Tested how Diet Pepsi affected BHOB

science
(Jaybub) #1

Hi all. New here so apologies if this isn’t in the right forum.

I was curious how Diet Pepsi (aspartame) would affect my BHOB number, even with the claims of it not affecting insulin. I decided to check it out myself. After downing maybe 8oz a night for two nights in a row, I fasted for 12 hours, checked my number in the morning and to my amazement it was a whopping 1.0.

I was surprised it was so high. I’ve struggled to get anything higher than a .7 over the past 6 months I’ve been on keto. Then again, I haven’t checked BHOB in maybe a month or two. I had a huge cheat meal (burger, fries, Diet Coke) at Chilis 5 days ago, but I’ve worked out maybe 3 or 4 days since then with a max heart rate average of 75% over 45 minutes each time.

Glucose was at 56 mg/dL. Which is possibly TOO low and I’m feeling a little hypoglycemic this morning. But that usually happens when I get down to around 15% body fat and haven’t ate in a while.

Anyways, just wanted to share the results. I guess I won’t feel so adverse to drinking it or other aspartame drinks in the future. This might be a bad thing!

(Karen) #2

I found this very interesting. I’m not sure it would apply to me because I am not very active, I have high body fat, and I am in a post menopausal elderly female. However, it was interesting

(Cancer Fighting Ketovore :)) #3

If you don’t mind my input a better way to test might be along the lines of the following:

  1. fast for at least 8 hours (12 is ok too).
  2. get a baseline BG and BK reading (glucose and ketones)
  3. drink your diet pepsi (T0)
  4. wait 30 minutes and then take another reading (T30)
  5. repeat #4 (T60)
  6. repeat #4 (T90)
  7. repeat #4 (T120)
  8. repeat on another day

That should give you a much better idea of how your body is responding. I think that waiting the 12 hours to test might not give an accurate view of what’s going on. If you are willing to do what I suggested I’d be very interested to see the results. Its likely that any changes that happened were within a few hours after drinking the soda.

(Karen) #4

I’ll consider it. Is this standard diet Pepsi using aspartame? I had a Pepsi zero today. I’ll regret the caffeine this evening. I’m not diabetic so I am a little curious as to what this will do.

I could do this at breakfast time, where I’ll be guaranteed to be fasted. That’ll be 10 BG strips and 10 keto strips. The keto strips are about a buck apiece, so I’ll think about whether it’s worth doing the test for me because it’s pricey. :stuck_out_tongue:

Plus that’s a lot of pokes :pushpin::pushpin::pushpin::pushpin::pushpin::pushpin::pushpin::pushpin::pushpin::pushpin:

(Not a cow) #5

I’m not generally into drinking soft drinks, at least not in the last 10 weeks ( strict keto) however last night I really felt like having something with taste so I chose to go out and buy a diet coke, with aspartame. ( 1.5 litre) . I believe I am fat adapted which may help the results look better.

This is what I drank from about 7 pm to 9:30 pm when I came across your post. I had taken my 8:30 pm BG and BK reading which was
8:30 BG 95 BK 0.7 which is normal for this time of day. No effect from the Diet Coke yet.

After reading your post, I thought why not take the challenge, so I continued to measure and at
9:00 BG 106 BK 1.0. , then at
9:30 BG 99 BK 0.8, and then at
10pm BG 103 BK 0.6. I did not finish my last glass until 9:30.

There was no other reason for my BG to go up except for the diet coke, so insulin reacted negatively.

                                This morning at

7:30 BG 110 BK 0.6 which is normal for me in the morning, so overall effect for me, was not very significant, at least by morning, but probably could prolong my insulin resistance should I continue drinking this crap. :wink:

(Bob M) #6

You would also have to repeat multiple times on days when you don’t drink diet pepsi. Otherwise, you really don’t know what’s happening.

For instance, I thought coffee caused my blood sugar to rise. So, I delayed drinking coffee until 10am+…and my blood sugar rose anyway. The coffee added nothing to it.

And I think if you’re going from 0.7 to 1.0, there’s really no change. Ketone tests are wildly variable.

(Not a cow) #7

I’d like to do that Bob, but normally I don’t stay up long enough to test after 8:30, unless I drink another coke. haha.

(Bob M) #8

They just aren’t that reliable, unfortunately.

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(Bob M) #9

Ugh… That’s not the one I wanted to post. I’m in my phone and the interface is terrible. Anyway, I tested at the same time with Precision Xtra, and two Keto Mojo’s, and got 0.2, 0.4, and 0.8. My ketones were anywhere from 0.2 to 0.8.

(Cancer Fighting Ketovore :)) #10

Just do the tests in the morning, like I said. Waiting 12 hours after having the food/drink doesn’t really tell you anything.

In my opinion it wasn’t really a clean test. You need to drink it in a short window and then do the testing, so that you have fewer variables to effect the outcome.

How do you know there was no effect if you didn’t take measurements before drinking, and in a fasted (includes liquids except water) state?

(Jaybub) #11

That’s a good idea. I’m running low on BHOB strips but I’ll give this a shot when I get more in.

(Jaybub) #12

Yes, Diet Pepsi using aspartame. I’d think Pepsi (coke?) zero should give the same results as it uses aspartame as well, but not sure how the other ingredients would affect insulin.

(Jaybub) #13

Thanks for the info! This is exactly what I was hoping to find coming to this forum. Other people that are interested in digging into the numbers.

So it looks like there is a near term reaction that possibly dissipates pretty quickly over time. I knew it was too good to be true.

(Jaybub) #14

Good point. As soon as I get more strips in I’ll be running more test.

(Jaybub) #15

Geeze!