BG Peaks and Troughs - LCHF vs 'Normal'?

I've fully embraced LCHF eating for 4 days now and must say it's going very well, since (this time!) I've got over my fat fear.

One thing I've noticed, and reading around suggests it's quite common, is that it's now much harder to get my morning readings (which have always been my lowest in the past) as low as they were on a more varied diet.

If I tried hard with exercise the night before, I used to be able to get 4.5-5 mmol/l. Now, even with the same exercise, I can't get it below 6.

I gather this may be explained by the fact the body stops using as much glucose, so it hangs around, so to speak.

But another thing I've noticed is that now that my body is in ketosis (I've checked with Ketostix, for what they are worth), if I do have even a small amount of carbs, I get a surprisingly long lasting rise in blood glucose (I presume the explanation for this is the same).

I'm wondering things like:

* Are there ways, e.g. special foods to eat or specific macro nutrient ratios, to help lower your fasting bg?

* Is it best to 'fully commit' and virtually eradicate all carbs, since small amounts now cause bigger rises?

* What do people feel is best: Waking up with a 4.5 mmol/l reading and being able to have a fair amount of carbs and be less than 7.8 two hours later, or waking up a little over 6.0 mmol/l then making sure they keep their carbs very low.

I can find studies that show that the peaks and troughs are the things that cause damage (suggesting that fully committing to virtually eradicating carbs is a good idea) but also studies that say keeping the fasting level low is a thing to aim for.

Alison Campbell said:

4 days is too soon to be making any firm conclusions in my opinion. With fasting levels, patience and consistancy wins out with reduced carbs. I'd be surprised if your liver has cleared the glucose from your mince pie experiments yet. Your body needs time to adjust and settle.

Please consider a level of carbs that you can sustain longer term, it's not a fad diet. Low carb is for life...

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Kristin251 said:

Good point. One meal ‘over done’ generally takes me 3-4 days to get back to even close to normal. Generally not worth it. Splitting that meal into smaller meals is much safer and I get to eat it a few more times!! Bonus

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I think I've worked out what's going on, while wondering about another observation I started another thread about. It's a guess but it makes sense in many ways.

The only time I've been able to get the great low fasting readings is when I'm losing weight. But when I started LCHF I was aiming for weight maintenance and I'm fairly sure I'll have been gaining a bit of weight the more I think about it.

I've now experienced twice, that during a period of weight maintenance (and possible gain), eating a lot of calories but exercising a lot, my fasting numbers climb go to about 7. Both times about the same amount of calories. One time high carb (~300g), second time low carb (~40g).

The carb levels may be important for controlling individual spikes, but apparently not so important for getting morning fasting levels good.

In summary this is what I think has happened to my metabolism over the last 3 months:

* Maintaining weight at ~18 stone, I couldn't get my fasting numbers lower than 9.5 mmol/l

* Losing weight fairly rapidly, I saw the effect seen in the Newcastle-style diets - big drop in fasting readings quite soon. Lost 3 stone.

* Maintaining weight at ~15 stone, I now can't get my fasting numbers lower than 7 mmol/l. I.e. I stopped the energy deficit and the fasting levels crept up again, but not to as high as when I was 18 stone.

I have a mental image of my liver being drained of fat and glycogen while losing weight, then stocking back up again when I try to maintain (and probably gain) by packing myself full of calories, even if I exercise as well.

Regardless of the interesting effects of ketosis on a lower-carb diet, the fact is I'm still eating carbs. I think the simple question of "am I losing energy, or storing energy" explains the fasting number observations.

The nice thing to come out of this observation is that it seems, for whatever reason, that my fasting levels, when maintaining weight at 15 stone, are better than at 18 stone, so I'm improving. I'm already planning to lose another 3 stone so this is just encouragement.

Bluetit1802 said:

My advice is to suspend all morning fasting tests for the time being and concentrate on pre and post meal tests and try to keep post meal rises down to under 2mmol/l, preferably a lot less. Don't worry about the actual levels for now, just worry about the size of the rise.

FBG is notoriously unpredictable, and stress plays a big part. Also, what are you learning from it? If the answer is very little, why do it? You will learn from testing meals.

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I was writing my previous post as you were writing that it seems!

I think I *may* have learned something very useful from it. The next thing I'll be doing, next week, is to stick to LCHF but this time ensure I have a significant energy deficit and start losing weight again. I expect my fasting bgs will improve, as I think they, for me at the moment, are highly influenced by whether or not I am losing energy rather than storing it. Anyway I say what I'm thinking in previous post.

Thank you.

ringi said:

The morning readings will start to come down, as you move fat from your Liver but that takes time on LCHF. There are a few things to can do to help.

• Have dinner earlier
• Make dinner the smallest meal of the day
• Have at least a 10 minute walk after dinner
• Make dinner low protein and very low carb (I often have too much protein at dinner)

Stop stressing as being under 7 for a fasting BG is good enough if your A1c is good

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Sorry missed this as well due to typing my post at the same time. I think I actually can explain what I'm seeing (I've explained it in the post I was writing) and have just one more test to do over the next week to verify. The important thing being that this time I'll be using LCHF combined with significant calorie restriction.