Carb cycling

[Paul41]

I’d welcome informed opinions on what I’m thinking about please .

For background I found I was pre diabetic in July 23. Following advice here I embarked on a low carb way of life . I never counted carbs but I did eat to the meter or in fact the CGM.

It was a success, by January 24 my A1C was normal as was my BMI. I had a further A1C test July 24 , still 38.

I had to stop the weight loss so I now eat more carbs sometimes then other times less as required. I no longer routinely test but I’m basically only eating foods I know I can trust . Beer , all added sugars , fruits and anything with flour are off my menu.

If I have to remain on this way I’m fine with it but I was wondering if I might kind of combine a number of different ways of eating into one so as to keep my BG and weight in check.

I’m thinking that for most of the week I’ll eat very low carb as I have been. Probably 2 meals/ day , probably about 20 grams carb a day. On the other days I thought maybe I could up the carbs . I think this is called carb cycling.

To be clear I’m not trying to justify cheat days , my health is important.
In my mind it’s almost like life would have been before food was so plentiful. Or am I deluding myself ?

 

[Antje77]

I guess it would depend on how your bg reacts to routinely having higher carb meals.
You've lost weight, which may be enough to be able to handle more carbs now. Or it may not.
If you choose to try this, I'd keep a very close eye on bg to see if there is a pattern of higher bg on higher carb days.

Alternatively, instead of upping the carbs, you could up the fats to stop weightloss.

 

[AloeSvea]

Hi @Paul41. My own attitude to a prediabetes diagnosis, even post remission if you like, is that your body has given you a warning sign that you are excess carbohydrate intolerant. So yeah - your understanding that you need to find your own sweet spot, excuse the accidental pun, sounds right on the button.

The excess carbs, according to some T2D theories, follows excess insulin response to the excess blood glucose, than what your body (and arguably - most human bodies!) can handle for optimal health. So, according to my understanding, it would be clever for you to think about the insulin and the higher carbs in tandem. In that case - it wouldn't hurt to cycle a or do a window of eating regime, so your body has a break from the glucose-insulin cycle and replenishes well. This is what I would advise if you were my kin for instance . Basically - with most of the time not snacking at night, or not having late meals followed by breakfast the next day, most of the time. And as you already know - your CGM/BG monitoring will tell you if that is working for you, as would the carb cycling.

My understanding, re the current food and drink environment, is not really about the plentiful, it's the nature of the food and drink now. As in the Ultra Processed nature, when a lot of what we are eating and is in the supermarket is not 'real food', and our bodies can't deal with it well, certainly not for best health outcomes. But yeah, the arguments for how healthy intermittent fasting and fasting generally for us is about what our species has evolved to deal with and cope with well (re the food being plentiful now thing). But I am very much about it's about what we are eating and drinking, rather than how much, because our bodies have a satiety point that works very well when we are eating real food.