Blood sugar snag post shredded pork tenderloin (it is, in fact, possible to get too much protein without feeling the effects of azotemia)

(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #1

In the first post I ever made on this forum (sorry about that ####show, folks) I was panickedly talking about my prehyperglycemia problems that I was having after a protein load that was drenched in fat but no sugar. I was symptomatic, too, with polydipsia and polyuria. A friend of mine who has gone practically full carnivore (after finding that LCHF helped with his asthma, which flared up for years straight 3 years after he had gone on the LFHC diet of commerce after being dormant for 20 years on a farmerā€™s diet) also notes that heā€™s extremely thirsty and has cravings if he consumes a lot of lean meat, and heā€™s not confounded by having a meter. So make this an n=2 anecdote.

After the 40 hour rollercoaster ofā€¦ Iā€™m pretty sure it was steroid diabetes (but then why would it seemingly resolve in 24 hours?! Weird stuff.), that was marked by self-feeding high stress from that thread I noticed if I went on a low protein diet (the hot chocolate/whipping cream cleanse was the first iteration. Now Iā€™m doing a custard cleanse and I think Iā€™ll carry this through for a minimum of two days) for just 24 hours the high blood sugar practically vanished overnight(?!) and it went into the upper-normal region. Normal for me is high 3s and 4s, so upper normal would be high 4s. Itā€™s confounded by it being a less stressful diet (being able to drink hot chocolate for every meal is pretty indulgent!) and my attitude being less stressed from other things (interspersing ex-vegan stuff with wordless music instead of binge-listening ex-vegan videos).

Once Iā€™m stabilised on this diet (which, mind, canā€™t last very long, because itā€™s so low-protein and expensive) Iā€™m going to re-add pork protein, but in a smaller quantity, and see how that affects me. Iā€™m going to do that without adding ex-vegan videos back in.

#2

How much of the pulled pork did you eat?

A large protein bolus can raise insulin, which would decrease ketones and result in an increased glucose response. This might have started a cascade effect where you couldnā€™t get back into ketosis for a while afterwards.
As to the ammonia, yes excess nitrogen will eliminated via the urea cycle also sweated out through the skin. Did you notice a strange aroma?

Increased ammonia levels may be related to mood disturbances before azotemia.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #3

Enough protein to court ammonia toxicity is an enormous amount of protein, over 3 g/kg of body weight. That is actually hard to achieve, since the instinct is usually to stop eating long before that point. One poor participant in a well-known overfeeding study broke down in tears at the thought of eating one more pork chop.

#4

There is a rare genetic disorder which increases the chances of ammonia toxicity.

[Also, liver and kidney (dys)function play a role in how ammonia is handled.]

(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #5

No. No strange aroma.

I think I ate around 300g of pork tenderloin, drenched in beef fat.

The hypothesis Iā€™m laboring under is that substrate push combined with stress from heaven-knows-what (probably watching a ton of ex-vegan interviews) drove blood glucose high.

#6

All those can exacerbate each other and cause a downward spiral. Hope youā€™re feeling better.

(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #7

Way better on my low-protein elimination diet (custard monodiet). This canā€™t last of course, because Iā€™ll be in negative nitrogen balance (also expensive), but eh.

All of the symptoms Iā€™ve had seem to be glycemic symptoms.

(Doug) #8

I would not think this is even remotely enough to be worried about - weā€™re talking about 2/3 of one pound, with protein (~25% of the meat) being thus 70-80 grams or < 3 oz. I realize that things are ā€˜not always equal,ā€™ but Iā€™ve downed 10 times that much before, and know of people eating far beyond that - even a moderately small woman eating over 6000g of beef at one sitting, without problems.

(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #9

Thereā€™s of course a stress axis to this whole thing but I refuse to believe that substrate push is unable to cause hyperglycemia from gluconeogenesis, in susceptible individuals. I know not really how much pork I had, and correlation isnā€™t causation.

Iā€™m on a protein elimination diet (egg yolks and whipping cream - maybe 20g of protein per day) for a few days, and a stress management intervention that involves reducing the dose of ex-vegan interviews, and listening to music like I used to. Of course Iā€™ll reintroduce protein eventually - I donā€™t want to waste away. In fact if this experiment doesnā€™t end in 7 days Iā€™ll probably reintro anyway and just tell my GP that this is a thing that happened and I think I need my C-peptide pulled.

I donā€™t know which is more likely to put the brakes on GNG.

I guess itā€™s a case of ā€˜watch this space.ā€™

(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #10

I uneliminated protein andā€¦ the blood sugar seems to be down from a few bites of scrambled egg? Thatā€™s gotta be confounded somewhere. Probably stress. But I meanā€¦ negative nitrogen balance is a stressor, and stressors raise your glucocorticoid levels.

Also, I havenā€™t waited like half an hour between the bites of egg and the test. Another confounder.

Ice cream seemed to bring it up .1.

Am I blogging at you too much here?

(MooBoom) #11

@ellenor2000 Can you explain this hot chocolate and custard cleanse a bit more? I am all at sea with that concept.

(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #12

Itā€™s where the only caloric nutrition you take in is whipping cream and egg yolks. Very low-protein.

Iā€™ve broken it now (had some of the pulled pork I thought was the problem) and my blood glucose doesnā€™t seem to be a dumpsterfire anymore. Itā€™s still high (high 90s, low 100s in American, mid to high 5s in European) but itā€™s not a clear and present danger anymore.

Hot chocolate in this case is only caloric because I add whipping cream to it.

The hot chocolate is cocoa powder, imitation maple extract, imitation vanilla extract, Truvia and cream.

(MooBoom) #13

Ahhhhhh, I was perplexed because I thought you were following a carb protocol. Thank you for clearing that up for me!

Is Truvia non-insulogenic for you? Iā€™m glad your blood glucose is behaving a bit better now!

(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #14

I donā€™t know. It probably does elicit a CPIR. After all, thatā€™s true for all sweeteners. I donā€™t test ketones, after all, so I donā€™t really know.

My focus is to not go into full-blown prediabetes, because I used to be extremely obese and ā€œknow in my heartā€ (i.e. guess) that if I had tested my blood sugar then in the carehome like I do now, Iā€™d be a typecast diabetic and Iā€™d probably be on bolus insulin because theyā€™d be forcing me to eat a carb diet.

I really donā€™t actually care about ketones that much. If I could test them without going broke, I would, but blood glucose is more important to me. Blood glucose (both fasting and postprandial) is where you get complications of prediabetes and diabetes.

(MooBoom) #15

Youā€™ve got your priorities right worrying about blood glucose over ketones for sure :+1:

(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #16

Yeah. The lower-middle 100s before AND after only having eaten like 46 chickpeas was likeā€¦

I was in that ā€œ1 liter of juicebox per dayā€ zone again. Of course I was quenching that with water, which worked fine, but holy tabernak that was a throwback. Like, when two years ago you felt like you were getting glycated, then your mind is clear for 15 months and you feel like youā€™re getting glycated the next dayā€¦ you really start thinking hard. You stress over it. That messes up your blood glucose even more, and itā€™s kind of a total self-feeding mess.

Iā€™ve still not backed fully off the brink of prehyperglycemia but Iā€™m seeing now the light at the end of the tunnel. Iā€™m still a bit cloudy in the head but Iā€™m not weak and firing on five cylinders like I was. Itā€™s more like the mixtureā€™s stuck a little too rich than a multiple-cylinder misfire, if anyone with experience tuning an automobile is reading.

(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #17

If anyone is still watchingā€¦

Iā€™m getting high 6s blood glucose 24 hours fasted. If itā€™s still this bad by the end of the dayā€¦

#18

You may have just opened the floodgates to lipolysis and flooded the system with FFA while lowering insulin. Give it more time to stabilize.

(Ellenor Bjornsdottir) #19

That adds up, but I broke the fast (Iā€™m so sorry for disappointing yā€™allā€¦ I just donā€™t wanna go blind ok?) and my blood sugar went from the 6s mM to 4.35 mM (that is, 4.3 first test, 4.4 on the repeat because I thought the strip was duff) with no negative physical symptoms. The positive symptom was a feeling ofā€¦ I guess, regeneration?

my hunter friend thinks that my fat tissue is toxic so inflammation from that toxicity may have raised my blood sugar some? Itā€™s probably complete pseudoscience but

#20

Iā€™m a fairly large person. I donā€™t think I could eat 13 pounds of beef at 3 sittings.