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The Reversal Trials

O

Olof

Newbie
Messages
4
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
Dear all,

I was diagnosed with diabetes two years ago and has since then gone from medicating with insulin to no medication at all. Today I'm trying to stay of the medications by keeping a low carb diet and exercise. A week back I started a new phase and will try out a new home grown method for two months in order to get my blood sugar levels (fasting and HbA1c). Feel free to visit my blog and leave any comments if you have any questions, remarks etc.

http://thereversaltrials.com

Kind regards
Olof
 
This looks quite interesting. I've been doing something similar for the last couple of months with a lot of success, although my blood sugar numbers were not as high as yours. Since you are presenting this as a bit of a scientific experiment I have a few suggestions that might make it more useful for us followers of your new blog, since I am extremely interested to see how you do (forgive me if any of these are already addressed in your blog):

1. What meds are you on now?
2. What were your daily BG numbers the week before you started? What kind of diet were you on just before you started? What was your A1C before you started?
3. Can you present your tracking results for your BMI and blood pressure?
4. How many grams of carbs you eat daily or even at each meal? (I find carbs at breakfast raises my BG more than the same amount of carbs at other times of the day; I know you say you don't have time to figure out how many grams of carbs you consume, but without that info I think it will be difficult to draw conclusions regarding the results since carbs are what effects postprandial BG levels the most; I am under 50 g of carbs a day, so because it's so low I find it quite easy to track and I don't bother tracking fat or protein).
5. Can you present your tracking of how much exercise you do daily and before/after BG? (I find that when I run a few kms my BG sometimes go up and sometimes goes down, but seems to head towards 5.6 mmol/L)
6. When you present postprandial numbers, are these the peak numbers after you eat? Or exactly 1 hr after? 2 hours? (For me, my bg peaks just about exactly 1 hr after the mid point of my meal).
7. What are your lipid numbers? I found that LCHF diet has improved my numbers after only a short time, especially triglycerides and LDL. It would be interesting to see how your diet and exercise affects your lipids.
8. How do you define "reversal"? Blood sugar levels at non-diabetic levels while still on low carb diet? Blood sugar levels at non-diabetic levels if you go back on a standard high carb diet? Although I'm on LCHF diet, once a month I do what I call my "pasta challenge": I'll eat a pasta (85 g of whole wheat spaghetti) and meat sauce (home made, no sugar) and see how high my BG spikes. At first, when I had just started LCHF, it went to 10 mmol/L, then a month later 8.9, then last week only to 8.1. Perhaps you could do something similar.

As a comment, I think maybe the 3 month time frame is ambitious, but who knows? I have definitely seen a significant improvement in my BG numbers in about that time frame, although my morning BG does not seem to have changed much.

Sorry for so much writing. Thanks in advance and good luck.

P.S. I disagree with you on not eating bacon or sausage, but that's just me. Then again, I don't eat that much of it.

 
NoCrbs4Me said:
This looks quite interesting. I've been doing something similar for the last couple of months with a lot of success, although my blood sugar numbers were not as high as yours. Since you are presenting this as a bit of a scientific experiment I have a few suggestions that might make it more useful for us followers of your new blog, since I am extremely interested to see how you do (forgive me if any of these are already addressed in your blog):

1. What meds are you on now?
2. What were your daily BG numbers the week before you started? What kind of diet were you on just before you started? What was your A1C before you started?
3. Can you present your tracking results for your BMI and blood pressure?
4. How many grams of carbs you eat daily or even at each meal? (I find carbs at breakfast raises my BG more than the same amount of carbs at other times of the day; I know you say you don't have time to figure out how many grams of carbs you consume, but without that info I think it will be difficult to draw conclusions regarding the results since carbs are what effects postprandial BG levels the most; I am under 50 g of carbs a day, so because it's so low I find it quite easy to track and I don't bother tracking fat or protein).
5. Can you present your tracking of how much exercise you do daily and before/after BG? (I find that when I run a few kms my BG sometimes go up and sometimes goes down, but seems to head towards 5.6 mmol/L)
6. When you present postprandial numbers, are these the peak numbers after you eat? Or exactly 1 hr after? 2 hours? (For me, my bg peaks just about exactly 1 hr after the mid point of my meal).
7. What are your lipid numbers? I found that LCHF diet has improved my numbers after only a short time, especially triglycerides and LDL. It would be interesting to see how your diet and exercise affects your lipids.
8. How do you define "reversal"? Blood sugar levels at non-diabetic levels while still on low carb diet? Blood sugar levels at non-diabetic levels if you go back on a standard high carb diet? Although I'm on LCHF diet, once a month I do what I call my "pasta challenge": I'll eat a pasta (85 g of whole wheat spaghetti) and meat sauce (home made, no sugar) and see how high my BG spikes. At first, when I had just started LCHF, it went to 10 mmol/L, then a month later 8.9, then last week only to 8.1. Perhaps you could do something similar.

As a comment, I think maybe the 3 month time frame is ambitious, but who knows? I have definitely seen a significant improvement in my BG numbers in about that time frame, although my morning BG does not seem to have changed much.

Sorry for so much writing. Thanks in advance and good luck.

P.S. I disagree with you on not eating bacon or sausage, but that's just me. Then again, I don't eat that much of it.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply! Your questions seems very relevant and I'll try to answer some of them here and will get back to some on the blog in the future. I don't know how scientific I am but do try to keep some method to this test BUT I am self employed and work quite a lot and therefore only have a limited time each day to spend on this. So if i fail now and then I hope you understand - I need to live my life as well :)

Some answers to your questions:
1. No medications at all
2. HbA1C was 40 and BG-number (fasting glucose i assume) usually between 6,7 - 7,3. I wash't on any particular diet before this but I did skip pasta, rise and bread (and any type of sweets and candy). I spent a month in Indonesia this summer and they served noodles or rise or noodles with rise there all the time so I struggled there!
3. I am going to write a post about this soon - just need to crunch some numbers :)
4. I don't know... But I might do a week were i actually measure the grams just to see. But I'd say I'm below 50 g/day most days.
5. More or less, I try to use my sport watch and record every exercise but some times I'm doing walks after a business lunch and don't have my watch so I might need to find another solution here...
6. Same here, I learned at the hospital to test the blood sugar 1,5 hours after eating. I admit that i miss this exact time a bit to often and thats why a constant blood sugar tester had been amazing to have - but I can't afford one I'm afraid.
7. Sadly I don't have this information
8. Yes that is the million dollar question :) I think that I'll do something similar as you do with the pasta - but I need to think some more on this.

Bacon ans sausages is a bit hard to cut out but to be honest but when you start to read up on how the manufacturers add this and that to those products it just seemed a proper thing to do during this period as I want to now what I'm really eating.

If you have any other comments or ideas I'm happy to read them as this is somewhat a work in progress and not a "perfect" method. One of my goal is to get some inspiration from others, and if possible give some inspiration back to those who struggle with this!

Cheers
Olof
 
1. Is the no meds based on advice from a doctor? I would have thought they'd at least have you on metformin.
2. Actually, I was wondering if you tracked your BG numbers before you started in a similar manner as you are now (morning, after meals, before bed) for comparison. Your HBA1C seems quite low in comparison to your daily numbers. 40 is almost normal, but your daily numbers are clearly elevated. Do you have a diabetic nurse or endocrinologist? What do they say about your numbers?
4. I think the grams of carbs you have at each meal is extremely important to sort out the results. Maybe you can just take a guess for each meal or use calorieking.com to help you make a guess.
6. But generally you check when you expect your peak postprandial to occur?

Well, I have to admit I really don't eat much bacon or sausage. Maybe two strips of bacon or 1 small breakfast sausage at breakfast. I doubt I'd eat any meat at all if I visited an abattoir.

Thanks.
 
NoCrbs4Me said:
1. Is the no meds based on advice from a doctor? I would have thought they'd at least have you on metformin.
2. Actually, I was wondering if you tracked your BG numbers before you started in a similar manner as you are now (morning, after meals, before bed) for comparison. Your HBA1C seems quite low in comparison to your daily numbers. 40 is almost normal, but your daily numbers are clearly elevated. Do you have a diabetic nurse or endocrinologist? What do they say about your numbers?
4. I think the grams of carbs you have at each meal is extremely important to sort out the results. Maybe you can just take a guess for each meal or use calorieking.com to help you make a guess.
6. But generally you check when you expect your peak postprandial to occur?

Well, I have to admit I really don't eat much bacon or sausage. Maybe two strips of bacon or 1 small breakfast sausage at breakfast. I doubt I'd eat any meat at all if I visited an abattoir.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

1. Yes, I tried metformin a short while with some odd side effects - the doctor wanted me to do a diet and exercise based after that and HbA1c was 37 and 40 the last to tests that I took.
2. I did but not as strict as I do now. My morning BC was steadily between 6,7 - 7,3 - didn't really matter what it was the night before..
4. Gonna check calorie king.com - never heard of it so thx
6. Yup

Regards
Olof
 
Olof said:
Thanks for your reply! Your questions seems very relevant and I'll try to answer some of them here and will get back to some on the blog in the future. I don't know how scientific I am but do try to keep some method to this test BUT I am self employed and work quite a lot and therefore only have a limited time each day to spend on this. So if i fail now and then I hope you understand - I need to live my life as well :)

Some answers to your questions:
1. No medications at all
2. HbA1C was 40 and BG-number (fasting glucose i assume) usually between 6,7 - 7,3. I wash't on any particular diet before this but I did skip pasta, rise and bread (and any type of sweets and candy). I spent a month in Indonesia this summer and they served noodles or rise or noodles with rise there all the time so I struggled there!
3. I am going to write a post about this soon - just need to crunch some numbers :)
4. I don't know... But I might do a week were i actually measure the grams just to see. But I'd say I'm below 50 g/day most days.
5. More or less, I try to use my sport watch and record every exercise but some times I'm doing walks after a business lunch and don't have my watch so I might need to find another solution here...
6. Same here, I learned at the hospital to test the blood sugar 1,5 hours after eating. I admit that i miss this exact time a bit to often and thats why a constant blood sugar tester had been amazing to have - but I can't afford one I'm afraid.
7. Sadly I don't have this information
8. Yes that is the million dollar question :) I think that I'll do something similar as you do with the pasta - but I need to think some more on this.

Bacon ans sausages is a bit hard to cut out but to be honest but when you start to read up on how the manufacturers add this and that to those products it just seemed a proper thing to do during this period as I want to now what I'm really eating.

If you have any other comments or ideas I'm happy to read them as this is somewhat a work in progress and not a "perfect" method. One of my goal is to get some inspiration from others, and if possible give some inspiration back to those who struggle with this!

Cheers
Olof[/QUOTE
You say HbA1c was 40. Was that the highest it was?
Click to expand...
 
No, that was my last HbA1c, highest measured is 90 which it was when I was diagnosed two years ago
 
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