Thank you so much for sharing your experience.
I am T2D and started keto 3 months back. I do occasionally carb binge and noticed by BG spike to 230-250 and then come back to normal, though my BG never used to be that high before I started keto (max used to 170)
I am planning to avoid the carb binge and hope to achieve similar results like yours.
Your post is very inspirational to me, thanks again for sharing.
That’s amazing! I’m a little jealous lol. I wish you all the luck with that, though, and congratulations! Super cool.
Amazing!
to make your success more certain you may want to take the Kraft test as that is the only sure confirmation. It’s an easy test to take but the problem is that one has to eat non-keto for 2 weeks, as the results would be distorted otherwise.
To take the test you just order a fasting insul test but 2H before the test ingest 75g of glucose. If your value is under 30, you’re not insulin resistant or hyperinsulimic. Very straightforward and the most conclusive test you can ever take of your insulin. Fasting insulin is noisy and any test on glucose gives false negatives. There’s been a couple of podcasts of the 2kd where they talked about the Kraft test with Ivor Cummins, who’s interviewed dr Kraft several times.
I’ve got it planned 
I have been thinking exactly the same as you. As an experiment I tried eating non-keto/100% carb for 3 days and didn’t die so I’ll go through with the Kraft test in a few weeks - got some travel coming up so I want to have ketone-fueled energy and immunity to colds, but after that.
Wow can you feel my envy? but you’re hugely inspiring for me, as contrarily to the majority of people I don’t intend to stay keto forever, if I can.
What kind of fasts did you do mostly? you’ve said ADF. What about prolonged fast?
Great info! I take 1tsp of dry wheatgrass every other day (I do ADF). Do you think that would be enough or should I supplement further with chromium? or given that in keto there isn’t much glucose to deal with, should I not care about the chromium until I am close to be ready to reintroduce carbs?
Btw I had found an indian herb called Salacia Oblonga (I only know the botanical name) that was also said to control glucose levels - maybe it just contains a lot of chromium and vanadium.
I think keto will always be the core of my diet, because I love meat and vegetables+fat. But I am hugely delighted by the fact that I can enjoy fruit and tubers when I want them and not fear that I’m doing damage to myself. Hopefully you too!
I have done a bunch of 3-day fasts and 3 five-day fasts. I felt that it was empowering to do it and feel the control and live the experience. I think it is definitely useful to do to help reset IR.
Seemingly areas of the world where chromium vanadium and selenium levels are high in the soil have lower rates of cardiovascular disease.
Interestingly the Dead Sea Salt in Israel contains trace amounts of Chromium, Selenium & Vanadium in perfect ratios for the human body, you could probably take a bath with this type of salt and absorb it transdermally in perfect ratios rather than taking it orally?
References:
- Selenium, Vanadium, and Chromium as Micronutrients to Improve Metabolic Syndrome. Abstract: Trace metals play an important role in the proper functioning of carbohydrate and lipid metabolism. Some of the trace metals are thus essential for maintaining homeostasis, while deficiency of these trace metals can cause disorders with metabolic and physiological imbalances. This article concentrates on three trace metals (selenium, vanadium, and chromium) that may play crucial roles in controlling blood glucose concentrations possibly through their insulin-mimetic effects. For these trace metals, the level of evidence available for their health effects as supplements is weak.
Thanks I will look into that. Being trace elements I suppose transdermal would be quite ideal.
Thanks. I do not.like the food but I love the experience of control over cravings and loss of appetite I am having with keto. I also love that it makes fasting so much easier. And I love the experience of fasting done in this way!
I had an OGTT this June following: 1) 2 years of keto/lchf (January 2016 thru February 2018) and 2) 3.5 months of whole foods, mostly plants, relatively low fat (mid March 2018 thru June 2018).
When I got my results I was worried about what looked like severe reactive hypoglycemia. But after thinking it through, and chatting with some experts in this group, I realized this chart is likely the result of 2+ years of keto/LCHF which did exactly what was intended: it made me extraordinarily insulin sensitive!!
Since mid-March 2018 I’ve been eating whole food carbs every day… butternut squash, beets, carrots, sweet potato, peas, pears, peaches and berries…all of which I strictly avoided before (except late summer 16 thru summer 17 I included 100g sweet potato & 20g blueberries twice a week, on heavy leg volume days). I’ve been feeling great and, in conjunction with a 10 day water fast in March, an adjustment to my thyroid meds, and elimination of HRT, I’ve dropped 11 pounds. That could be, and probably is, solely due to the thyroid and sex hormone regulation, but my point is that I didn’t gain weight as a result of the huge increase in whole food carbs in my highly insulin sensitive state.
Here’s my OGTT test result:
Hi Suzanne- i’ve been following this post with interest, thanks for updating!
I’m glad to hear you seem to have figured your situation out, congrats!
I’m curious- were you definitely Insulin Resistant or Diabetic/Prediabetic 2 years ago when you started LCHF? Also, did you need to increase your Thyroid medication? When you started HRT was it for a deficiency (menopause, etc) or were you trying to “optimize” hormone levels?
I’m just finishing my first year of LCHF and have often wondered if my metabolism could be “fixed” or if I will always remain susceptible. Obviously- i get the difference between whole food carbs and processed foods; but I’ve been kinda paranoid about all carbs.
Thanks!
Hi @V1ncentt,
Thanks for your congrats. I hoped insulin sensitivity would translate to sub 20% body fat, but that hasn’t yet happened. The realized plus is feeling safe eating all the veggies I want.
I wasn’t diagnosed with IR or diabetes/prediabetes prior to starting keto. I did have hypothyroidism, and a sleeping disorder, both originally diagnosed in the late 90’s. Hypothyroidism was well controlled with meds until a check in mid 2016 showed low free T3. Free T3 hadn’t been checked regularly prior to that date, so I don’t know if it had been off for some time, or if it had been recently influenced by keto/LCHF, which I’d been doing for about 6 months, or by nearly 2 years of dieting/restricting. Regardless, from mid 2016 until my most recent test end of June 2018, my thyroid hormones were all over the place. Currently I’m taking more T3 and less T4 than I was last year. My sleeping disorder was cured by keto. Stopped the meds in May 2016 and have never needed them again (but even a small amount of grains brings back the sleepy brain).
I started HRT because of perimenopausal symptoms, but in truth I wanted optimal hormones for youthful skin. In 2017 my periods started to wane, getting very light and then stopping in August. Simultaneously I was putting on body fat and losing muscle. I’d also developed intractable constipation (over the prior 24 months). By November, when I’d ballooned up like the Michelin Man, my testosterone and estrogen levels were super high, so I quit HRT cold turkey under the supervision of my integrative health doc. I had 1 period as soon as I stopped HRT, then nothing until a 10-day water fast at True North this March. The day I started refeeding my period returned, and it was like the periods of my youth. I’ve had a normal period every month since, though not always at 28 day intervals.
Re fixing your metabolism, I can’t say. I can only add my experience which has taught me the importance of context and individual differences. I started keto for 1 reason: losing body fat. But over time, as I became more and more integrated into keto communities, where many participants were struggling with obesity, IR, diabetes, inflammatory diseases etc, I started grouping myself in with the strict, long term protocals required to manage those disease states. I stopped ‘choosing not to eat carbs for a specified time, for a specified goal’ and became terrified to eat carbs for the foreseeable future. When I saw my OGTT chart, instead of being elated, I thought,“What mysterious and sinister blood glucose dysregulation is this?” I laugh about it now, but that just shows the fearful mindset I got myself in.
I do believe metabolism can be repaired and health can be restored. I wish you success as you sculpt a plan for your own best health.
Thanks for sharing that. Keto/LCHF seems to help in a lot of ways for a lot of people; but we all have our individual variables. So glad your on the right track! I am still amazed how much better my quality of life is on this WOE. I’m gonna go slow with adding back carbs, but your experience has been insightful.
Thanks!
I’m T2 and currently using keto for blood glucose control. I’ve read most of the stuff you mention, but everything I’ve seen points to no “CURE” only a remission of symptoms… except Fung, who seems to say fatty liver and fatty pancreas are the root of cause of T2D, and IF no permanent damage has been done to those organs and enough fat is lost, one could become healthy again. Long term uncontrolled diabetic likely has permanent damage, but I think someone like us, only a few years past diagnosis and working hard to keep blood sugar under control, might just have a chance.
a couple of podcast comments from Richard, but I can’t recall which episode. if A1C is over about 6%, beta cells die faster than they can regenerate, so with a treatment goal of 7%, diabetes will be continuous decline with more added insulin required. but A1C<5% (maybe 5.5%) T2D would be able to regrow beta cells, which sounds to me like full recovery is actually possible for type 2 with enough beta cells left.
Congrats on your success, and it really does look like you’ve recovered your insulin sensitivity. You’re a bit further along your journey than I am, but that gives me a lot of hope that maybe someday it’s possible.
I’m down by about 40 pounds, but 50 more to lose. I do find on my occasional “cheat” days (still only about 50-100g total carbs instead of my goal of max 50 g) that my blood glucose isn’t spiking as high as it used to (A1C 11.7% at diagnosis, so over 300!), but still on rare occasion up to 170mg/dL, so I still have a ways to go in my recovery.
Sounds like you’re making great progress!! I do believe that a reversal, and a return to health is possible. Perhaps the caveat is, as you suggest, if too much damage hasn’t been done. But I’ve met people in various nutritional lanes (keto, LCHF, paleo and wfpb) who’ve made miraculous ‘recoveries’, which I assume will last as long as the nutritional protocol is pretty well maintained for life. Good luck on your journey!!
My cardiologist just finished my Kraft Test after being Keto for 2.5 years.
The Glucose peeked at 151 and Insulin at 123 at 30 minutes.
This seems high, but this looks like a Pattern 1 to me.
