The Balanced Body Podcast24 Maj 2023

INSULIN | Your insulin questions answered

I wonder what your feelings are towards insulin.
Often there is a lot of anxiety, fear, and even guilt associated with it. You might be hoping to stay diet controlled during your gestational diabetes journey and feel like you're failing if you need to rely on insulin or medication. Or maybe it impacts the type of care you receive, e.g. whether you have midwifery led care or not, or the level of monitoring you need during your birth. Maybe you simply have a big old needle phobia! I can absolutely see how you could feel worried about all this. But I really want to reassure you that taking insulin is not as scary as you think. It doesn't mean that you haven't tried hard enough, or that you or bub will gain a bunch of weight, or that you're doing the wrong thing. It's actually an amazing tool and I can't even tell you how many times someone has told me that after starting insulin it was like a huge weight was lifted off their shoulders. I know you might be surprised reading this, given that I'm a dietitian and I'm supposed to always be advocating for a "food first" approach. And while this is true, and I think there is soooo much we can do in terms of optimising your blood sugar with diet and lifestyle modifications, it isn't always going to cut it for everyone. I see insulin as a brilliant way to ensure that you can optimise your diet even further, because it means that you don't have to be super restrictive with your food intake. If you're eating super low carb or cutting a lot out of your diet to maintain lower numbers because you're scared of starting insulin, you're not putting yourself or bub in a better position. Getting in enough carbs, and enough nutrition overall, is just as important as maintaining balanced blood sugar. So if insulin helps us achieve a really good quality diet and balanced blood sugar - I'm cheering! It doesn't mean your diet is suddenly a free-for-all though.
You still definitely need to make sure you are eating the right type of carbs and appropriate portion sizes for your needs. Anyway, I hope this gives you a new perspective on things.
Taking insulin isn't a failure, and you're doing great. And in this episode I hope to shed some more light and answer some of your biggest questions about it, including: what it is, how it works, the different types and shed light on some of the big concerns around things like weight gain. x

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Links and resources:

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Thanks for being here x

Disclaimer:

The information in this podcast is provided for informational and educational purposes only, and is not a substitute for individualised medical and nutrition advice. Please speak to your healthcare team before making any changes to your diet and lifestyle. Helena (and any guests) do not accept liability for any harm or damages that occur from following suggestions in these podcast episodes.

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