Can Weight Loss Help Me Reverse Prediabetes?

Diagnosing prediabetes can be a pretty jarring wake-up call about your health, but it’s also an opportunity to take inventory of the habits and behaviors that led to your elevated blood sugar (glucose). You’re not without help: With support from our Physicians Weight Loss Center Highlands Ranch experts, you can keep your glucose levels in check. 

At our Highlands Ranch, Colorado office, we specialize in results-driven medical weight loss programs complete with personalized counseling, weight loss medications on a case-by-case basis, and weekly weigh-ins to keep you motivated. Losing weight normalizes your blood glucose levels, so it’s a great place to start if your physician informs you that you have prediabetes. 

Whether or not you already have elevated blood sugar, losing as little as 2.2 pounds over the course of three years can reduce your diabetes risk by up to 16%. Our team has the expertise to create a program based on your goals and ensure you see results. Prediabetes is not a guarantee of diabetes down the road as long as you commit to healthy lifelong habit changes and we can help you adapt. 

Diabetes and your weight

Contrary to popular belief, obesity doesn’t cause diabetes or vice versa. However, your body weight can play a role in elevating your glucose levels and causing insulin resistance. This is especially true if your weight challenges stem from a combination of a sedentary lifestyle and an unbalanced diet. 

Being overweight or obese is a risk factor for prediabetes but not the underlying cause or mechanism. If you have prediabetes, you have elevated glucose in your blood because a hormone called insulin, which facilitates the transfer of sugar into your cells for energy purposes, cannot keep up with demands. As a result, your blood sugar stays elevated unless you take steps to control it. If you continue living life as usual after a prediabetes diagnosis, it may eventually develop into Type 2 diabetes. 

How weight loss helps

Losing weight by any means can in fact lower your blood sugar and help reverse prediabetes. Weight loss makes your cells more receptive to insulin, which makes insulin more effective at transferring glucose from your bloodstream to your cells. Diabetes prevention isn’t the only benefit of weight loss when you have prediabetes: It also lowers your risk of coronary heart disease. 

The medical weight loss advantage

Managing your weight might sound simple on the surface, but many people find that it’s not so simple on their first independent attempts. Some lose significant weight rapidly thanks to crash diets and other nonscientific approaches but later gain the weight back. 

Medical weight loss stands out as the most effective strategy for weight loss because the evidence-based programs are customized according to the individual patients’ needs. They also help you keep the weight off: Not just lose it in the first place. Our weight loss programs at Physicians Weight Loss Center Highlands Ranch emphasize the importance of a sustainable low-calorie diet and regular exercise alongside possible medical strategies like medications or injections. 

To start with a personalized weight loss program for your prediabetes, we invite you to visit the office for a detailed evaluation complete with a physical exam and body composition analysis. Schedule your no-obligation consultation by phone or online to take charge of your prediabetes today.