Higher fasted blood glucose after two days of ZC?

(Robin) #1

I’ve been doing an experiment of going ZC Mondays and Tuesdays, while eating low carb the rest of the week.

I’m not diabetic and I’m no longer overweight but to keep things in check, I always take my morning blood glucose. For the past 2 weeks, the morning after the second day of ZC, my blood glucose has been 104, which is higher than my typical morning glucose level of about 88-90.

I understand the dawn phenomenon and that meters are often inaccurate, but can someone explain why this might be happening? Thanks in advance!

#2

If you’re not diabetic and never experienced the dawn effect, then it’s not likely that it’s happening now. Most likely you’re consuming too much protein, of which ~50% can be converted to glucose.

Test the theory by eliminating the ZC days and see if your BG returns to normal. If it does, you have your answer.

(Chris) #3

There’s really no benefit to doing ZC on and off like that, but to each their own. You’re basically just doing keto at this rate.

(Andrew) #4

Yeah you are eating more protein than you need while ZC. So your friendly liver is making glucose with it.

At 104…yawn. No biggie.

(Andrew) #6

I can reproduce this at will. I don’t care how cranky that blog is. It’s just 10-20 pts of glucose in the am. I’m sure it’s only a few grams of glucose. It doesn’t seem to scale, ergo if you go crazy it’s still 10-20 pts. If you aren’t IR it probably doesn’t even show up. But if you are trying to break IR every pt counts in my book.

(Justin Jordan) #7

It isn’t

But…

I’ve proved to my own satisfaction that protein does have a negative effect on my blood sugar - while eating nothing but meat, no less. Simply eating less of the same meat cuts my blood sugar. I am a type 2 diabetic, mind. This is a consistently reproducible effect for me.

And indeed, controlling for calories, if I eat nearly all fat (so butter, basically) my blood sugar will eventually drop to true normal. Not the case eating beef or chicken. Or anything else. Protein goes up, blood sugar goes up.

It doesn’t go up like it does with carbs - I basically top out at 130 to 140 eating zero carb regardless of the amount of meat i eat. But to get lower, I need to not eat more than 70 to 90 grams of protein.

(Which isn’t super difficult, and I still make progress lifting and my lean mass is the same on the navy calcs, so probably not losing muscle although it’s at the lower edge of what someone with my lean mass theoretically needs)

(Robin) #8

Thanks all for the input.

This past week, I chose to log my food on the ZC days and I was at about 125g each day. I weigh about 153 so that’s 69kg. This meant I was having .55g protein per kg, correct?

For those of you who’ve commented that you do have a glucose reaction to higher protein, does that seem like a lot of protein? I’d say on low carb days I rarely go over 100g and more typically around 90g though I don’t log as often as I used to when I was in weight loss mode.

So this would tell me that if I want to continue my ZC experiment I may want to lower the protein and up the fat, right?

Finally, is this reaction to protein an indication that I’m still somewhat insulin resistant, or is it just how some people’s bodies react to protein?

(Tim) #9

Actually, I think you’re division is backwards. 125g/69kg = 1.8 g/kg. You’re higher than you think but I’m not sure what your target is.

(Robin) #10

Oh wow! 1.8g/kg does seem high. What’s the general consensus? (and I know there’s not really a general consensus) 1.0g/kg? I exercise daily.

(Chris W) #11

I am T2D, and I have been strict ZC for about 6 months. During those 6 months, most of the time I followed the advice of the ZC veterans. I ate fatty meat, some cheese and some eggs, when hungry, and until full. I didn’t track my intake, but I’m guessing I was probably in the ball park of 250-300g of protein and probably close to 4000 calories per day. Over the 6 months, I did not gain weight and my body composition improved. My a1c at the start of ZC was 6.0, after 6 months of “unconstrained” ZC it was 6.3. While this is not cause for panic, it is not in the direction I am trying to move it. This, combined with a few other numbers from my blood-work lead me to believe that my protein consumption was excessive for my current state of metabolic health.

So, continuing my N=1, I have decided to stay ZC, but have a more moderate amount of protein. Based on my LBM of 147 lbs (weight 187 lbs), I set my target for protein at 140-150g of protein, <10g carbs (yes, ZC foods do have carbs) and adjust my fat intake up and down based on my activity level, targeting roughly an energy neutral calorie total (small surplus or deficit.)
At about the 1 week mark of making this changes, my blood sugars are down about 15-20% (lowest numbers I’ve seen since starting cutting carbs, generally 75-95 mg/dl). My blood ketones now show that I am consistently in ketosis. I find that even with the reduced intake, I am not more hungry that I was before. I’ve also started dropping weight again after being stable for quite a while, but it has only been a few days, so it’s a bit early to claim anything significant. I’ll be watching for signs of metabolism slowing, like it did when I was under-eating on keto. If I start to get concerned, I will start upping my intake a bit, while watching my BG numbers.

I do feel that eating ZC has resulted in significant metabolic healing. I can tolerate much more protein in one sitting without knocking me out of ketosis than I could when I started ZC. I feel great on “unconstrained” ZC and will hopefully feel just as good and continue healing on my current “moderated” ZC.

The N=1 continues…

Chris W

(Robin) #12

Thanks for your information! I wish you success in your experiment. I guess for me it showed me that too much protein can affect my morning BG. Like you, I continue to experiment!

(Blyss (Old @Charmaine)) #13

There is an adaptation period, and it can be short or long. It wasn’t until about the 3rd week of ZC that my blood glucose readings dropped. But if we never go through the adaption and adjust accordingly as demonstrated, I believe we continue to get the higher bg readings. Mine were definitely higher initially and I wasn’t eating a lot of meat, I could barely eat a pound of meat in a day.

(Chris W) #14

Paul Mabry posted a great reply to a similar question on the Zero Carb Doc Facebook group. To summarize, ‘For people with a lot of Insulin Resistance (T2D for instance), Glucagon dysregulation can cause the Pancreas not to signal the liver to shut down Gluconeogenesis, resulting in higher blood glucose.’

Depending on how entrenched your Insulin resistance is, a ZC adaptation period my reverse it enough for your body to start to properly regulating Gluconeogenesis.

For some of us that have been T2D for a long time (10-20 years for me) the healing may take longer, or may never completely occur. This does not mean that we cannot be ZC, it just means that for optimum blood glucose control, we need to keep a bit closer tabs on the amount of protein consumed in one sitting.

I am currently doing well at 65g-75g of protein per meal, which allows me to eat twice a day and maintain a 14-16 hour fasted window most days. On days that I go to the gym after work, I split my protein for the day into 3rds, about 50g per meal and focus on fattier cuts to bring my calories up in line with my energy expenditure from the workout.

It’s not quite as carefree as people with healthier metabolism can be with their feasting on ZC, but it is still not difficult, and I have not ever had to forego food when hungry.

To follow up on my earlier post, the small whoosh I had when I reduced my protein has leveled off and my weight has stabilized, but I’m working out pretty hard 3 times a week and the fat % on my scale is slowly creeping down, so my LBM is increasing! That earns me a few more grams of protein on my target :smiley:

#15

Hi Chris,
I’m trawling the archives trying to work out why I’ve been struggling with fatigue after eating on Zero Carb. I’ll loose all energy until the following morning. This is the first snippet of info that could make sense to me. I’m consuming in excess of 100g of protein at each meal. Eating twice a day. My LBM doesn’t require that much protein I know that but I took the eat as much meat until satiety approach.
So I wondered how you are currently getting on given another 6 months have passed? Also how do you manage fat:protein ratios because not many modern cuts of meat are adequate to meet a 80:20 split say.
Thanks,

(Chris W) #16

At this point, I no longer have issues with BG, so I don’t measure as often. I’ve been trying a cycle of eating until full once every 16 hours, which roughly works out to skipping every other meal. I eat about 18-24 oz of fatty beef at each meal, but I may go back to 2 smaller meals each day since I do get a bit of brain fog for few hours when I eat that much in 1 sitting.
I normally buy 73/27 ground beef, or Untrimmed sub-primal rib with a lot more fat than the trimmed steaks have. I also generally cook them in the sous vide and eat everything that is in the bag, so I don’t lose any of the fat while cooking. I don’t measure to ensure a particular percentage, I just buy and eat as much of the fattiest stuff that my body wants.