nutribolt
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 523
- Type of diabetes
- Treatment type
- Diet only
New to this - why fasting? Did you really not eat for 60 hours? I thought this wasn’t a good idea (especially if taking medication). Curious
Why Fasting?
It depends on what diet one is following. I have been following what is called Low Carbs High Fat (LCHF) with ADF 4:3 (Alternate Day Fasting) which means i eat one day and I water fast for one day and so in a week i eat 4 days and fast 3 days hence the 4:3. There are other variations on the duration of fasting but this one works for me.
The low Carb High Fat diet with almost keto level goals in my case means on the day I am eating I try and limit my carb intake to a maximum of 30g. The advantages of fasting are numerous but if you are interested in the topic I would highly recommend reading the book "The Diabetes Code" from Dr. Jason Fung. If you are looking for evidence of benefits, I can vouch that it does work atleast for me - see my signature for the weight loss and how quickly it helped me to move for extremely high doses of medication to zero medication and if the current readings are anything to go by then I am quite possibly on my road to remission.. fingers crossed -
Did you really not eat for 60 hours:
Well yes, I really did not eat anything for 60 hours and 45 minutes to be precise. This is not as part of my original ADF approach but I did want to move my fasting day to the odd date of the month as two even dates within this month are birthdays (my daughter's and mine) in our house and I wanted to be able to eat on those dates and completing a 60 hours fasting allowed me to do just that.
thought this wasn’t a good idea (especially if taking medication):
You are right fasting on medication must be done under advisement from your medical team which is what I did when I first started on this diet. I informed the diabetes team of my local surgery but before I did that I actually prepared with proof that I know what I am getting into. I did this by following just the LCHF without fasting and capturing the improvements on CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitoring) using Freestyle Libre. Then I took those results to the diabetes team and explained that I want to take this improvement to next level and will be proceeding with Intermittent Fasting. They had concerns but seeing that they were unable to help in lowering my blood sugars in last 10 years and knowing that I have no vices and have always followed their advice they agreed with the experiment.
So when I started fasting I was still taking a dose of Jardiance but soon enough it was evident that medication might actually result in lower blood sugars risking hypo so I again informed surgery that I will be stopping medication and see how it goes. Lo and behold I have now been off medication and have been getting BG reading in green zone since 19/10/2020.
Bottom line though - please do keep your doctor informed and read a lot and try to understand how your body is responding to LCHF before you take it to fasting... and bear in mind that every person and body will react differently so record every activity and improvise as you identify what works and what doesn't.
Hope this helps.