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Bigger breakfast smaller dinner?

Alexandra100 said:
So no spinach, sauerkraut, avocadoes, cheese, nuts, eggs, courgettes, lettuce, mayonnaise ...?
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As you can see from my signature I try to keep carbs as low as possible... however of the things you list yes I do have spinach, avocado, cheese, eggs, courgettes, mayo and a few nuts on occasion. I aim to keep my blood sugars as low as I can at all times so the concept of eating carbs to raise them to me is crazy. I find that by keeping lower than 20g of carbs for most of the time my bloods hardly ever spike and rarely go above 6 apart from the odd FBG. I'm happy with that.. don't feel deprived and don't experience hunger.
 
Bluetit1802 said:
Yes, I have.

I tried FF yogurt with 2 strawberries or 5 raspberries. Spiked and stayed up there untl just before lunch. I did not realise this until I used a Libre.

Soft boiled egg or coffee & cream stops it in its tracks.
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Very interesting! Do you know how many g carbs in the yoghurt & berries you ate? I would like to work this combination into my diet, albeit HF Greek yoghurt, but I find it difficult.
 
Am I missing the point here, the article says to eat 50% of your calories at breakfast, I eat low carb coconut porridge and although it’s low carb it is high calorie. It talks about insulin response with calories, surely that’ll only happen if it’s high carb as well? I’m confused (easily done! o_O).
 
bulkbiker said:
As you can see from my signature I try to keep carbs as low as possible... however of the things you list yes I do have spinach, avocado, cheese, eggs, courgettes, mayo and a few nuts on occasion. I aim to keep my blood sugars as low as I can at all times so the concept of eating carbs to raise them to me is crazy. I find that by keeping lower than 20g of carbs for most of the time my bloods hardly ever spike and rarely go above 6 apart from the odd FBG. I'm happy with that.. don't feel deprived and don't experience hunger.
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I think we are at cross purposes. When I mention carbs I mean in the sort of foods in my list. I am keeping my carbs at or below 20g daily, but I still have to apportion my carbs allowance where it will cause the least rise. As for hunger, I too often don't experience this over long periods, but if I don't eat I think I might disappear altogether.
 
Rachox said:
It talks about insulin response with calories,
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Not really I think that any food will cause an insulin response (apart maybe from pure fat like coconut oil) The intensity of the insulin response will probably depend on the carb content.
 
After reading a bit of the article and some of the posts here, this bit from the article may need emphasising:

"results of a study about the benefit of a high energy breakfast in people with type 2 diabetes who need insulin to help manage their blood sugar"

Which I expect changes things somewhat compared to people with T2 not using external insulin.
 
bulkbiker said:
Problem I have with this is they are still wedded to 3 meals a day. Why? Who says?
By skipping either the first or last meal you'll have fewer insulin responses and assist fat burning not storage.
Also they are still stuck on calories and not nutritional density and satiety which is a big negative for the research.
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Agreed on the lack of need for 3 meals a day.

Re being too concerned with calories, I'd say that the experiment was sort of the opposite: calories were kept constant, which allowed them to see what other factors come into play strongly re weight loss and glucose control.

They've kind of shown that insulin is likely to be a huge factor. Well they sum up by saying "Why this observation holds true needs to be addressed," but they'd be pretty silly not to be looking at insulin as the most likely factor, given they observed that the group that fared better were using less insulin.
 
AdamJames said:
Agreed on the lack of need for 3 meals a day.

Re being too concerned with calories, I'd say that the experiment was sort of the opposite: calories were kept constant, which allowed them to see what other factors come into play strongly re weight loss and glucose control.

They've kind of shown that insulin is likely to be a huge factor. Well they sum up by saying "Why this observation holds true needs to be addressed," but they'd be pretty silly not to be looking at insulin as the most likely factor, given they observed that the group that fared better were using less insulin.
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From the article
"The good news, say these researchers, is that it matters very little what you eat if you are stuck in this cycle"
which we know is cobblers...
 
bulkbiker said:
From the article
"The good news, say these researchers, is that it matters very little what you eat if you are stuck in this cycle"
which we know is cobblers...
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I wasn't quite sure what they meant by "what you eat". It's ambiguous - could mean calories, carbs, food that curbs hunger, anything.

I actually took it to mean that calories are not that important, which is what you are saying.
 
I haven't exactly got a lot of personal data from fasting, but this is for sure:

1) When I first tried fasting, I ate 600 cals, 14g carbs in the morning, and about 12 hours later, my bg was down to 3.9 mmol/l, which is the lowest I've ever seen. Checked 3 times in total, to confirm. I woke up the next day at 3.9 also - lowest morning reading I've ever seen, and also this confirms that I rarely if ever get the dawn phenomenon.

2) I've gone without food for 12 hours regularly, sometimes deliberately not eating anything after about 6:30pm, and breakfast is about 7:30am, so that I am doing a sort of 12 hour fast while sleeping. My bg has never got down near 3.9 doing this, not by the evening or morning. Again, I don't think dawn phenomenon explains this - my morning bg has never been higher than my bedtime bg.
 
kokhongw said:
This link has slightly more information about the study...
https://www.endocrinologyadvisor.co...-dose-in-t2d-with-3-meal-diet/article/750900/

View attachment 25893

The study was to compare a 3 meal day vs a 6 meal day. Clearly a 3 meal day with the 5:3:2 approach works much better than the standard grazing method.
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Thanks for the numbers :)

Interesting that they included "craving scores" and they also are much better for the morning group. The one time I tried having all my food in the morning, I was expecting it to be hell in terms of cravings, but it wasn't too bad at all. I did have a 'sensible' macro ratio with lots of protein and a fair bit of fat in an effort to help with this though.
 
We can see from the study results that there was a 1.2% improvement in HbA1c within 3 months, just by changing meals timing and frequency. That is rather impressive by pharmacological standards...

But it would of course fall short when compared with methods use to achieve the regular remission numbers that we often see here...we have to understand that remission is not even a treatment goal in the real medical world...

So to address OP question, this study shows that
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-03/tes-hbp031418.php

"The hour of the day--when you eat and how frequently you eat--is more important than what you eat and how many calories you eat," she noted. "Our body metabolism changes throughout the day. A slice of bread consumed at breakfast leads to a lower glucose response and is less fattening than an identical slice of bread consumed in the evening."
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bulkbiker said:
From the article
"The good news, say these researchers, is that it matters very little what you eat if you are stuck in this cycle"
which we know is cobblers...
Click to expand...
I think they should then try apple cobbler for breakfast and see what that does to their BG
 
Alexandra100 said:
Didn't that give you a huge spike?
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I didn't do a postprandial measurement. It was 14g of carbs. That would certainly have caused a big spike for me at one point, but I was going through a good patch I seem to remember, after a lot of weight loss and doing regular walks, and I don't think the breakfast would have given me a crazy spike. It may have.

I can't remember the exact ingredients, but I know it was protein and fat heavy. Something like 2 scrambled eggs, half a Lidl high protein roll, butter, a sausage, bacon and mushrooms.

Anyway, whatever it did in the 2 hours after eating it, the 12 hour result was the best I've ever seen!
 
Alexandra100 said:
Very interesting! Do you know how many g carbs in the yoghurt & berries you ate? I would like to work this combination into my diet, albeit HF Greek yoghurt, but I find it difficult.
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Sorry, I don't have my food diary available. It's 0n my PC and I'm away from home this week. It was Fage Total Greek yogurt, about 2 tablespoons, plus a sprinkle of flaxseed, and either 2 strawberries or 5 raspberries.
 
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