Many people worry about gaining extra winter weight as the temptation to hunker down with comfort food strikes. With Type 2 diabetes this worry is compounded by the dominant focus on losing weight to manage the disease. But there is another way.
The truth is that weight either gets maintained, creeps up over time or jumps up reasonably suddenly from a life circumstance.
Mostly it creeps up over time until we eventually realise, usually with big (and unwelcome) surprise, that a new dress size has emerged!
A dress size is equivalent to approximately 5 kilos gained for women and is unfortunately a lot harder to lose than it is to catch and pull back the 1-2 kilos creeping on at the time.
But that’s the catch with weight creep.
The statistics vary about ‘creeping weight’ levels
The weight that creeps up slowly on you mostly depends on how glucose intolerant your body is. For a non-glucose intolerant body, an average gain is anywhere between 0.5-2 kilos for a whole year. It doesn’t seem much of a gain for a whole year but multiply that by 10 years and you’ll see and feel the difference!! For a glucose intolerant body with Type 2 diabetes and medicines, the average weight gain can be anywhere between 3 -7 kilos per year and that is often paired with a gap in knowledge or utter despair of what to do to prevent it.
The glucose intolerant body is one with high levels of insulin. When you remember that insulin is a fat storing hormone and the diabetic body has high levels of insulin much of the time, it’s easy to see the vicious cycle that leads to despair.
It is estimated that as many as 95% of women have dieted at some point in their lives and often repeatedly, and at least 95% of weight loss does not stay off long term.
Successful weight loss is considered 1 year or longer. Further to this is that many women in particular, are unhappy with their current weight with weight loss on their mind constantly. Increasingly, it is also a priority for men to focus on achieving a healthy weight.
A new thought – Maintain the weight you are!
With so much focus on weight loss, there’s another way to look at it. What if we shifted the focus this winter to simply maintaining the weight we are? Just doing this would cut off the weight creep each year. Imagine in 10 years being your current weight!
This shift alone improves the picture of Type 2 diabetes and obesity, with benefits beyond the physical. It takes a lot of effort to first try and then fail to lose weight, leading to negative feelings of failure. However, maintaining your current weight could be a smart plan that may bring more feelings of success. It’s no secret that we usually achieve success from feeling positive, which will support other positive changes!
Learn More>> [thrive_2step id=’55796′]Watch the Winter Weight Video Series to get the expert information, resources and tips you need for success. Click here.[/thrive_2step]
How to maintain the weight this winter
There’s no denying it, winter is a time for ‘cosy’ food with relaxing, warm clothes that we can hide within. But taking our eye off the ball can allow weight to creep up and really impact blood sugars and health issues.
People that ‘seem’ to maintain their weight ‘easily’ often actively manage for this outcome. Very few people can ‘eat what they want and when they want’ and maintain their weight year after year. This group of people sit somewhere between 10-20% of the population. Men more easily than women fall into this category, as women are endowed with more efficient fat storage and an elaborate hormonal system to enable baby development. For the glucose intolerant body, the outcome of maintaining winter weight requires more planning and care.
Know your weight
Weighing yourself with body scales is not the only way to ensure you are maintaining your weight over winter, however if you are a person that is comfortable to weigh daily, it’s important not to look for an exact weight in order to feel happy. It will fluctuate due to the complexities of hormones, fluid retention, when you last ate and more. Instead, take the base weight to set for yourself and then the weight range can be 1-2 kilos from that, up and down. Note that a two kilogram range would be more for a bigger frame or body weight. It is this range that you’re working to maintain over winter.
Understanding the problem
Our world is full of strong ideas about weight loss. The ‘calorie in and calories out’ theory has repeatedly failed to be proven as a successful strategy, and so has the ‘move more and eat less’ theory more often involving hormonal imbalances rather than calorie imbalance. We really have been barking up the wrong tree for decades and these false beliefs have reached millions of people around the world. If you have dieted according to these many outdated or unproven strategies, you will understand the pitfalls! They are not the strategies to turn to in order to maintain your winter weight. Instead we look at balance between food, hormones and time for your set body point.
Working with your set body point this winter
Did you know we each have a ‘set body point’? This is a weight that is stable, easy to maintain and is hopefully a healthy body weight for your height and frame. Imagine accepting your current weight and deciding that it is comfortable, healthy and acceptable to you? Oh the mental freedom! And imagine having the skills to maintain this weight over the years, taking the tussle out of it?
Your set body point can be proactively re-corrected downward, to go against what mostly occurs over the years – being pushed up to keep settling at higher levels.
The art of maintaining your weight with Type 2 diabetes is eating well and avoiding the yo-yo diets that create further problems with your body set point.
The ideal strategy is to maintain a stable winter weight, even if it is higher than you would like. In The Diabetes Clinic Online programme our members have five ways to identify their healthy body weight and then ‘give or take’ 5 kilos.
Eating over winter to maintain your weight
So what should you eat over winter to ensure you can maintain your weight? Skip the winter diets, shakes, pills or calorie restriction and download enjoy our ]Winter Warmers Free Recipe Book[/thrive_2step] full of LCHF (low carb, healthy fats) ingredients that will support safe, sensible and realistic winter weight maintenance.
Type 2 diabetes is greatly impacted by weight. Where your healthy body weight is out of reach, starting with not gaining further weight is a good first step, to allow the body to settle before shifting focus to losing weight. Our team at the Diabetes Clinic have specific expertise in weight loss, and our online programme has been helping people achieve healthy weight and improve their Type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes. Check out the programme here.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more diabetes specific support – The Diabetes Clinic Online channel
MAINTAINING WINTER WEIGHT VIDEO SERIES
Need more help in maintaining weight over winter? Contact us to request our video series on the why and how-to for success. A healthy weight is directly linked to health and lowered insulin resistance. Join the series to maintain your same weight at the other side of winter.
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