My advenures in fasting and excercise

(Todd Chester) #1

Hi All,

I am a T2 Diabetic, diagnosed 10-02-2012, 398 mg/dL and under control with keto since about two months after that.

My morning Blood Glucose (BG) is always about 15 to 20 (mg/dL) points higher (dawn effect) if I relax in bed before taking my BG. And January and February is the cold and flu season around these parts (not enough to get any attention), which also raised my blood sugar. Both are annoying, but I have to remember that it is completely normal, as is the stupid runny nose.

I had an interesting experience with my last fast:

1-30-2023:
Out of bed at the alarm: 113 mg/dL

2-1-2023:
relaxed in bed: 125 (dawn effect).
ate 6 macadamia nuts for breakfast.
Whet outside and shoveled snow and broke up ice for about an hour.
Took my BG immediately after coming in. 180 mg/dL !!! Holy [expletive deleted] !!!
So much for the rumor that upper body exercise lowers blood sugar!!! What a load of bollocks.
Ate about 8 grams carbs from riced cauliflower (cheese, meat, egg too).
Measured three hours after eating: 116. Huh ??? Blood sugar comes down after eating??? Well, it always does eating after the dawn effect, so why should this be different?

2-2-2023:
Started my two day fast: morning BG: 105

2-3-2023:
start of day 2: morning BG: 90

2-4-2023:
end of fast. Morning BG: 78
ate on large meal with about 10 g carbs from an avocado and one small smack on some steak and a few macadamia nuts

2-5-2023:
morning BG: 104
runny nose is better too. But that won’t last long till the next virus gets me. I will enjoy the respite whilst it lasts

When I first, well second after freaking out, thought after seeing the 180 after shoveling, I though “oh good my fatty liver is converting fat to glycogen. Wonderful.” Then I realized that the glycogen was probably emergency glycogen my liver had store. And that my liver had already restocked its glycogen from ketones from my other fat cells whilst fasting, not my liver’s own of fat cells. My liver really, really does not want to give up its fat stores. Dang!

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #2

I’m finding this confusing, since liver fat usually drops quite soon after we lower our combined alcohol, fructose, and branched-chain amino acid intake low enough. If your liver enzymes are still elevated after all this time on keto, then perhaps there is something else going on.

Also, my understanding was that the process of gluconeogenesis in the liver uses the glycogenic amino acids, not the lipogenic ones, so obviously I’ve mis-read something.

Also, do you have any idea of what your insulin might have been doing while your serum glucose was going up and down? What is your HbA1C like these days? Your inflammatory markers?

(Todd Chester) #3

I am not sure how the liver converts things to sugars. I had “presumed” the liver could do it from ketones. But I could be wrong.

Apparently, I have the fibrous liver fat, which is a dickens to get rid of

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #4

That is a more advanced case of liver disease, which may not be entirely reversible. Although the liver is a pretty resilient organ (since it performs so many vital functions for us) and might eventually be able to fully regenerate.

I suppose the right fatty acids could be converted into glucose under the right circumstances, but probably at a metabolic cost. Gluconeogenesis in the liver is generally from amino acids, which is to say protein. There are apparently three types of amino acids: glucogenic ones, lipogenic ones, and a few that are both lipogenic and glucogenic. So a bit over half of them can be used to make glucose, and the rest either don’t get deaminated in the first place, or else get converted into fats and metabolised (the fat droplets produced by de novo lipogenesis in the liver are made from a different process).

(Todd Chester) #5

Thanks for the explanation. So the 180 didn’t do any good. And my liver probably thought I needed more glycogen than I actually did, not realizing I was burning fat, not sugar. Fortunately, my BG came down petty fast after eating. Score one for my pancreas.

(Todd Chester) #6

Maybe not. That might have been glycogen being replenished in my muscles.