Why I gained weight.

Hello again lovely folk of the interwebs!

Last time, we were talking about how I gained weight. Lets continue from there.

I talked about being a diabetic, and how that affected my diet and insulin levels. Now lets discuss how that actually made me gain weight.

Insulin causes fat growth. There's a lot of articles and research abut it, but one of the first things I learned as a diabetic, and have the growth to prove, is taht when you inject often enough in the same place, you get a fatty deposit in that place. Mine is now a LOT smaller than it used to be, but you'd think at some point I might have twigged that the insulin was the cause of the weight gain- I didn't though, its not the sort of correlation you'd really think of when you're so over-focused on what you're eating.

And I was eating a LOT of carbohydrate. Why shouldn't I? I could just take whatever insulin I wanted to compensate for it. I had already figured out that it didn't really matter what kind of carb it was, be that sugar or something more starchy- science had told me it all ended up as sugar in my blood in the end anyway.
For whatever reason, having higher carbs and insulin levels made it much easier to hypo- mainly through misjudged dosages for the amount I was eating. Because I was taking so much, if I didn't have enough I had a blood sugar low much more serious than if I'd had a lot less insulin- you get the idea.

So I'm eating whatever I want and slowly gaining more and more weight. To someone who might be bigger, maybe you're thinking "A size 12!" That's nothing! That's still thin!", But to me, I had ballooned. I was uncomfortable. I had started to have trouble bending over and was frightened by how tight my clothing had gotten. I didn't want to get any bigger, but I also had no idea why.

So now we know how I got fat, and why. For a non-diabetic person, you'd be experiencing the same things. You eat carb because you are hungry and need energy. Your body sends out a lot of insulin to deal with it, and then you find yourself hungry again because its all gone too fast. So you eat more carb to satisfy the cravings, and end up producing more insulin again than you need.

But listen, here's the hardest thing to accept. Carbohydrates are not the only way to get energy to your body. The other way is Proteins and Fats. Yes, Fats. Fats are actually good for you! And before anyone goes "Oh, there are good and bad fats", I want you to go and talk to your doctor about whether or not differentiating between them actually, ACTUALLY does any good, or even has any point at all. I call bullshit on the "bad fats". Just like I call bullshit on the healthy eating Pyramid. It's following that dogma of grains, starchy foods and fruits at the base of that stupid pyramid that has resulted in an obesity crisis that no-one seems to know how to actally fix. Well, I do know, and its all fairly simple.
You're not probably even fat because you eat too much, and certainly not fat because of eating fatty foods. Fat does not beget fat. Causing too much insulin production in your body is how you beget fat. And the only way to cause insulin production is to eat carbs.


As always, I do expect you to do your own research. This is your health, your own body at stake, and you need to take responsibility for it as though your life depends on it- because it does depend on it.
Start with your GP. And if your GP doesn't have time to chat about this with you, get a new one. And even then, scrutinise what your GP says and do your own research!


That's all for now kids, next time we will talk about what happened after those first few months of baffled weight loss, and what happened after that.