Best Diet for Insulin Resistance

jamesd

SlimmingSusan wrote: »

have searched and come to the conclusion I am insulin resistant.

That really takes some actual evidence, not just faith based on having gained weight.

To get some evidence you might consider buying say the SD Codefree blood glucose testing machine. It's inexpensive and uses cheap supplies. Then, instead of speculating, you can measure your actual blood glucose (sugar) levels and see whether they are above the normal range or not.

Foods with a high glycemic index (fast to digest into sugar) will produce more of a spike in blood glucose than those with low glycemic index. You can find tables of glycemic indexes for foods. Someone who is not in any way close to being diabetic may have no or a minimal spike anyway, because their body may just respond strongly enough to prevent the rise. That's less likely when overweight and/or with insulin resistance.

But don't be misled by a focus on glycemic index that type 1 diabetics must have. You aren't a type 1 diabetic and don't have the same blood glucose control issues. Instead, with weight to lose, total calorie count matters more and reducing fat is the easiest way to achieve that, perhaps assisted by pills that reduce how much fat is absorbed, like Orlistat, available in a roughly half strength version over the counter as Alli. Both forms reduce the amount of fat-soluble vitamins that are absorbed and taking a multivitamin is a good idea if using one of them.

If you are actually in the diabetic blood glucose range then Metformin is likely to be prescribed and it's associated with causing some weight loss. It won't be of use to you if your blood glucose levels are normal and isn't available over the counter.

If you are in the diabetic blood glucose range the first priority is to get the blood glucose levels down well into the normal range because the complication rate is directly linked to how far above normal they are. Weight loss can follow as one of the steps that can help substantially longer term. Substantial weight loss can eliminate the need for medication for a while, sometimes decades.

If a doctor thinks that you may be diabetic or significantly insulin resistant and pre-diabetic an A1c blood test would be used for diagnosis. This gives a result for the average blood glucose level over the previous 8-12 weeks, because that's the sort of range of the life of the red blood cells it considers in the test.

Since it's now after the blood test date you gave it's possible that you have the results already, so know if any diagnosis was made and what those results were.