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High numbers despite six week LCHF

Thanks Deb that's very helpful. And my overall blood sugars are lower from the low-carb diet in just two months, so I am pleased. I'm intrigued by the idea of fasting, but the Dawn phenomenon seems to derail it. I have seen a couple places in my reading, that it takes a while for your liver to finish dumping stored glucose, and that you need to be on a low-carb diet for a while for it to level out. I wonder if you have any experience about this? Vinny thanks for all your useful information!
 
Well I last time I did low carb for a long time my FBG did improve. The diabetic nurse at my GP said FBG only really tells you about what you ate yesterday and hba1c is more of a better reading as it accounts for the three months so concentrate on getting that down.

As weight decreases, bg comes down.

There's a guy called Butter Bob who's on YouTube and has put some useful vids on there. An interesting one is about background insulin. I'll try to find it for you. He's done amazingly well and explains stuff simply. He's been through it and is v knowledgeable.

In the end though you need to do something that works for you and consistency is key. I think my body needs a kick up the **** after wasting this past year eating ****. If I were you, I'd try IF over a few weeks and see what happens. Track bg and weightloss and see how you feel x


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Here it is! X


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If you have a look at the Jason Fung website, he discusses this at length, and it is fascinating reading.

My experience (and I have only just started fasting myself) is that after 3 years of trying to get my fasting bg down, with various snacks, techniques and general phaff, my first ever 24 hr fast wiped the thing out. No DP at all the next morning, and brilliant bg levels all that day too.

I think we differ so much, you have to experiment and see what works for you.

I have been skipping breakfast and intermittently fasting 16/8 at least 5 days a week for over 6 months. No effect on my weight, my dawn phenomenon or my blood glucose levels.

Yet I start doing 24 hr fasts (from one evening meal to the next) and my dawn phenomenon disappears, my blood glucose drops by an average of at least 1 mmol/l and I am delighted. Now I just have to see what happens when I keep this up in a regular pattern of fasting. Am thinking of either alternate days, or Mon, Wed and Fri. Discussing it with Mr B for minimum disruption in his life.
 
I concur! I didn't find any sift from 18/6 fasts - think body treated it as a starvation diet and output reduced accordingly. It makes sense.

I think longer fasts IF are better as it gives the body a chance to break into the insulin. Fung describes it like a fridge/freezer scenario. The body will always go for the easy access fridge store, so you need to get to the freezer stores (fat) and burn that lot to make a difference....x


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I am wary of the longer fasts (have fasted decades ago for up to 10 days and found it a cold, grim, miserable experience), but intend to gently test my boundaries. As mentioned above, I am very wary of upsetting the domestic applecart with mood swings and tetchiness. I am prone to hypo-rage to need to handle things very carefully. lol
 
Having used a freestyle libre for just 2 weeks, I think a lot of DP relates to how many carbs you had the night before. For me, I think that too many carbs in the evening meal exhausts my insulin stores completely, and my beta cells then make insulin soooooo sloooooowly, that even if my liver only pumps out a little glucose overnight, it is enough to raise me from 4.5 to 7 in the morning.

So the idea of fasting helping with DP makes perfect sense to me................I think it is mainly your beta cells catching up on themselves a bit.
 

Carb intake the night before (evening meal and/or snacks) has never made much difference to my DP. I often have minimal, or no carb evening meals (just some meat and green beans, or steak and salad), yet my DP has always chugged away. Something different happens with the longer fasting. And long may it continue.

For me, as a particularly insulin resistant individual, I think it gets a lot more complicated than carbs. Protein and nucleogenesis, glycogen storage, insulin resistance through background insulin, cortisol, growth hormone, and all the other balancing hormones... they play a part.

But not everyone has this. Sometimes just cutting carbs is enough to make the weight fall off and insulin resistance/DP to normalise.
 
Not all people are effected by protein but I sure am. My hypothesis is when I eat a large protein meal for dinner my fasting and post prandial readings are higher. I believe it is from full glycogen stores. As soon as I deplete them bs comes back to normal but this can take awhile. As low carbers we gluconeogenisis much faster in the absence of carbs. I find consumption of protein to be cumulative meaning I can have extra sometimes but it seems to add up and raise bs which is why I think it has to do with glycogen stores but I could be way off...
 
Thanks Deb very much! I haven't heard of background insulin so I will try to follow that research!
 
Me neither. It's like we crack the health and then something else is discovered.....there's so much to learn and conquer



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I have so much to learn! Thank you very much for all of those ideas and terms. I will follow them up to find out.
 
Brun knows everything - she's a smart gal



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Obviously I need to learn a lot more about these things. I haven't even been thinking about the effect of protein, and when is the best time to eat it, and how glycogen stores work. you all have such precise observations, it encourages me to be more precise in my journaling. Thanks
 
 
This is really interesting. I hadn't considered fasting. Where would be the best place to go and find out more about it? I'd always assumed that it would be a bad idea. I'm T2 on metformin. I have a real problem with high morning readings. I always have. It's high when I wake and usually continues to rise until about lunchtime, whether I eat (low/zero carb) or not. I've tried various things for lunch, but, weirdly enough, if I eat an apple, my sugar levels tumble from mid teens to around 6 over the next hour or too. Why does it keep rising? - I get up at 6am and teach or race between schools so it isn't as if I'm getting up just before lunch. If I fast, what's to stop my levels just rising and rising? Also, I'm not sure taking metformin on an empty stomach is a brilliant idea?


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Wouldn't take met on an empty stomach.

What food plan do you follow?

I personally refuse meds - why take meds when a tweak to diet can make more of a difference?

See diet www.doctor.com or Jason Fung for IF info.

X


Borderline T2, serial yo-yo dieter but firmly sticking to LCHF with IF
 
I've been off the rails for a while, at least as far as sugar levels are concerned. But before, and for the last couple of weeks, carb levels below 50g per day. Most days a lot less. I'm kinda allergic to doctors so I don't feel that I can have a conversation with them. I did stop taking metformin for a while, but that seemed to be a bit of a slippery slope for me. Levels climbing in the morning has been a feature since I started testing.


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Do you tend to eat refined carbs? Do you have them with fat to help slow down the spike?

I find I have to stick below 30g at the mo to get a FBG of c6 which is rubbish! I'm hoping that IF will make a change to that as well as my hba1c.....


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Borderline T2, serial yo-yo dieter but firmly sticking to LCHF with IF
 
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