wieght loss on Metformin

[siobhan_wray]

I just strated on met, and i am curious to know to know how much wieght everyone has lost if any, i have heard that some have lost wieght and others havent. I have gained wieght so fast because of met and need to lose it ! 2 years ago i was a size 4 and now i am a size 20! Any sugesstions anyone could give or there experiance may give me a little more of realistoc view of what to expect... thank you

[slightly]

My endo said that the more weight you have to lose, the more results you will see. So, for example, someone with only 20 lbs to lose will not likely see super fast dramatic results. Whereas someone with more weight to lose will probably see results quicker.

Good luck!!

[Tootie]

I've been on met for a year and a half and I've lost 60 pounds to date. With the help of weight watchers and walking alot also. Just taking the met won't cause me to lose the weight - I've tried but with diet and excerise it is SLOWLY coming off.

[Laurie Stallings]

Met can either cause you to lose or gain weight, depending on your diet.

When you are IR, the extra insulin floating around in your blood sort of blocks your body from releasing fat stores to use as energy, so what you don't burn gets stored as fat and your body won't burn it away, often even if you try dieting. Your brain reads the insulin in your system and assumes you are using carbohydrates for energy so you don't need to use fat as energy. In reality, you are using carbs, but not effectively since your cells are resistant to the effects of insulin.

So, when you start on Met or another insulin sensitizer you won't have all of that extra insulin floating around in your system and your brain will allow your body to start burning fat stores after your burn your carbs, thus causing some to lose weight.

HOWEVER, this weight loss is only going to happen if you burn more carbs than you are taking in, so your body can go to the fat stores. If you don't burn more carbs, the extra carbs will just be stored as fat as well.

People starting on Met have to be careful, because now your body is going to use insulin more effectively and the carbs are going to be transferred to your cells more effectively, but if you don't burn them, they will turn to fat.

So, this is why Met can cause some people to lose weight and others to gain.

[Southerngal]

I wish I had the luck that you ladies have. I was put on Metformin and stayed on it for almost a year. I didn' lose any weight with it. My doctor told me I could quit taking it, so I did...

I have cut out carbs and exercize regularly and still cannot lose 1 pound. I hate the fact that I went from 140 pounds to 185 pounds in no time at all. Does anyone know if there is an alternative for Metformin? I read somewhere that a new drug was being studied for diabetics. It was similar to Metformin, but it really helped with weight loss. I can't remember what is was called...

[Laurie Stallings]

Did your doctor take you off Met just because you gained weight or couldn't lose weight? Because Met should not be used as a weightloss pill, it is an insulin sensitizer to be used to treat insulin resistance. Some people might lose weight on it because of its other use, but it is not a weight loss drug.

Your doctor first should have done a fasting insulin test on you to see if it was even doing its job of lowering your insulin levels. If your fasting insulin was good (under 8), than it was doing its job and you may have gained weight because of what I described above, you were not burning more carbs than you were taking in.

If your fasting insulin was still high, than it is possible you needed an increase in the dose.

Also, if the fasting insulin was good, there could be other reasons as well that could cause you to gain weight and not lose it, even now when you are dieting but it is still not working. For instance thyroid problems seem common in people with PCOS. Even if your thyroid is low-normal it can be causing weight problems.

So, the reason you may not be losing weight now could still be attributed to either insulin resistance or thyroid problems, or both, or even something else.

This is why diet and excersize are so important, even on something like Met, and why getting proper blood tests and understanding what they all mean is so important.

[LinemanWife]

I never lost any weight while on metformin. I actually gained weight even though I was puking constantly from it. And I was watching my diet too. I thought this was the devil's medicine, LOL. That was several years ago and I stopped it and never tried it again.