my blood sugars when I don’t eat a lot of carbs and junk. I feel like there is a lot of residual “leftovers” in my blood when I eat a lot of junk that my body is still trying to handle long after I’ve been eating them.


ANDREW
And the less carbs you eat…

Ginger: …the less insulin I need, and because insulin is a fat storing hormone, I store less of my nutrition as body fat. Instead, I use proteins and fats as fuel and the proteins to help my muscle repair and build.

ANDREW
Okay, so:

Step 2: Exercise! Even if you only have a half hour of time each day to focus on walking or jogging, basketball, whatever you like to do, it will make a difference. Not only do you burn calories exercising, but you’ll increase your insulin sensitivity through becoming regularly active. And like we said already, the less insulin you’re taking, the less body fat will be stored, and the more body fat you’ll be burning for fuel.

And a huge part of exercise for someone with diabetes is checking your blood sugar. You (Ginger) checked your blood sugar all the time when we first started training a year ago because you wanted to learn how different exercise affected you. Now, it seems you really don’t have to think about it all that much because you know how your body works. It’s all about trial and error. Keep good notes, a blood sugar diary, and don’t give up when you get frustrated.


Ginger: Definitely. One of the biggest things I learned was what my pre-workout blood sugar could be in range of to keep me high enough throughout a whole workout. That way I never worry about consuming extra carbs and I can workout without worrying about my blood sugar dropping.

Step 3?

ANDREW
Step 3: Weight training. Ginger is an easy example of how important it is to add even a little muscle to your body. Muscle uses insulin to absorb nutrients, so the more muscle you have the more sensitive you are to insulin—therefore, the less insulin your body needs.

Another part of weight training that is different from simply going for a run is that when you train properly, your body is burning a lot of calories for a good 12 hours following your workout as it works to repair the muscle you broke down.

Ginger: Yeahh, baby! That’s one of my most favorite things about weight training: I take almost half the amount of Lantus insulin than what I was taking a year ago! And muscle burns a lot more calories than body fat tissue, so I actually eat a lot more calories (clean calories, of course) than what I ate a year ago and I’m still losing body fat.