How to Increase Weight With Type 2 Diabetes Diet

Although most people first experience the rigors of diabetes through uncontrolled weight gain, some individuals lose too much weight while attempting to manage their diabetes, necessitating a weight gain diet to return your physique to a healthy level. Though weight gain while following a "normal" diet is not much of a challenge, attempting to balance your needs as a diabetic with your need to put on a few pounds can result in a bit of a struggle.

Instructions

Weight Gain Diet for Diabetes

1

Begin keeping a regular food log so you can more accurately track your progress. Write down the foods that you consume each day, along with the total calories contained within the foods. This will allow you to make more subtle caloric adjustments than you would be able to without the presence of a food log, resulting in more linear weight gain that can decrease the possibility of gaining undue amounts of fat in the process.

2

Maintain adherence to the general tenets of your basic diabetic diet while attempting to gain weight. The Mayo Clinic recommends using a combination of carb counting and consumption of low-glycemic index foods like fruits, veggies and whole grains to counteract diabetes, so do not unbalance this basic formula at first. Continue eating the same types of foods that have been working to control your diabetes, but increase the amount of food that you are eating from protein and fat sources slightly, increasing the number of calories you are consuming each day by 200 to 300, looking for a weight gain of 1 to 2 pounds per week. Keep your overall daily carb total the same at first. Assess progress at the end of every week.

3

Adjust the plan if weight loss stalls or if you are failing to gain weight at all. Increase your daily calories by 200 to 300 once more, but also slightly increase your daily carb total. For example, if you were previously eating 50 grams of carbs per day, bump that number up to 75, spread evenly across all of your daily meals. If after another week or two you are still failing to gain weight, increase daily calories again (just from protein and fat this time). Continue in this pattern until you reach your goal, increasing daily calories by 200 to 300 each time and increasing your daily carb total slightly with every other "bump," watching carefully for increased symptoms of diabetes in the process.