KetoCancerMom's Look at Numbers

[KetoCancerMom]

On March 28th I accidentally had some sweetened tea (that I sweetened further, with a 0 cal sweetener)

[KetoCancerMom]

Last night’s macros:

Supper Time: 8:30pm
Carbs: 6g
Fat: 114g
Protein: 31g
Calories:1220

Today’s measurements:
9:45am BG: 88, BK 2.2, GKI 2.2
1:52pm BG: 77, BK 2.3, GKI 1.9
6:47pm BG 81, BK 2.3, GKI 2.1

Supper Time: 6:50pm - Fasting ~ 22 hours
Carbs: 3g
Fat: 181g
Protein: 41g
Calories: 1858

Wondering what tomorrow’s numbers will be like. Supper was at about 22 hours fasted. I didn’t want to eat really late again. I know my protein is a bit low, by maybe 10g. Someone suggested trying to lower my protein to see how it affects my BG/GKI. I’ve also read/heard that you shouldn’t have more than 30g of protein at a time…not possible to do though on OMAD.

[KetoCancerMom]

Today’s numbers (April 16th)
9:38a BG 90, BK 2.1, GKI 2.4
4:37p BG 74, BK 2.3, GKI 1.8
7:01p BG 69, BK 2.5, GKI 1.5

Supper @ 7:01p - Fasting ~ 24hrs
Fat: 191g
Protein: 52g
Carbs: 6g
Calories: 2007

[KetoCancerMom]

It was suggested (when I got my DEXA/RMR) that I try for 70g of protein spread over two meals. I decided to give it a try to see what it would do to my numbers.
The numbers on the 22nd are actually taken on the 23, from when I was fasting and when I was given some dexamethasone (Decadron) during chemo pre-treatment. I still had a nice GKI, but I didn’t like what it did to my glucose (even though it upped my ketones as well).

My glucose isn’t looking too bad having two meals, but I’m not pleased with what is happening with my ketones. Anyone have any insight as to why? I’m thinking of either going back to OMAD or putting the two meals closer together. Mostly I just want another week or so of data, to really get an idea of what is happening (not sleeping well, warmer weather, baseball stuff).

*I should note that the BG readings are “off” a day because push them back to reflect the meal I last ate before taking the blood samples.

[KetoCancerMom]

[KetoCancerMom]

[ctviggen]

I think you’ll “always” (is there anything that’s “always” true?) get a better ketone result if you only eat one meal. At least that’s my theory. I think it’s true because you’re letting blood sugar and insulin go lower before you eat, and any insulin/blood sugar result will be more pulsatile.

I honestly don’t think protein matters much for normal folk for ketones. For you, it might not either. If you look at some of your tables, you have GKI of say 1.5 with protein of 52, 72, 59, 61 grams. Seems like a wide range with the same GKI.

By the way, when are you taking this data? The same time each day? Do you eat relative to the measurement time at the same time? The problem with ketones (and blood sugar) I find is that both vary throughout the day, even while fasting. My blood sugar, for instance, is lowest at about midnight and highest about noon, no matter what I do. Ketones for me have an almost reverse relationship, lower in the morning and higher in the evening. (Makes sense from a physiological insulin resistance perspective, you’re insulin resistant in the morning, so blood sugar is higher and you’re running on ketones; physiologic insulin resistance drops during the day and therefore blood sugar drops, ketones rise.)

But the problem I find is that unless you eat OMAD at exactly the same time and measure at exactly the same time each day, these values can vary normally, and what you measure is a function of your body’s normal variance and has nothing (or little) to do with what you ate. Realistically, you’re eating basically similar cals, carbs, proteins, fats each day.

Check out this from my continuous glucose monitor, for instance. Note that ketones would be approximately the opposite of this (higher at night, lower in the morning):

So, the data analysis you’re trying to do is likely limited by (1) your body’s natural rhythms, (2) testing errors (our devices aren’t very accurate), and (3) testing/eating times.

This shows in your data. See March 24, 25. You get a GKI of 3.1 with protein of 68 and GKI of 2.9 with a much higher protein of 107. That doesn’t make too much sense, or at least means to me that protein isn’t a huge contributor to ketones. But your table is difficult to diagnose, as high fat does not necessarily correlate with higher ketones (which is my theory: protein has little to no effect on ketones, but fat has a much higher effect).

If this is in a spreadsheet, see if you can sort the columns. How well does fat correlate with BG, BK, GKI? What about protein? Carbs? Calories (I theorize higher calorie with higher fat = higher ketones)? If you find no good correlations, then just keep doing what you’re doing. If you do find a good correlation, test to see if it actually is a good correlation.

[KetoCancerMom]

The March 24-25 data is skewed because of the dexamethasone, so ignore it.

I’m eating at night, but the times vary. I test right before eating.

I’m working on the analysis of it.

[KetoCancerMom]

I’ll have to post June numbers…
Still, this was on another thread, but I wanted to copy it here (to my numbers thread)

So I had lunch with friends today, and my lunchtime readings were
BG: 96, BK: 0.6
Lunch macros:
Carbs: 6g, Fat: 107g, Protein: 59g

8 hours later, before supper my readings were
BG: 94, BK: 0.4 (not what I wanted.)
Supper macros:
Carbs: 5g, Fat: 162g, Protein: 43g

I’m hoping tomorrow at supper, with no lunch, my numbers will be better.

ETA: I need to figure out how to eat and still keep my glucose low. I can inflate ketones with MCT oil, but I need to drop glucose

So, around an hour after supper I had some whipped cream (with Swerve) and some blackberries, and also some MCT oil.
I’m happy to report that about an an hour and 20 minutes later my glucose was 81 and ketones were 2.4

I’m starting to think that the MCT oil will be needed a little more regularly.

The other topic with more data can be found here:
Blood Sugar Levels After Eating

[KetoCancerMom]

Obviously I had a huge amount of food yesterday… I was not happy with my numbers today. I didn’t have anything to eat today. I had a bit of supper and then tested my blood (less than 30 seconds later) so I’m going to assume a negligible impact on BG and BK.

I think things are of sure to the nearly 3100 calories I are yesterday.

I’ll keep an eye on my readings today, and see what they do. Some MCT oil might be in store.

[KetoCancerMom]

A little over 2 hours after eating BG was 108 and BK was 0.2
I took some MCT oil because I want to drive up BK.

I’m thinking maybe no more keto pizza
I don’t think it was the cake/cupcake…

[KetoCancerMom]

[KetoCancerMom]

[KetoCancerMom]

[KetoCancerMom]

I haven’t updated in a while…
But here is an experiment I was running with having some green tea (its a mix of green tea and peppermint tea). I drank it cold, and it have very trace amounts of MCT oil in the cup.

Starting BG: 86, last BG: 73

[KetoCancerMom]

So tonight I had a rather low fat supper…carbs were fairly low, although I’m not entirely sure how low, as the restaurant I was at didn’t have any nutrition info. I had some Mediterranean pasta with zucchini noodles and a white wine sauce with an appetizer of tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and mozzarella cheese. I estimated the carb count at 15, as I didn’t have anything to really work with. Glucose went up from 64 to a high of 103, about 90 minutes after supper.

After getting home, and feeling that I hadn’t had enough fat I had 1 cup of heavy cream w/ 2 scoops of MCT powder (sometimes I have 1 cup w/ 1 scoop). So, a little extra MCT this time. Glucose started at 84, went to 85 (within 10 minutes, so negligible) and then went down from there. Currently at 72 - about 1 hour later.

It looks like glucose started going down from the 90-minute post-meal high (and it didn’t stay “high” at above 100 very long). Interesting stuff.

[ctviggen]

I had some Mediterranean pasta with zucchini noodles and a white wine sauce with an appetizer of tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and mozzarella cheese. I estimated the carb count at 15, as I didn’t have anything to really work with. Glucose went up from 64 to a high of 103, about 90 minutes after supper.

It’s great you can get this type of food at a restaurant, although that is a relatively high spike, most likely attributed to physiological insulin resistance. I would say the carb count is higher than 15, but it’s hard to tell.

Have you noticed any change with zucchini noodles? Both my wife and I have to eat these rarely, as they cause digestive issues for both of us. Spaghetti squash, on the other hand, seems to be OK.

I also wonder what the time period over which the blood sugar rises, whether that tells us something? For instance, the bottom graph here is Thanksgiving 2017:

You can see that this was very high carb, 9.7 = 174.6 (multiply by 18), but the duration was really short. The 9.7 was Thanksgiving dinner, and the hump right after that was dessert. Both of these are within about an hour.

When I was taking pin pricks, I often started an hour from when I stopped eating. Sometimes 30 minutes, but if you look at when they suggest you test, it’s about an hour. For instance:

A: Most of the food you consume will be digested and raises blood glucose in one to two hours. To capture the peak level of your blood glucose, it is best to test one to two hours after you start eating.

https://eatingwell.com

But using my CGM (the above data was from a European FreeStyle Libre), my blood sugar is basically back to normal in one hour.

To me, this was one of the great benefits of the CGM. Also, take a look at what happens when I eat real pizza:

I had pizza a few times when I had my CGM, and this was the curve each time. Yikes!

[KetoCancerMom]

Its a small chain, fewer than 20 restaurants, so they don’t have all the detailed nutritional info that large chains do.

Here’s the description of the pasta:
Mediterranean Pasta

Sauteed Zucchini, Eggplant, Roma Tomatoes, Artichoke Hearts, Pine nuts, Garlic, Kalamata Olives, Feta & Parmesan Cheeses, Fresh Basil tossed with White Wine with zucchini noodles

emphasis mine. I skipped the egglpant and artichokes. I really didn’t have a good way to tell how many carbs were in it, unfortunately. Also, I’ve noticed that the lower my glucose is when I start eating, the higher it tends to go when I do eat.

Any thoughts on what happened with the cream?

[KetoCancerMom]

Here’s some data from over a few different days.
The one day that had an outlier at dinner was the other night at a restaurant. My guess is that the larger spike was related to not having much fat in the meal, as all other meals had large amounts of fat.

Its certainly interesting to see that for those 4 days my glucose followed a pattern.

[KetoCancerMom]

Since I’m planning on fasting after supper tonight I decided I’d have some lunch.
Before lunch numbers:
ISF: 80
BG: 80
BK: 0.9
GKI: 4.93

Lunch was some ground beef and bacon and a little bit of cheese (and a tiny bit of low-carb catsup). I didn’t measure how much I was eating (I’m getting tired of doing that). It was probably about 1/2 of what I would eat at supper. I’m not sure what was going on with the dip after eating, although, it pretty close to being in range of acceptable margins. Glucose is currently around the “normal” for this time of day.