Bulking and spiking insulin

chainsaw

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When your are eating a 5000+ calories how do you manage to control your blood sugar. I am eating 6-7 times a day and all but one of those meals contain carbs+protein. I know it is not good to spike insulin all the time but carb+protein illicits a higher insulin spike than either the two seperate. So when pounding down the cals I choose low GI carbs but with all the whey and the milk blood sugar can get out of control.

How do I manage this on a bulk to keep from becoming insulin resistant, and would it be a good idea to take supplements like ALA, Pslin, and other glucose disposal agents to help with insulin resistance?
 
MentalTwitch

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Well Pslin is a repartioner if im correct, may help a little.

Na-R-ALA is good. You kind of just gotta go for it though, dont sweat it to much. Keep the food clean and you shouldnt have issues.
 
Nitrox

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How do you know that your blood sugar is out of control? Are you getting some symptoms of insulin resistance?
 

Eagleman003

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Add BROCCOLI and green vegtables to EVERY meal and this will help a ton... also add fat to meals to slow down absoprtion
 

chainsaw

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How do you know that your blood sugar is out of control? Are you getting some symptoms of insulin resistance?

Certainly, I never knew what it was, my doctor told me I was hypoglycemic, but I figured maybe the was exercise induced and the time of day he tested me.

Year ago when I started lifting and I got turned on to weight gainers, I noticed they worked real good at first as far as a pump from the sugar. I swithced to the Malto/Dex combo and was running about 10g pre 10g during and 40g post workout. I would get a good solid pump before the workout and a good pump and sustained energy during the workout. I started to see less and less of these effects about 2 months after taking this. I started to bump the dosages up and I would get the same feeling of being pumped, but it would eventually wear off and I would have to bump the dosages up again.

I also have poor recovery between sets. I have to take large breaks 3-5 minutes between sets just to have enought same amount of strength for the next set. This sucks because you lose your tempo, workouts become boring. However I tried like 60-90 second rest periods workouts felt great I got my blood flowing, just felt great, but my weight was down a great amount. For instance I usually use 95DB on incline bench for 8 reps. With big breaks I three working sets look like 8,8,6. With short breaks I was down to 65-70lbs DBs for a rep range 8-6. Thats 20lbs of difference.
 
Nitrox

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Doesnt sound like conclusive evidence of insulin resistance to me. Given that your blood glucose was low when your doc tested, I would say that if you have a problem that it could even be the hypo- not hyperglycemia. But yes anyone can get slightly hypo given the right circumstances.

There are two ways to get conclusive evidence: get your own glucose meter and run a few tests every day for a few days or have your doc order a glucose tolerance test for you.
Without that kind of quantitative information there really is no way to know what your blood glucose or insulin levels are really doing.

Otherwise, approaching it qualitatively is really just common sense. Factors that increase insulin output are: increased energy (e.g. calories) intake, increased percentage of carbohydrate intake, and increased insulin resistance. From my experience insulin resistance is increased primarily from energy intake. Notice that energy intake appears twice? So do not add fat to your existing meals in order to help control sensitivity; it will backfire since you are just increasing total calories. Replacing carb or protein calories with those from fat is ok.

The slower you bulk (e.g. lower calories) the easier it will be on your insulin function. 5,000 cals is alot to me but if you're a big guy and/or a laborer it might be fine.

I wouldn't bother with supps but that's just me. Been there done that, no difference.

HTH
 

chainsaw

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Doesnt sound like conclusive evidence of insulin resistance to me. Given that your blood glucose was low when your doc tested, I would say that if you have a problem that it could even be the hypo- not hyperglycemia. But yes anyone can get slightly hypo given the right circumstances.

There are two ways to get conclusive evidence: get your own glucose meter and run a few tests every day for a few days or have your doc order a glucose tolerance test for you.
Without that kind of quantitative information there really is no way to know what your blood glucose or insulin levels are really doing.

Otherwise, approaching it qualitatively is really just common sense. Factors that increase insulin output are: increased energy (e.g. calories) intake, increased percentage of carbohydrate intake, and increased insulin resistance. From my experience insulin resistance is increased primarily from energy intake. Notice that energy intake appears twice? So do not add fat to your existing meals in order to help control sensitivity; it will backfire since you are just increasing total calories. Replacing carb or protein calories with those from fat is ok.

The slower you bulk (e.g. lower calories) the easier it will be on your insulin function. 5,000 cals is alot to me but if you're a big guy and/or a laborer it might be fine.

I wouldn't bother with supps but that's just me. Been there done that, no difference.

HTH

Thanks man great advice, I am going carb down for a while and see how that goes but ultimately I need alot of cals to gain weight. Will check in on the glucometer, what should I be looking for when I read it?
 
Nitrox

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If you are in the States then blood glucose is measured in milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl)

Fasting AM readings (just after you wake up, before breakfast) should be around 90 mg/dl. This is the baseline that your body always wants to come back to. Likewise, it should be around there 2-3 hours after a meal (maybe longer if its a really large meal).

One hour post-meal should max out somewhere in the 145-180 range depending on size, carb content, and GI (ie. large servings of dextrose/malto are bad).

If you are in Canada then measurements are in mmol/L and you have to divide all those numbers by 18.
 

chainsaw

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If you are in the States then blood glucose is measured in milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl)

Fasting AM readings (just after you wake up, before breakfast) should be around 90 mg/dl. This is the baseline that your body always wants to come back to. Likewise, it should be around there 2-3 hours after a meal (maybe longer if its a really large meal).

One hour post-meal should max out somewhere in the 145-180 range depending on size, carb content, and GI (ie. large servings of dextrose/malto are bad).

If you are in Canada then measurements are in mmol/L and you have to divide all those numbers by 18.

Yes I am in the US. So if my readings are grossly different than those, like say I wake up with really low blood sugar or if I eat a high carb meal and blood sugar does not go that high that would be and indication of insulin resistance?
 
Nitrox

Nitrox

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If AM fasting glucose is:
- low (say below 75 or 80 on a regular basis) that would be hypo
- high (110 or higher on a regular basis) then you are resistant/early type-2

One-hour post meal:
- high (say above 180) suggests resistance/type-2
testing at this time won't really diagnose hypoglycemia unless it is rebound from eating high GI carbs and then performing intense exercise.

One note, glucometers are not perfectly accurate, especially at low readings. That is why you have to take an average over several days and still take results with a grain of salt. Don't panic if you see the odd result.

HTH
 

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