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Prediabetes Does high fat food lower Blood Glucose ?

B

Begonia

Well-Known Member
Messages
120
Location
Yorkshire
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
Treatment type
I do not have diabetes
I've been on LCHF for about 3 months now and I'm feeling positive about it. However I still don't really understand the fat part. I understand that you need to increase fat intake to make up the calories you aren't getting from carbs but:

a) If its purely to make up the calories, does the fat need to be saturated (eg cream, dairy, fatty meat) or can it be unsaturated fat (eg nuts, avocados) ?

b) Is there some other reason for eating fat such as how it affects blood sugar ? In which case does it have to be saturated fat or can it be unsaturated ?

I'm trying to understand the need for 'fat bombs' and double cream etc. or is it that they taste great and make it easier to stick to low carbs ? (Guess I'm trying to hedge my bets on the saturated fat / cholesterol debate... )
 
This was a little meal table that I created after I finally managed to get hold of a Libre sensor. A balanced fats/protein meal of Roast pork belly, barely raised my glucose level...
19105517_10155499881289445_5545946113311898521_n.jpg
 
I don't see the point of fat bombs at all, unless you are trying to stabilise existing weight or to gain weight. I just see the "high fat" component as being a percentage of diet once you lower carbs and stop eating processed "low fat" products.
 
Begonia said:
I've been on LCHF for about 3 months now and I'm feeling positive about it. However I still don't really understand the fat part. I understand that you need to increase fat intake to make up the calories you aren't getting from carbs but:

a) If its purely to make up the calories, does the fat need to be saturated (eg cream, dairy, fatty meat) or can it be unsaturated fat (eg nuts, avocados) ?

b) Is there some other reason for eating fat such as how it affects blood sugar ? In which case does it have to be saturated fat or can it be unsaturated ?

I'm trying to understand the need for 'fat bombs' and double cream etc. or is it that they taste great and make it easier to stick to low carbs ? (Guess I'm trying to hedge my bets on the saturated fat / cholesterol debate... )
Click to expand...

It depends on whether or not you need to gain or lose weight, and how the saturated fats affect your cholesterol.
 
Begonia said:
I've been on LCHF for about 3 months now and I'm feeling positive about it. However I still don't really understand the fat part. I understand that you need to increase fat intake to make up the calories you aren't getting from carbs but:

a) If its purely to make up the calories, does the fat need to be saturated (eg cream, dairy, fatty meat) or can it be unsaturated fat (eg nuts, avocados) ?

b) Is there some other reason for eating fat such as how it affects blood sugar ? In which case does it have to be saturated fat or can it be unsaturated ?

I'm trying to understand the need for 'fat bombs' and double cream etc. or is it that they taste great and make it easier to stick to low carbs ? (Guess I'm trying to hedge my bets on the saturated fat / cholesterol debate... )
Click to expand...

:) no one needs to stuff fat, least of all saturated fat.
Some people seem to report that adding in extra fat helps their weight loss, while others report that they stop losing weight with extra fat added in. Some people find it impacts cholesterol. Others don't. Some people find that choice of fat (sat v unsat) makes a difference.

Personally, I suspect it all comes down to personal metabolism, activity levels and carb intake. Afterall, one persons 'I low carb' is another persons 'I don't eat that many carbs in a week!'

Again, purely personally, my experience of fat on LC is this:
- it doesn't drive my cholesterol up
- it stops me being hungry
- if I combine high fat with more than 40g carbs a day, I put on weight fast (its connected to insulin resistance), so I don't do that
- if I keep to less than 20g carbs a day I can eat huge amounts of fat without weight gain (presumably because I don't need much insulin to handle that level of carb intake)
- having fat in a meal with carbs can slow the release of the glucose from the carbs, so I get more of a wide hummock than a spike. I prefer this, but have to balance it against the weight gain risk.
 
Addressing the question posed in the title of this thread:
I don't believe fat lowers BG. However, it reduces the absorption of sugar which makes BG easier to control by removing BG spikes.
 
Depends on how "low carb" you want to go. Nuts and avocados have more carbs than cream and butter and meat so if you are limiting your carbs to ketogenic levels (less than 20g per day) then it's better to eat more fat from meat and dairy. If you have a looser level of carbs then nuts and avocado are ok.
As fat tends to have a very limited effect on blood sugar then you can eat more without a response helping to maintain a lower blood sugar level.
 
Thanks for your posts. Very interesting charts... does this mean that adding the fat to a meal helps reduce spikes ? Does this have to be saturated fat though ?

Is the reason for not eating 'low fat' products (eg low fat yoghurt) just that they are likely to be higher in carbs or is there some other reason ? Put another way, if a 'low fat' yoghurt has the same carbs as a full fat one is it inherently not so good for your blood sugar ?

I'm not trying to lose or gain weight. My main focus is on lowering my blood sugar. I don't know yet how saturated fats affect my cholesterol as I've been eating low fat for years ! I've read quite a bit of the research on fats but still trying to understand it all.
 
Begonia said:
Thanks for your posts. Very interesting charts... does this mean that adding the fat to a meal helps reduce spikes ? Does this have to be saturated fat though ?

Is the reason for not eating 'low fat' products (eg low fat yoghurt) just that they are likely to be higher in carbs or is there some other reason ? Put another way, if a 'low fat' yoghurt has the same carbs as a full fat one is it inherently not so good for your blood sugar ?

I'm not trying to lose or gain weight. My main focus is on lowering my blood sugar. I don't know yet how saturated fats affect my cholesterol as I've been eating low fat for years ! I've read quite a bit of the research on fats but still trying to understand it all.
Click to expand...

It doesn't have to be saturated fats. You can choose any kinds of fats that you feel comfortable with. Except for trans fats...

In general yes packaged low fats food has more carbs than necessary. But everyone has different tolerance levels. Same for supposedly low GI food. Smart Carb Low GI bread don't quite work for my dumb body...

Low carbs food have sufficient variations to keep almost everyone happy. And then there is still the option of fasting if you want to go a notch further...

My weight has remain stable around 75kg throughout the 21 months since diagnosis. So low carbs high fats don't necessarily result in weight loss/gain...but there is some waist loss...
 
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Begonia said:
I've been on LCHF for about 3 months now and I'm feeling positive about it. However I still don't really understand the fat part. I understand that you need to increase fat intake to make up the calories you aren't getting from carbs but:

a) If its purely to make up the calories, does the fat need to be saturated (eg cream, dairy, fatty meat) or can it be unsaturated fat (eg nuts, avocados) ?

b) Is there some other reason for eating fat such as how it affects blood sugar ? In which case does it have to be saturated fat or can it be unsaturated ?

I'm trying to understand the need for 'fat bombs' and double cream etc. or is it that they taste great and make it easier to stick to low carbs ? (Guess I'm trying to hedge my bets on the saturated fat / cholesterol debate... )
Click to expand...
Should be a mix of both. Cholesterol is a myth. Try 4 brazil nuts a week - lowers cholesterol.
 
Begonia said:
I've been on LCHF for about 3 months now and I'm feeling positive about it. However I still don't really understand the fat part. I understand that you need to increase fat intake to make up the calories you aren't getting from carbs but:

a) If its purely to make up the calories, does the fat need to be saturated (eg cream, dairy, fatty meat) or can it be unsaturated fat (eg nuts, avocados) ?

b) Is there some other reason for eating fat such as how it affects blood sugar ? In which case does it have to be saturated fat or can it be unsaturated ?

I'm trying to understand the need for 'fat bombs' and double cream etc. or is it that they taste great and make it easier to stick to low carbs ? (Guess I'm trying to hedge my bets on the saturated fat / cholesterol debate... )
Click to expand...


A far as I've read it - and very simplistically and seems to be the case with me -

Saturated fats increase HDL cholesterol and also LDL cholesterol - and the LDL part is why it worries some people . In general though the increase in LDL is large LDL not the small stuff that is dangerous
A low fat diet decreases HDL which is bad for you
A high carb diet increases triglycerides which is bad for you

Unsaturated fats coming from real food are good for you ,
any fats coming from highly processed oils are bad for you


Using cream and fat bombs.
In the end you don't lose weight unless you burn more calories than you eat. where cream and fat bombs can come in handy is that they are enormously filling - so for example these days I often have a spicy coffee in place of a meal.

my spicy coffee includes - a base of coffee with various additives - cinnamon, turmeric, nutmeg, black pepper, I then add a tiny amount of avocado oil, butter, cod liver oil, and use unsweetened almond milk to whiten it and once hot a couple of tablespoons of cream. That combination provides lots of health benefits in terms of the various compounds - tastes good and is extremely filling.

if the result of the cream added is a meal that is highly nutricious and relatively small simply because of how satiating it is- then that can work well in a diet. If you just add the cream extra to an otherwise full meal then you are still in danger of overeating - and so putting on weight.
 
Begonia said:
Thanks for your posts. Very interesting charts... does this mean that adding the fat to a meal helps reduce spikes ? Does this have to be saturated fat though ?

Is the reason for not eating 'low fat' products (eg low fat yoghurt) just that they are likely to be higher in carbs or is there some other reason ? Put another way, if a 'low fat' yoghurt has the same carbs as a full fat one is it inherently not so good for your blood sugar ?

I'm not trying to lose or gain weight. My main focus is on lowering my blood sugar. I don't know yet how saturated fats affect my cholesterol as I've been eating low fat for years ! I've read quite a bit of the research on fats but still trying to understand it all.
Click to expand...
No you don't have to eat saturated fat many people don't like it you can get good fat from oils like olive coconut and rapeseed oils and avocados olives and nuts and oily fish like salmon and trout. I do not think that there are many here that eat really high saturated fats but tend to go more moderate.
 
Thank you all for taking the time to respond with such excellent info.

At least I now understand there is nothing magical about saturated fats and can focus on getting my fat as much from nuts and avocados and olive oil etc as possible. I'm on about 40-50g carbs at the moment. (I do enjoy the double cream in my morning coffee though !)

Thanks @bulkbiker for highlighting the reason some on VLC (<20g) eat saturated fats is that things like cream and meat are lower carb than the sources of unsaturated fat.

Very interested in your experience @Brunneria about gaining weight if carbs are 40g and you eat fat vs no weight gain on 20g with plenty of fat. Must watch that as I've recently upped my carbs from about 30ish to over 40.

I really like those graphs @kokhongw ... miles better than just finger pricks 2 hours after meal ! Really highlights the impact different foods have on sugar.
 
The thing about fat is that you can live on it and it will not result in insulin being produced.
If you can alter your diet so the amount of insulin produced is reduced then your metabolism changes insulin resistance is reduced and that means lower blood glucose as cells begin to work properly, glucose flows in and out properly. Although the fat is not a direct reducer of blood glucose it brings about the conditions for it to be possible
 
I just eat as wide a variety of different fats as I can (many of which come by default with my protein intake, e.g full fat dairy, oily fish) and enough to keep me from getting too hungry, but avoid highly processed/trans fats. The best thing about a low carb higher fat diet though, is that because your body can store a huge reserve of fatty fuel as opposed to only small amounts of carby fuel which need frequently topping up, you have a continuous steady available resource to call on for energy, and I find this keeps my glucose levels very stable.

So for me a combination of enough fat plus the avoidance of all high carb foods definitely stops me from having large or sharp spikes, so in that respect maybe it might be said that fat was helping reduce my overall/average glucose levels...:wideyed:

Not as pretty as @kokhongw's great detailed example, but an example from me of both nice flat normal LCHF days , and one with a whopping great sugar scoffing spike (yellow dots = start of meal times):
fat_vs_carbs_graphs.png

Re fat bombs, etc: it's worth being aware that LCHF isn't just a diet for us (pre)diabetics, but is also used by people like body builders and endurance athletes who may well need the extra fat that such exotic delicacies provide! However they can also make rather nice sweety treats.:p

Robbity
 
Robbity said:
I just eat as wide a variety of different fats as I can (many of which come by default with my protein intake, e.g full fat dairy, oily fish) and enough to keep me from getting too hungry, but avoid highly processed/trans fats. The best thing about a low carb higher fat diet though, is that because your body can store a huge reserve of fatty fuel as opposed to only small amounts of carby fuel which need frequently topping up, you have a continuous steady available resource to call on for energy, and I find this keeps my glucose levels very stable.

So for me a combination of enough fat plus the avoidance of all high carb foods definitely stops me from having large or sharp spikes, so in that respect maybe it might be said that fat was helping reduce my overall/average glucose levels...:wideyed:

Not as pretty as @kokhongw's great detailed example, but an example from me of both nice flat normal LCHF days , and one with a whopping great sugar scoffing spike (yellow dots = start of meal times):
View attachment 23153

Re fat bombs, etc: it's worth being aware that LCHF isn't just a diet for us (pre)diabetics, but is also used by people like body builders and endurance athletes who may well need the extra fat that such exotic delicacies provide! However they can also make rather nice sweety treats.:p

Robbity
Click to expand...

Most body builders I know are on the chicken and rice diet.
High carb, high protein, very low fat.
 
I prefer avocado and nuts to dairy/ cream as they also provide some fiber. I don't tolerate lots of fiber but need some to keep bs low and slow. Carbs under 20 per day, moderate protein. Fats to satisfy and a bit of fiber helps. I keep saturated fats low as they make me insulin resistant.
 
Kristin251 said:
I prefer avocado and nuts to dairy/ cream as they also provide some fiber. I don't tolerate lots of fiber but need some to keep bs low and slow. Carbs under 20 per day, moderate protein. Fats to satisfy and a bit of fiber helps. I keep saturated fats low as they make me insulin resistant.
Click to expand...

Still 80% fat. Just more mono than saturated.
 
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