I think in July of 2018 my fasting blood sugar was 235, but I may be mistaken… it could have been 135-- whatever it was, it was just on the border of being prediabetic, or at least according to my doctor. In 2014 I did the Atkins and managed to lose 60 lbs in 4 months which is probably some kind of world record, but after kids and having lots of ice cream, cereal, and other unhealthy foods around I gradually started neglecting my diet and got up to 240 lbs. Since August of 2018 I was on keto, but had a pretty regular (1 or 2 times a month, sometimes two days in a row) cheat days and I wasn’t aware of how every time you eat you create an insulin spike, so I wasn’t fasting at all.
Last September I reached 180 lbs and binged on pies, shooting up 20 lbs in 1 month. bad idea.
SO for the last month I have been doing OMAD with 6-12 grams of carbs per meal. Pretty stubbornly stuck at 186 pounds for the past two weeks (I started intermittent fasting maybe a month before and stopped high carbs after Thanksgiving).
My plan is no more cheating, OMAD and low carb for at least two years, then, if my insulin resistance has gone into remission, adapting to OMAD with low glycemic foods for the remainder of my days. My dad and mom are in their 90’s (we have a lot of longevity in our family anyway) without any diet constraints, so my goal is longevity-- I see myself potentially living up to the age of 120 if I stay away from the toxic foods that are abundant and consumed ubiquitously.
I guess that makes me “Orthorhectic” LOL.
So that is my background in a nutshell.
I’ve decided to test my blood sugar to help monitor my progress. Yesterday, eating once every 24 hours with no snacking, my blood sugar was 96 fasting and 110 after eating roughly 10 grams of carbohydrates in the form of pecans and veggies.
Certainly an improvement over what it was in 2018, but much higher than I expected and probably way too high for ketosis (doing a keto strip test I only go purple if I have been fasting for three days!).
Probably gluconeogenesis is the key culprit, but I’m not sure how to interpret those numbers. Thinking of maybe doing an extended fast for a few days to assure ketosis. During my extended fasts I make sure to drink vinegar water with salt, I have hypertension, but I think the main reason I had such a lengthy weight loss since 2018 was that I was cutting out most of my salt, which I did not know, increases insulin resistance.
I also plan to get some Rhodeloa Rosea to lower my cortisol levels, and have been using wild harvested Desert Hollygrape as a source of bereberine to lower my blood sugar. I am careful not to take any supplements that have been cut with maltodextrose.
I notice that I get really sleepy after my one meal a day, which I think is a sign that I am still insulin resistant, but my understanding is that it takes a LONG time to get fat adapted and upregulate my insulin receptors.
So what do my numbers mean?
I’m doing well in the sense that this is within “normal” range while I was sending myself hurling towards diabetes in 2018.
But should it be that high eating so few carbs and doing OMAD?
If I do an extended fast, how long will it take to get into ketosis?
What fasting blood sugar level is indicative of ketosis?
The answers remain sort of illusive. Hopefully a friendly and knowledgeable response will follow my current inquiry.
Blood sugar testing... higher than expected on OMAD and keto
If you’re taking blood sugar with pin-prick meters, the meter is considered to be 100% accurate if it’s within 15% of the actual value for every sample. 15% in your case is 100 plus or minus 15…and it’s accurate at that level.
The pee sticks are notoriously bad. I gave up on this a long time ago.
If you have a higher morning blood sugar, that’s a glucose-sparing effect. Your body is keeping higher glucose for whatever reason. It should go down during the day.
Blood sugar is not related to ketosis. For instance, you could have a 110 blood sugar and still be producing ketones. Blood sugar and ketones can move oppositely, such as when you fast for a long time: blood sugar will come down and ketones will go up. However, the values of those aren’t necessarily meaningful.
thanks! I test before my daily meal, which is some 6 hours after getting up… 7 today (so it isn’t “dawn phenomena”), actually (92 fasting sugar). I use pee strips for ketones and a blood tester for blood sugar.
The problem is that if you take one test before you eat and one sometime after, what does this mean? Not a lot. Here’s my CGM data from Thanksgiving, 2017:
Multiply by 18 to get US units. Each group of two lines is one hour. So the peak at 9.7 (=175) is for a curve of Tgiving lunch, but it lasts less than an hour. (This would be potatoes, bread, stuffing, etc., so that’s what causes the peak.) So, if I took a pin prick before it and one hour later, I would miss some or all of the peak.
The CGM removes some of vagaries of pin-prick testing, but if you have one sample before eating and one sample after, you really don’t have much data. If you took a before then took samples every 15 minutes (essentially what a CGM does), that might let you see more.
But I don’t think even a 110 after eating is bad. Here’s an example of my blood sugar while eating low carb. Note the tiny bump at “lunch” (my first meal after 36 hours and a workout in the morning, I believe):
Nothing much to look at.
The thing that will drop ketones is insulin. I didn’t ask for ketone testing when I had my glucose and insulin tested because I expected them to be low. I’ve had decent glucose readings and lousy insulin readings. I’ve had good glucose readings and lousy ketone readings, becaue I assume, that my insulin levels were high. But, there isn’t a good and easy way to test insulin levels at home…
Point 1 was glucose and insulin taken in a lab (Insulin was around 26).
Point 2 was glucose and insulin taken in a lab (Insulin was around 8).
Point 3 was glucose and ketones taken at home…
You can see that even with a reasonable 80 glucose (I was about 24 hours into a 48 hour fast), my ketones were only 0.4 (before the meds it would have been higher). Fasting past the 24 hours brought both my glucose and insulin down, and allowed my ketones to keep going up to 1.7, when I broke my fast.
No home test for insulin but a lab can provide your fasting insulin from a blood draw.
For me, tonight my ketones are back down to 0.4. I suspect that once I broke my fast on Friday my insulin levels started raising again! 
Glucose was 74. Normally I’d see ketones around 1.0 at this time with that glucose.
Throatgorge:
I also do OMAD and am diabetic. You are on the right track with trying to lower your bG and insulin levels through fasting. You are likely right that for a while you will have issues with gluconeogenesis causing an increase in bG and insulin levels.
You probably already know this, but there are two different types of insulin resistance: 1. In your muscles and 2. in you liver. Increasing your muscle’s insulin sensitivity will resolve quicker than your liver’s resistance to insulin.
Your liver stores glucose and fat when too much glucose is ingested over time causing the livers insulin resistance. This will take time to ‘clear’ out with a lower carb diet with fasting.
Now here is the part many folks I have talked to who are on a ketogenic diet avoid: Exercise, especially resistance exercise. The muscle cells of most diabetics become insulin resistant as a protective measure: too much glucose damages the cells ‘machinery’. To make the muscles more insulin sensitive means you have to make the muscle cells hungry. You do this by using up the glucose that is stored inside of them. If you lift heavy and to failure using resistance exercises the muscle cells will need more glucose. It’s sort of like a cup. If the cup is full you can’t put more liquid in. But if you use up some of the liquid you can. If you burn up glucose with exercise then your muscles will over a few weeks time get much better at using the bG in your blood stream… which will lower your bG.
The best book I have found on this topic is: The FIRST Program: Fighting Insulin Resistance with Strength Training by Dr. William Shang.
My arms are skinnier now than they’ve been since I was 16. Used to do 35 lbs dumbells, butterflies, curls and laterals … then later started up again with 25. Not sure I want to do that now, but when I was lifting it really made it easier for me to maintain a healthy weight and decent blood pressure. Thanks.
When starting all those supplements, start one at a time and allow yourself to adjust for a week or so… see how your body responds individually…