Been doing keto for around 3 weeks or so now. Not making great strides with weight loss but thats another topic. When I woke this morning my fasting bloods were 5.0/90. I had a cup of coffee with 1 tbsp of cream and went to walk my dog. When I came home I checked again thinking that a bit of exercise would lower it but it was now 6.6/118 without consuming any food. Is this a reaction to the coffee + cream or dawn phenomenon? If it is the latter does this improve as we gain greater control over our blood sugars? I googled it and read that dawn phenomenon increases insulin resistance. I plan on getting up in the morning and just having a glass of water before walking my dog and see if it happens again but of course this wouldnt be conclusive proof either way tbh. I do drink a lot of hot drinks and a starting to question weather this is why Im not making great progress so far, assumed I was ok cus there is extremely little carbs in the drink.
Dawn phenomenon?
Exercise messes with blood sugar, itâs not advised to measure straight afterwards.
Yes Im going to treat it as a bit of a non issue at this stage then as I ate a near 900 calories, 7g net carb breakfast and I was back down at 5.3 within 2 hours. I will still run the experiment tomorrow morning out of curiosity so I know itâs not something in my drink tho.
This is a comparison I made over the course of 16 months. I exercise in the morning and also have the dawn effect on the days I donât exercise.
The dawn phenomenon frustrates me. I have tested with and without coffee, with and without exercise. I canât find a pattern or a magic fix. My blood glucose level is much higher than yours. I started keto about 8 months ago. My HbA1c at that time was 8.6 or around 225. In 90 days I brought it down to 6.6 or 158. However, in the next three months I only brought it down to 6.4.
Iâve lost over 80 lbs. in this time. My dawn reading is trending down. When I started it was usually above 150. Now it is usually in the 130âs, sometimes lower. I find that if my dawn reading is very low(for me) below 120, a few hours later it is higher. If it is high then it tends to drop.
Iâm happy that my trend is down, even if it is erratic.
Youâve just barely begun. Give it time.
In addition to what others have posted, bear in mind that your meterâs error range is relevant here. Suppose its accuracy is within ± 20% (± 0.2). This means that a reading of 90 can represent an actual serum glucose of anywhere in the range of 75-112.5, and 118 can represent serum glucose in the range of 98.3-147.5. As you can see, there is a fair amount of overlap in the two ranges, giving rise to the distinct possibility that the two readings might reflect very similar actual values.
As long as we are not adding to our serum glucose burden by dietary carbohydrate intake, then it might be possible to trust that the body knows what itâs doing and relax a bit.
Iâd be interested in tracing that back to some actual data. Iâm curious to know what study the article you read was based on, and how the authors of the paper measured insulin-resistance in their subjects.
I suspect that dawn phenomenon might possibly indicate some measure of insulin-resistance, but I canât somehow see it causing insulin resistance. In any case, we evolved as a species over two million years, and the regulation of serum glucose is accomplished by a number of different mechanisms in the body; glucagon and insulin are only the two most visible factors. If we are not distorting our serum glucose levels by eating too much carbohydrate, perhaps the body knows what it is doing if it allows glucose to rise and fall somewhat over the course of a day.
It was just an article on google, they didnt put forward anything to back up these claims of course. Another passing thought I had Paul following what you told me last time regarding ânetâ carbs. Now when Im looking at it I count every food individually but found a few foods that feels off just not counting. For instance, 30g of walnuts on myfitnesspal had 1.1g of carbs with 2g of fiber, would this be classed as a free food?
Due to the dawn phenomenon is there any merit to checking your nightime BG instead to track trends?
Yes, because thatâs when your blood sugar should be lowest (ignoring what you ate or that I got my lowest blood sugar while sleeping, but I wore a CGM). That would provide a better basis for improvement, if thatâs what you are looking for.
I just wanna check once a day to track the trend of my BG over the coming months but if Im getting some dawn phenomenon that is skewing my results then nighttime might be a better measure.
From Myfitnesspal? Itâs either an error, or the carb figure is net carbs. In the latter case, then the carb count would be 1.1 + 2 - 2 = 1.1 net carbs.
I think âDawn Phenomenonâ is a silly word that needs to stop being used. It implies a enigmatic mysterious conundrum that no one can solve. This is not the case and it is really quite simple to understand.
When the average person wakes up, their Adrenal Glands on top of their kidneys produces corticosteroids. In an average person with full Adrenal function, they will produce approximately enough corticosteroid to equal 5mg of Prednisone in a day. The majority of this is released into the blood upon waking and slowly tapers off throughout the day. Whenever you get moderately to intense exercise, extra corticosteroids are secreted into the blood stream. Running for your life from a Lion would dump massive amounts of corticosteroid into the blood.
Corticosteroids are stress hormones that are catabolic in nature. Whether it be cortisone, prednisone, dexamethesone, they are all catabolic corticosteroid stress hormones. When you have any type of corticosteroid in your blood your body catabolizes its own tissues for energy and minerals. Calcium is pulled from the bones to the blood for example and protein is pulled from the muscles, all of this is to feed the organs in a time of high stress. This muscle protein is being converted directly into glucose and that is why your glucose is high after exercise and during âdawn phenomenonâ. The act of exercise is literally a catabolic event, the later adaptation phase during resting is the anabolic phase where you regrow stronger AFTER corticosteroids are low in the blood during rest and sleep.
There is nothing you can do about this and there is nothing you can change in your diet. The only thing you can do is keep your stress hormones low by limiting stress.
I have been on prednisone for 7 years for auto immune disease and it interferes with my Keto like clockwork. Last week I had a cortisone shot in my knee as well as upped my daily prednisone to 10mg a day⊠I remained in a fasted state all week and changed nothing about my diet, yet I lost mostly muscle% and lost very little to no BF%. My fasting glucose remained very high all that week, about 120-130mg/dl. During that week on high corticosteroid, my blood sugar remained high regardless of what I ate, or how long I fasted.
My Adrenal glands are atrophied and not present due to being on corticosteroids for many years. I require external corticosteroid supplementation for basic life functions. This allows me to time and monitor the effects of corticosteroid directly on my Keto numbers. The average person with a fully functioning Adrenal Axis has a somewhat variable and chaotic corticosteroid release, but 4 general rules remain true for everyone. #1 corticosteroid release peaks shortly after waking and declines throughout the day. #2 extra corticosteroid is released during exercise or times of increased emotional stress. #3 extra corticosteroid is released by many stimulants like Caffeine, Pseudophedrine or Methamphetamines. #4 chronic lack of sleep, or sleep apnea, will lead to a chronically high corticosteroid state and eventually will end up in adrenal crisis after varying amounts of time.
The âDawn Phenomenonâ is not a mystery, a better term for it would be âCorticosteroid Catabolic Phase Effectâ
My sources of info come directly from my Endocrinologist at the VA.
Nice info. I have something else going on because the minute I start exercising, and it can be a full workout or something as simple as running from the parking lot to make a train or a boat, and I mean literally running for less than a minute or briskly walking for 5 minutes, my glucose levels drop below baseline (assuming I have not eaten in a while, the boat is in the afternoon not the morning). My glucose will stay low for around 2 hours depending on what and when I eat again
That is interesting, as my blood sugars rise when I exercise.
If you eat a lot of lean protein, what happens to your blood sugar?
I have no idea with lean protein as I rarely eat it alone. I will do an experiment when I have a chance. That may explain why when I have breaded chicken (I know not keto), I get a rise. It is a once in a while indulgence and I do not have pasta with it and the amount of breading is minimal and itis fried in healthy oil. I assumed the rise was due to the breading but maybe it is the lean protein.
Now that I think about it, after a bad rise after eating some sushi, I now stick mostly to sashimi. While I do not know the names of the fish, I assume it is tuna, yellowtail, salmon and some other fish, the red one that I have no idea what it is called but I like it. While I do not track it that often, from what I can recall I did not see a rise from sashimi which I assume is lean protein.
I myself am not lean with a BMI a little over 30 which may make a difference in how I respond. It is weird as I was expecting a rise from exercise since muscles burn glycogen
When I have my first meal of the day around lunch time, if I have eggs and coffee with cream my glucose will either stay the same or go down some
As I mentioned, walking briskly to the boat caused a two hour drop for a 5 minute walk, although I was on the boat most of that time which while not active, may still burn more than sitting in a car⊠Playing racquet sports drops it, again not very aggressively, as does biking, swimming and the elliptical with effort. It tracks perfectly.
It depends on what you are doing. Skeletal muscles, once we are fat adapted, prefer fatty acids, and do very well on them for endurance performance; it is explosive power that relies on glycogen, either from the muscle itself, or shared by the liver (muscles canât share the glycogen they store, but the liver can).
I think the estimated A1C is both from the absolute value of blood glucose and the variability (standard deviation) of values. These charts show remarkably low variability. Compare these with someone with insulin insensitivity and you would see much wider bands (showing the range of measurements)