Diabulimia: How long does it take to lose weight?

Page 1 of 1 [ 9 posts ] 

ImaginaryTime
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker
Yellow-bellied Woodpecker

User avatar

Joined: 2 Nov 2010
Age: 32
Gender: Female
Posts: 54

21 Nov 2010, 10:39 am

I am a Type 1 (insulin-dependent) diabetic, age 18. I was diagnosed at the age of one year. In the past, I have generally been diligent with giving myself the appropriate amounts of insulin. However, I fear that I may have gained five or ten pounds in the past few months (though I cannot be certain, because I never look at scales), and I desperately want to lose weight. I am not obese, nor have I ever been, but I am simply not as thin as I would like to be. Awhile ago, I read about something referred to as "diabulimia", or the intential deprivation of insulin for the purpose of rapid weight loss. Unfortunately, none of the information I have found says how long it takes to lose a significant amount of weight. Does anyone have any idea? I would rather not do this for a long period of time, because I do not want to cause permanent damage. I just want to lose 10 or 15 pounds as quickly as possible.



jagatai
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 21 Feb 2010
Age: 58
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,475
Location: Los Angeles

21 Nov 2010, 11:12 am

First of all, that doesn't really sound very safe. While not taking insulin for a brief amount of time might not cause serious damage in the long run, it can't feel that good. But I would think that a type 1 diabetic would be at much higher risk for the advanced medical problems that can arrise from mis-handling of their condition.

Another critical point is that the only way to effectively keep weight off is to develop habits that you can maintain for life. What is likely to happen if you deprive yourself of insulin is that you might lose weight, but the moment you start giving yourself the proper dose of insulin, you will gain the weight again. You can't expect a temporary adjustment to create a permenent change.

You might find you can lose weight faster and more effectively by doing it the old fashioned way; reducing calories and increasing exercise.

I have always had trouble with weight. I recently had some symptoms that looked like type 2 diabetes so I made some drastic changes to my diet and exerice. I suppose I should have figured this out earlier, but when I forced myself to limit the portions I ate at each meal to a cup or two of food, plus I switched from a lot of pasta and other high carb foods to a lot of legumes with vegetables, I started to lose weight quite quickly.

In the past 5 weeks I have lost about 15 lbs. Frankly I think this is a bit too fast and I am forcing myself to eat a little more so that I don't start consuming my liver and muscles. My understanding is that you should never lose more than about 2.5 lbs per week.

At first I was worried that I would feel hungry all the time. It turns out that while I felt a little hungry for the first couple of weeks, eventually the reduced portions started to feel normal and now if I eat much more than that, I feel uncomfortably full. The inconvienence only lasts a few weeks.

While reducing how many calories you are consuming and increasing the calories you are burning isn't necessarily easy or fun, especially at the beginning, it seems to be the only long term effective way to lose weight and remain healthy. Being a thin corpse isn't as much fun as it might appear.

Good luck.


_________________
Never let the weeds get higher than the garden,
Always keep a sapphire in your mind.
(Tom Waits "Get Behind the Mule")


mechanicalgirl39
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 6 Apr 2009
Age: 33
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,340

25 Nov 2010, 4:54 pm

Please do not do that to yourself. It's not worth ending up in a coma just to look a little slimmer.


_________________
'You're so cold, but you feel alive
Lay your hands on me, one last time' (Breaking Benjamin)


Pondering
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Oct 2010
Age: 179
Gender: Male
Posts: 1,851

25 Nov 2010, 7:32 pm

If possible, I would advise finding a good cardio routine for weight-loss, and perhaps a healthier diet. In just a short amount of time and the right amount of cardio and calories, one can lose very many pounds, especially in the beginning. That is often when you lose a lot of weight in a small amount of time, when you begin.. For me it was the first month or two, where I had lost about 18 lbs.



auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,605
Location: the island of defective toy santas

26 Nov 2010, 9:04 am

in general, low-carb diets have [various studies] proven most effective at maintaining weight loss, which is far harder to do than losing the weight in the first place.



Metalwolf
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 24 Jan 2008
Age: 44
Gender: Female
Posts: 948
Location: Pennsylvania 78787878 787878 7878787878787878

26 Nov 2010, 10:51 am

auntblabby wrote:
in general, low-carb diets have [various studies] proven most effective at maintaining weight loss, which is far harder to do than losing the weight in the first place.
That tends to be the hardest part about weight loss thatI've found, is keeping it off. There are about a million ways to lose it, but heaven help me I can't keep it off without having to resort to some odd methods.

ImaginaryTime, I wouldn't recommend doing the 'Diabulemia' thing. For one thing, it might throw you into hyperglycemia from the rising blood sugar, and secondly it's not a permanent way to lose weight.
Losing weight is easy, it's keeping it off that is hard.
I have 15 pounds that I need to lose (I am in the 'overweight' catagory, and I can't afford new pants right now.) I got that way because I stopped biking regularly and started eating too many bready foods. But I can do it.

If you are concerned with your weight, maybe you can ask your doctor for a diet plan that is tailored for diabetics. It should have lists of foods on there and portion sizes that might help you. Plus the doctor can moniter you and give you helpful suggestions while you do it.


_________________
Crispy Pickles!!


boxxarom
Raven
Raven

User avatar

Joined: 2 Jul 2011
Age: 35
Gender: Male
Posts: 109

31 Jul 2011, 5:18 pm

auntblabby wrote:
in general, low-carb diets have [various studies] proven most effective at maintaining weight loss, which is far harder to do than losing the weight in the first place.


I really have no idea what diet plan to suggest for someone with diabetes. I did however find this article that may be able to help.

http://diabetes.webmd.com/features/diab ... right-path

I wouldn't do a low carb diet. While they are effective at losing weight, they really aren't healthy. When you starve your body for carbohydrates it burns fat AND muscle. When you burn muscle it lowers your metabolism. Carbs are also what the body uses for energy, when the body is deprived of them it lowers your overall stamina.

These two websites have all the diet and exercise advice you need.....Im still not sure about a diabetic diet plan though :cry:

http://www.bodyrock.tv/

http://www.scoobysworkshop.com/


_________________
Fighting, to me, seems barbaric. I don't really like it. I enjoy out-thinking another man and out-maneuvering him, but I still don't like to fight." - Sugar Ray Robinson


auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,605
Location: the island of defective toy santas

31 Jul 2011, 5:30 pm

there are better carbs and worse carbs. as far as low-carb is concerned, one should be low-worse carb [i.e. anything refined/white like white flour, white sugar, corn syrup, starches] but higher better carb [quinoa, oats, barley, wild rice, spelt and the like]. grandma's "stick to your ribs" foods are the low-glycemic index carbs that are the ones one should be eating more of, while krispy kremes are an emblematic example of what ones should be strictly limited. i hope that made sense.



1000Knives
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 8 Jul 2011
Age: 33
Gender: Male
Posts: 5,036
Location: CT, USA

18 Aug 2011, 2:36 pm

Just eat less empty calories (ie, avoid things like Coca Cola and instead drink tea or something) and exercise an hour a day with something that'll burn calories. Caffeine as a supplement can help, too, to get more endurance in your exercises (I actually drink sugared energy drinks much of the time before ice skating, 700 calories an hour for me, so a 300 calorie energy drink basically becomes zero due to the higher amount of stamina I have with it), but the downside is if your heart isn't working awesome (ie, high blood pressure) you can basically kill yourself, so yeah, various stimulants might help, but if you can avoid them, do so, but caffeine specifically what it does is, allows you to turn fat into calories to be burned while exercising, so after you run out of carbs, you can transition to using fat seemlessly, again, though, it is a diuretic, can raise pulse, etc, so be careful. I'm thinking of just switching to pure ginseng instead, but anyway...

Also, you're risking possibly killing yourself over 5 or 10 pounds? Just start doing a physical activity you like everyday. It can be anything almost, as long as you do it a long time. I used to ride my bike a ton, but now skating is my new "obsession" (or is it that normal people don't devote themselves to anything ever?) and since I started skating in March or so, I went from 215 to 188 pounds currently, and picked up a ton of muscle. The past month or so, though, I've been doing off ice training to help me skate better, too, and starting to care more about my diet, etc. If you like something, you'll just do more exercises and lifestyle changes to facilitate it, and you know, really, it can be anything, as long as you don't care what others think. I'm a 20 year old male and I figure skate, socially odd, yes, but I like it, and it helps me, so whatever. I also started doing inline skating and bodyweight leg exercises to help my skating power/endurance.

Hope this is helpful, God bless.