The short answer is yes, gaining weight with diabetes is possible. People with diabetes indeed often struggle with weight gain due to medications plus a sedentary lifestyle. Lack of exercise can contribute to weight gain, which results in higher blood glucose and unhealthy cholesterol levels.
Some foods can help you to gain weight without causing big rises in your blood glucose (sugar) levels. These include foods high in: Protein, such as meat, fish, chicken, legumes, eggs, nuts and full-cream dairy foods. Energy, such as margarine, avocado, nut butters, oil and salad dressing.
When there is a lot of excess insulin and blood sugar in our blood stream, it signals our body to put that excess sugar in storage. We can store some sugar in our liver and muscles, however, when these are full our body start to store the extra sugar as fat. This of course starts to cause weight gain.
People who take insulin often gain weight. Insulin is a hormone that regulates how the body absorbs sugar, also known as glucose. The weight gain can be frustrating because keeping a healthy weight is important to manage your diabetes. The good news is that you can maintain your weight while taking insulin.
Insulin and glipizide (Glucotrol) are common diabetes medications that can cause weight gain.
Metformin does not cause weight gain, unlike some other diabetes medicines.
This may be due to menstruation, heart or kidney failure, preeclampsia, or medicines you take. A rapid weight gain may be a sign of dangerous fluid retention. If you quit smoking, you might gain weight. Most people who quit smoking gain 4 to 10 pounds (2 to 4.5 kilograms) in the first 6 months after quitting.
Avoid foods that are high in simple sugars. Fructose, or sugar, can cause visceral fat to grow. Reduce the amount of sugary drinks, juices, refined grains, baked goods and processed foods in your diet. Eating to your energy needs can help prevent visceral fat from occurring or increasing.
Nausea, heartburn, or bloating can have many causes, but for people with diabetes, these common digestion issues shouldn't be ignored. That's because high blood sugar can lead to gastroparesis, a condition that affects how you digest your food. Diabetes is the most common known cause of gastroparesis.
It can be an early sign of so-called "diabetic belly," a build-up of visceral fat in your abdomen which may be a symptom of type 2 diabetes and can increase your chances of developing other serious medical conditions.
Being overweight raises your risk for type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and stroke. It can also increase the risk of high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol, and high blood glucose (sugar). If you are overweight, losing weight may help you prevent and manage these conditions.
Strength training is the best way to transform calories into muscle. Use hand weights, resistance bands, kettlebells, and weight machines at the gym to build lean muscle. This is a more balanced way to increase weight than storing excess fat. Exercise can also increase appetite and reduce the risk of glucose spikes.
People with diabetes can easily get wounds on their feet. Improper cutting or care of toenails and feet is the leading cause that could lead to toe finger and foot amputation.
What is Diabetic Gastroparesis? Gastroparesis is a chronic condition where the stomach has trouble clearing things out of it because of damage to the stomach muscles. In diabetic gastroparesis, nerve damage caused by high blood sugar can make stomach muscles too slow or not work at all.
Thus, metformin is capable of accelerating the oxidation of fat in the liver, thereby leading to a decrease of visceral fat or body weight.
If you eat too much and exercise too little, you're likely to carry excess weight — including belly fat. Also, your muscle mass might diminish slightly with age, while fat increases.
Long-term side effects
Taking metformin can cause vitamin B12 deficiency if you take it for a long time. This can make you feel very tired, breathless and faint, so your doctor may check the vitamin B12 level in your blood. If your vitamin B12 levels become too low, vitamin B12 supplements will help.
Ozempic and metformin help most people to lower their average blood sugar levels (as measured by an A1c blood test), and these effects are quite significant. Clinical trials have established that (at its maximum dose) metformin can help decrease A1c by 1.5%, while an average dose of Ozempic can decrease A1c by 1.4%.