Diabetic Diet for Weight Lifters

When weightlifting, diet composition is as important in achieving your goals as performing an intense workout. For weightlifters with diabetes, maintaining a well-balanced diet to meet the needs of a workout can be a daunting task. Apart from meeting existing nutritional guidelines to combat diabetes, diabetic weightlifters must also meet dietary challenges to benefit from their workouts.

Weightlifters with Type 2 Diabetes

• Weightlifting can be beneficial to type 2 diabetics (the most common type of diabetes where the body either does not produce enough insulin or has become insulin resistant). The strength training not only allows diabetics to reach physical goals related to getting into shape, but it also helps reduce and eliminate fat cells in the body that are known to resist the effects of insulin on cells, which raises blood sugar levels.

  Compensating for this abundance of sugar, dietary sources of carbohydrates should shift away from refined foods, such as products with processed sugar or manufactured flour-based ingredients, and focus more on complex sources, such as whole grain-based products. The amount of fat in the diet also needs to be limited and replaced with more fiber. To build muscle, protein consumption needs to be increased through lean protein sources, such as lean meats, fish, or egg whites.

Type 1 Weightlifters

• Type 1 diabetes is a disease where insulin, the chemical that allows sugar into cells to produce energy, is not occurring naturally in the body. Type 1 patients should move away from refined carbohydrate sources, and consume more natural products instead. Protein, the essential weightlifting diet component that promotes muscle growth, needs to be efficiently regulated in type 1 diabetics, as too much protein can overwork the kidneys. Protein sources should also come from lean meats, fish, nuts, eggs, and egg whites. When you lift, your body needs insulin as the transfer mechanism for allowing amino acids into your muscle cells to give you energy. Due to this chemical process, insulin levels should be checked post-workout to compensate for used insulin.

Supplements

• Dietary and body-building supplements have become a recent standard for weightlifters attempting to reach their fitness goals. Supplements such as folic acid, omega-3 fish oil, vitamin D, and vitamin B6 produce their respective positive health benefits in diabetics. For more intense weightlifters while protein supplements, such as whey protein, may promote muscle growth, intake should be moderated. Remember; an overabundance of protein in the diet of a type 1 diabetic may negatively affect kidney functions.

  Although the dietary habits of diabetics can be overwhelming, nutritional limitations should not prevent exploration of physical fitness. Weightlifting can be an advantageous tool in managing your diabetes while achieving your fitness goals. However, because diet is an integral part of health management for diabetics, always consult your primary care physician or your endocrinologist for recommendations for a successful dietary composition to benefit weightlifting.