Insulin resistance - IR - A term commonly affiliated with type 2 diabetes. Meaning your body doesn’t absorb insulin easily or quickly or well. It is MOST COMMON in type 2 diabetics. The combination of IR and T2D causes weight gain, rise in BSL (blood sugar level) and chronic fatigue… On top of difficulty losing weight and gaining it easily.
Legendarily IR is only seen in type 2 diabetics, but that is a legend…. Because i’m a type 1 diabetic and I am insulin resistant.
I’m a type 1 diabetic, doing everything I can in my power to be healthy, and i’m insulin resistant? WHAAAAA??
This is what being me looks like with insulin resistance AND type one diabetes. I am on an insulin pump, I have a CGM (continuous glucose monitor) and I eat almost completely paleo. (My two regular exceptions to paleo are healthy potato chips, and diet soda) I also work out 3 to 5 times a week, crossfit and running. YET I take twice the insulin amount of insulin a regular diabetic injects daily, and I am ten to fifteen pounds heavier than where the doctor would like me. And what weight the doctor wants me to be is 10 pounds heavier than “the charts” in the docotrs office say someone my age and height should be. HOW?? I’ve asked myself so many times, “How can I not lose weight, why do my blood sugars keep rising? I eat next to no carbs and I crossfit?!”
I brought this HOW question to my doctor because I was so frustrated! He was also curious why and after looking at my insulin intake and my weight he said that we were looking at insulin resistance..
ODD…. My body doesn’t produce insulin, a vital hormone needed to survive, YET, when I inject myself with insulin it also resists it. My body stubbornly decides it's going to take it’s jolly good time absorbing insulin. There isn’t a “cause.” I didn’t do anything wrong to cause this. It’s just the way things are.
If you struggle with insulin resistance don’t blame yourself. Yes, if you sit on the couch eating all day and don’t exercise then you probably have insulin resistance. Being overweight and inactive breeds insulin resistance. But it can also happen on its own. If you are working hard to do your best everyday with your health, eating right and staying active, then don’t get frustrated with the situation - just figure out how to fix it.
Now, how to fix this??? So, from my non-medical-professional-perspective excess glucose that is not used by the cell turns into fat. Chubby lumpkin here we come. I’ve tried to understand the HOW AND WHY to weight gain and diabetes and it’s a mess. Synthetic insulin causes weight gain and insulin resistance cause weight gain! Just trying to wrap your mind around it all is impossible. SO let's not try to understand it right now (I’m still figuring it all out and when I finish i’ll post about it all as simply as possible.) Instead, what can WE do about our insulin resistance.
TIP TIME!!!!
1: Stop breeding it! Watch your eating. Don’t kill yourself over it, avoid unnecessary snacking, eat three meals a day, watch your sugar and watch your calories. Enjoy yourself, but limit what you can. DO YOUR BEST! NO EXCUSES!
2: Be active, go for a walk, jump on your old trampoline, run, join a gym, find a sports league to join. Exercise makes you burn the food you eat and the fat that already exists on your body. The more weight you lose the more insulin absorbent you will be. The more active you are the less insulin you will need the more weight you will lose! See, it’s a happy cycle where exercise and activity can really help the IR problem.
3: Now, I understand that Chronic Fatigue makes us feel so tired that some days it hurts to get out of bed. Diabetics struggle with chronic fatigue and depression on a daily basis. These two conditions promote staying in bed and being inactive. A HUGE cure for depression is getting out in the sunshine. From personal experience it helps just to walk a half mile and then climb right back in bed if i’m struggling with fatigue or depression. That is enough, do what you can without pressuring yourself. YOU’VE GOT THIS.
You can talk to your doctor about medication and other helpful ways to fight insulin resistance, but as always from personal experience i’d say do your best and do what you can to avoid making your insulin resistance worse. It is manageable and you’ve got this!
