Suggestions about what my blood glucose readings mean

#1

Hello,

I’ve had some past success with EF (lost lots of weight and easily) but my BG levels have been really difficult to get to or below 100. Even after a 4 week fast earlier this year, my BG only got to 120 (from 271) and it came down reeeally slowly each day to boot.

I understand that nothing is standard/the same with humans and we are all unique (and the same person can get different outcomes to something that have done before, depending on various factors, including those that nobody knows about), so I am keeping that in mind when judging my previous results.

I find it easy to lose weight when fasting (and even when eating, my weight doesn’t go up much anymore), so that is not the main goal, anymore. But I’d like to get to about 165lbs, which appears to be my ideal weight.

However, this week, I have seen much different results with my BG and so I thought I’d ask for suggestions as to what might have happened. Perhaps I have “crossed a line”?

Day 2 - 231 185lbs
Day 3 - 211 179lbs
Day 4 - 188 179lbs
Day 5 - 141 175lbs
Day 6 - 108 175lbs
Day 7 - 88 175lbs

I’m going to carry on fasting for until I get to 10-14 days and then see from there.

(Bob M) #2

Are those morning values? That is, your morning value on day 2 is 231?

How long have you been fasting like this or been low carb/keto?

Unfortunately, I can’t provide a reference point, as I start right above 100 as a morning fasting value on the days I eat, then it travels down, as low as 62 in the morning (a real test at a lab).

#3

Yes, all BG readings are a few minutes after I have woken up (before black coffee).

It has been a couple of years since I started using fasting to improve my health, which I have done over a variety of durations and intervals of eating.

My main goal is to end my T2 diabetes.

(Bob M) #4

To be honest, I think weight is meaningless. I usually lose 5+ pounds the first day. (From back when I weighed myself anyway.)

Do you measure ketones? (You should see ketones go up from day 2 to day 7.)

Other than this, I’m not sure what to say, as you and I are quite a bit different in our blood sugar responses. It is an encouraging drop in blood sugar, though. I just think it’ll pop back up when you eat. The issue is whether it’ll continue back to where it was or will it stay lower? That, i can’t answer.

#5

I don’t measure ketones because I cannot afford the only reliable/accurate method. I did also read that once BG reaches around 70-75, a person should be producing ketones.

I’ll continue to monitor my BG and also, once I restart eating.

(Bunny) #6

What do your BG Numbers look like 2 and 3 hours after you eat when not fasting?

The goal might be to find your carbohydrate tolerance?

How to Prevent Diabetes and Heart Disease for $16

My question would be is the liver making or releasing stored glucose? Having this idea that we are going to lower our blood sugars by fasting or restricting calories is highly mythical unless autophagy can help re-generate beta cells?

IP3, IP6 and CRTC2 (the glucose switch; formerly known as mTORC2) is the decisive mechanism that decides how much glucose the body will make not fasting or dietary storage of glucose in the liver?

Seemingly blood glucose release and production in the liver seems to be damaged by phytic acids which helps prevent over-nutrition? Hmmmm?

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #7

How much carbohydrate are you eating? If you cut your intake to 20 grams/day, your blood glucose should drop considerably. You can replace the missing calories with calories from fat, which will have no effect on your insulin or glucose levels.

#8

When I eat (to this point at least), my BG is often in the upper 100s, depending on what i eat of course and how much. But I’ve not ever kept a regular record of such readings along with what I ate so I can’t really know.

As I mentioned, no-one can ever know exactly what is going on (or very close to knowing) in their body, at any moment and/or for any given action and with so much in this space being unknown as well as being confusing/contradictory and opinion/theory/hypothesis based (and who do we believe/follow?), I don’t know that we can actually know, for now at least.

I can’t afford to see any medical people (even those who are aware of fasting/food) so I am on my own, trying to do the best I can/think I can.

#9

I don’t know. I don’t measure anything and find it rather unappealing/complicated/time consuming. It also seems unnatural to do this. I eat fat but only from veggie sources as I am vegan, so avocados, nuts, seeds, olives. I also take MCT oil too when i am eating. I’ve tried to eat tofu but its such a horrible/messy thing to try to cook and I can never get it right.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #10

If you are not willing to lower your carbohydrate intake, you will not be able to lower your serum glucose, since carbohydrates are nothing but long strings of glucose molecules, arranged in various ways.

It is possible to eat a vegan ketogenic diet, but it is difficult, and you will need to take essential supplements (especially the B vitamins, which are largely found only in meat). A vegetarian form of keto is easier, especially if you can eat eggs and fish. Fasting alone is not likely to be enough to lower your serum glucose, unless you are able to fast for long periods of time, which can bring a whole host of other complications into the picture.

#11

From what I have gathered, all nutrition comes from the ground. B vitamins do not come from animals but from what animals eat. Animals are just middle men and do not in themselves provide any nutrition. Even B12 does not originate in animals - it is a bacteria that grows in the soil around grasses/plants, so the animals that eat grasses/plants ingest the bacteria as they consume the grasses/plants (the non factory animals of course which are not fed grasses/plants)

I do take a B complex supplement, D3, electrolyte supplement and add some salt to my water when fasting.

I will not eat animal sources of food again as they damage our cells, not to mention a whole host of other aspects and issues surrounding eating sentient animals.
As a species, I think its OK for humans to eat meat, once in a while, if we found a dead one. But certainly not the abysmal state of affairs we have now. I could say more but I do not want to get into that topic as its off topic, to say the least.

My carbs are all non starchy carbs (no grains) and are low on the GI/GL. I have no idea what 20g of carbs are when I look at various vegetables, nuts, seeds, etc. And foods all have different measuring systems to boot (grams/ounces/fluid ounces, cups, tablespoons/teaspoons, etc., etc. - Urgh!)

I will however start testing by BG once I start eating again, so I can have a record of these for reference.

(Bacon for the Win) #12

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #13

I’d like to see the research that supports this notion, because it’s not my understanding of the situation. And in any case, what plant foods that human beings can eat contain B vitamins? Because they need to come from somewhere in the human diet, and I seriously doubt that anyone can make grass part of his or her diet. We’ve evolved away from that, as a comparison of our digestive organs with those of our primate cousins will show.

https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminB12-HealthProfessional/

#14

There is some (look up Dr Caldwell Esselstyn) but there won’t be much (or much planned) because there is massive vested interest in keeping the status quo, the status quo. The same applies to all other things that challenge the system - fasting, reversing T2 diabetes, ending obesity, not eating every day (we don’t need to eat every day as we are one of the few beings that can store energy in our bodies. We’ve just been programmed to eat like we do. And approx 2/3 of the world are overweight/obese or have T2 diabetes, pre-diabetes, or a combo of these), not eating the fake foods that proliferate our food supply system and many more.

#15

Nuts, seeds, peanuts, leafy greens, mushrooms, hemp, beans (B9), kelp, leeks, taro, sun dried tomatoes.

#16

Actually, our bodies have not “evolved”.
Our bodies have changed very little in many thousands of years, but we have massively changed our environment and created an artificial/away from nature world with lots of food available 24/7/365 and which we do not have to expend any/much energy to obtain. Plus we have introduced ideas that are foreign to our body such as eating every day, eating 3-4-5 times a day, snacking, parties, weddings, eating out, etc., plus eating meat every day, perhaps more than once too.
Plus, when we eat with others, we are highly likely to eat more (the more people we are with, the more we are likely to eat).
Add to that is the problem of most people never fasting in their lives (overnight does not count) and the build up of toxins, cell garbage and other waste material that is created continuously, never gets expunged from the body (through autophagy), so it just sits there and is one of the main reasons for aging.

In addition, we have invented frankenstein/fake foods which do not exist in nature and which the body does not know how to deal with. This results in damage, toxicity, inflammation and more.
Even if the ingredients of a fake food do exist in nature, putting them together in an unnatural way is also damaging to our bodies and creates the same effects as above, as well as causing addiction and weight gain/obesity.

The fake food industry has hijacked our brain’s circuits by designing highly addictive and high caloric foods. Our brains respond very favorably to caloric rich foods, because many thousands of years ago, when such foods were found, it was rare and we took advantage of it, like other animals do today. And the brain remembers where that food was found, so we went back there in the future to see if any more is there. In modern times, with our brain and tastebuds hijacked, we know where that pizza place, is, the burger/fries/donuts store is and also, these foods are created to cause addiction, hence why so many people are overweight.obese and have T2 diabetes, as well as other illnesses.

Also, removing elements of a natural food, like oil from olives/seeds causes the same problems.
Consuming these oils are fine, when they are in their natural state within the natural food, because real foods have evolved over millions of years (as has our biology) and each element of a food is in the evolved & correct proportions to each of the other elements.
So eating an olive/nut/seed is far better than consuming just the oil/adding it to food/cooking with it. Adding oil to food, or cooking with it, is highly damaging to us. The extra virgin olive oil craze is just one big scam, just for profit of course. And the theory/belief that the mediterranean diet is great is not because of olive oil - its because people in those countries eat lots of veggies.

I did not say we eat grass, so do check what you read before you write.

(Bob M) #17

So, where you live, you pick olives off the tree? You can harvest nuts?

I mean if your argument is that we should eat what we’ve eaten for thousands of years, that’s meat. If your argument is that we should eat what’s local, that’s most likely not olives. In some locations, we ate nuts. You’d eat what you could wherever you are, but you mainly would rely on meat. Why? Well, kill a large animal, and you can feed your family for months. No harvesting required.

Try to live on nuts and the like, and you’re harvesting all the time. Then, you have to figure out how to neutralize the anti-nutrients in things like nuts in order to eat them.

And the foods don’t evolve - we make them into what we want them to be. For instance, cauliflower and the like. We selected and MADE them, not the other way around:

#18

I can see that you are twisting/corrupting/misrepresenting and belittling what I have said, and not actually reading what I wrote, most likely because it does not fit in with your opinions. What you write is also quite wrong and flies in the face of nature,

You can of course look up, for yourself, what I have written about food and our bodies, but we both know you are not going to do that, because you are “right” and so you don’t need to. You have chosen not to offer any suggestions on my post and instead decided to taken me off topic in order to try to persuade of your opinions, which is all they are.

If you post again, there is no point in me reading what you write, since you are clearly not interested in or you are incapable of genuinely helping someone who takes the time to seek it.

(Jane) #19

Just because youi don’t eat grains doesn’t mean you are eating a low carb (certainly not keto) diet. Potatoes, corn, etc have high carbs and you said “non starchy carbs”, not “non starchy vegetables”.

My 86-yo Dad does not eat keto nor does he fast but he has been able to keep his T2D under control by eating < 50 carbs a day, which I consider low carb. Like @PaulL said - if you aren’t willing to cut your carbs (and track them) then you won’t get the same fantastic results so many have had here who have reversed their T2D with keto. Maybe you can do it with fasting alone… if you do please come back and tell us about it!

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #20

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