How does IF effect FBG?

[eggs11]

Just a thought @eggs11 ,

I notice you're diet managed...?
I'll tag in @bulkbiker . Lol, it's the least I can do...

Thanks! And no apologies needed - on the contrary thanks for sorting!

 

[bulkbiker]

Calling all fasting gurus! I'd really like to have a go at doing the odd day of intermittent fasting, but I am wondering, will this make my fasting bloods higher? I get a liver dump when I wake up and if I don't eat breakfast my bg keeps rising, especially if I'm busy rushing around. Should I care about this? Or would it be better to skip dinner rather than breakfast to help avoid this? Thanks for any tips anyone can give.

I can only pass on my own experience.. which is that fasting usually makes my bloods lower. I would suggest you try it for a few days and keep monitoring. I usually find that my blood goes down over the morning and always has and I've been a breakfast skipper for over 2 years. I do however usually start the day with a hot drink of some kind.. either coffee with double cream or tea with lactofree milk. I have on a few occasions just had hot water but for me it doesn't have much impact. Maybe try and extended fast if you feel up to it.. my lowest bloods come on the third day. High 3's then go back up to 4'swhich is where I usually a when on a longer fast. However if it suits you to skip dinner instead of breakfast then why not try it? You may have better success that way. If I can help in any way just let me know.

 

[eggs11]

I can only pass on my own experience.. which is that fasting usually makes my bloods lower. I would suggest you try it for a few days and keep monitoring. I usually find that my blood goes down over the morning and always has and I've been a breakfast skipper for over 2 years. I do however usually start the day with a hot drink of some kind.. either coffee with double cream or tea with lactofree milk. I have on a few occasions just had hot water but for me it doesn't have much impact. Maybe try and extended fast if you feel up to it.. my lowest bloods come on the third day. High 3's then go back up to 4'swhich is where I usually a when on a longer fast. However if it suits you to skip dinner instead of breakfast then why not try it? You may have better success that way. If I can help in any way just let me know.

Thanks @bulkbiker much appreciated. I will try skipping dinner and see how that goes.

 

[DCUKMod]

@eggs11 - Call me radical, but I don't get excited about Dawn Phenomenon (aka Liver Dump), but then mine has never been too extreme. Let me try to explain my rationale.

When our livers release glucose in the mornings, of course we haven't eaten, so the only place that can come from is our personal reserves it keeps for us. So, releasing a bit of the reserves is a bit like running down a rechargeable battery a bit.

Next time we eat, our body prioritises recharging our liver, so that can have the impact of softening any rise from the first foods eaten.

Of course that's mega, mega simplistic, but for me the liver/battery imagery works quite well.

I'd say if you feel you'd like to try IF, then do it. Trying something doesn't mean you become wedded to it for ever. If you try it and don't like it, or it doesn't help you out much, then you can do something else.

The key to all of this is your meter and how you learn to interpret the readings it gives you. I refer to that as eating to your meter. Don't get too wedded to good foods/bad foods, but go for the foods your meter gives you decent feedback on. You'll never find perfection; nobody does, but it's about finding your compromise between your way of living (including eating) and your meter readings.

As a pre-diabetic you're likely to have a bit more leeway than someone with a higher HbA1c score.

Good luck with it all.

 

[eggs11]

@eggs11 - Call me radical, but I don't get excited about Dawn Phenomenon (aka Liver Dump), but then mine has never been too extreme. Let me try to explain my rationale.

When our livers release glucose in the mornings, of course we haven't eaten, so the only place that can come from is our personal reserves it keeps for us. So, releasing a bit of the reserves is a bit like running down a rechargeable battery a bit.

Next time we eat, our body prioritises recharging our liver, so that can have the impact of softening any rise from the first foods eaten.

Of course that's mega, mega simplistic, but for me the liver/battery imagery works quite well.

I'd say if you feel you'd like to try IF, then do it. Trying something doesn't mean you become wedded to it for ever. If you try it and don't like it, or it doesn't help you out much, then you can do something else.

The key to all of this is your meter and how you learn to interpret the readings it gives you. I refer to that as eating to your meter. Don't get too wedded to good foods/bad foods, but go for the foods your meter gives you decent feedback on. You'll never find perfection; nobody does, but it's about finding your compromise between your way of living (including eating) and your meter readings.

As a pre-diabetic you're likely to have a bit more leeway than someone with a higher HbA1c score.

Good luck with it all.

Thanks - I like that analogy of wearing down the liver's reserves - and actually makes perfect sense when I consider times where my post prandial readings have been lower than before eating - as not only has the liver dump been halted by the ingestion of food, as it's used up some of its reserves when fasting, there's more storage room for the meal's glucose. By jove, I think I've got it! So if fasting causes a rise in fbg, no need to worry - post-meal readings should hopefully be lower - I will monitor this when experimenting with fasting. This would also explain why a few weeks into LCHF my fbgs were rising a bit but the post-meal rises were improving and getting smaller at the same time - I need to apologise to my liver - I've been cursing its dumping, but it actually knows what it's doing!

 

[DCUKMod]

Thanks - I like that analogy of wearing down the liver's reserves - and actually makes perfect sense when I consider times where my post prandial readings have been lower than before eating - as not only has the liver dump been halted by the ingestion of food, as it's used up some of its reserves when fasting, there's more storage room for the meal's glucose. By jove, I think I've got it! So if fasting causes a rise in fbg, no need to worry - post-meal readings should hopefully be lower - I will monitor this when experimenting with fasting. This would also explain why a few weeks into LCHF my fbgs were rising a bit but the post-meal rises were improving and getting smaller at the same time - I need to apologise to my liver - I've been cursing its dumping, but it actually knows what it's doing!

It's irritating when it does that dumping thing, and some people actually experience physical signs (I won't say symptoms) when it's happening. I get a slightly funny feeling in my throat. No idea why my throat, but it is what it is.

As I say, as a non-medicated T2 with a decent lifestyle and bloods, I don't give liver dumps are attention. In fact I quite like the idea of cycling the fat stores in my liver. It shows me my body is working well to look after me.

That's my personal view, and some others feel differently.

 

[Goonergal]

Maybe cheese better than nuts as nuts have some carb and may break the fast - or how about cream in tea? I know that @Goonergal who also fasts regularly has cream in tea rather than coffee. I think you need to be careful that whatever you have isn’t carb. Dr Feung only suggests cream or broth. If you find cream in tea odd maybe adjust by watering it down?
I have also seen others who IF in a slightly different way - with a meal at breakfast a long break and then dinner- but I found the longer period of fasting effective for me. Good luck whatever you decide to do.

Hi @eggs11

Coming to this a bit late. Just to say that I found cream in tea a bit odd at first, but now I’m used to it! It does help with satiety and keeps the carbs down when you’re trying to stay very low in carbs.

My own experience with IF is that it improves FBG. I haven’t done anything longer than a 24 hour fast and tend to do a one or two meal day. Even when the one meal is dinner (which it tends to be), FBG - and BG generally- is lower.

Can only agree with the advice from @bulkbiker and @DCUKMod - thoroughly agree with both.

 

[shelley262]

@eggs11 - Call me radical, but I don't get excited about Dawn Phenomenon (aka Liver Dump), but then mine has never been too extreme. Let me try to explain my rationale.

When our livers release glucose in the mornings, of course we haven't eaten, so the only place that can come from is our personal reserves it keeps for us. So, releasing a bit of the reserves is a bit like running down a rechargeable battery a bit.

Next time we eat, our body prioritises recharging our liver, so that can have the impact of softening any rise from the first foods eaten.

Of course that's mega, mega simplistic, but for me the liver/battery imagery works quite well.

I'd say if you feel you'd like to try IF, then do it. Trying something doesn't mean you become wedded to it for ever. If you try it and don't like it, or it doesn't help you out much, then you can do something else.

The key to all of this is your meter and how you learn to interpret the readings it gives you. I refer to that as eating to your meter. Don't get too wedded to good foods/bad foods, but go for the foods your meter gives you decent feedback on. You'll never find perfection; nobody does, but it's about finding your compromise between your way of living (including eating) and your meter readings.

As a pre-diabetic you're likely to have a bit more leeway than someone with a higher HbA1c score.

Good luck with it all.

Thank you for this it is so helpful it explains some of my experiences over the last 5 months. I’ve often found it odd when readings go down after a meal eg an odd high 5 after a stressful fasting/exercise day before eating followed by a low or mid 4 after eating! It’s also now very common for me to have identical bgs in 4s before and after eating so maybe my liver is becoming more efficient. Also know what matters for the body is the overall average and for me doing IF with lCHF and losing a lot of body fat has brought the average bg figures right down.

 

[eggs11]

Hi @eggs11

Coming to this a bit late. Just to say that I found cream in tea a bit odd at first, but now I’m used to it! It does help with satiety and keeps the carbs down when you’re trying to stay very low in carbs.

My own experience with IF is that it improves FBG. I haven’t done anything longer than a 24 hour fast and tend to do a one or two meal day. Even when the one meal is dinner (which it tends to be), FBG - and BG generally- is lower.

Can only agree with the advice from @bulkbiker and @DCUKMod - thoroughly agree with both.

Thanks @Goonergal and to everyone else who's given their advice on this thread, it has been a great help and put my fears to rest that fasting will make fbg 'worse' - I'm realising it's the bigger picture that's important.