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My personal hypothesis - T2 - Low insulin Diet

Reading the results of your OMAD trial, I have been impressed by your results so far@CherryAA, especially the BP results. So, I am now on day 5 OMAD, following your plan, except that I do not eat meat at all, although I cook it for others in my household.
Principally, and amazingly, I have noticed a decline in my BP numbers from 173/84p64 to 123/72p58. BGL is still stable at 5.7 before the meal, and in the low 5s high 4s after 2 hours. The DP seems to be just a 'blip' first thing, 5.6- 6.0.
So far, I am really chuffed with the way it is going. I do not claim to understand the mechanism by which blood pressure is reduced, or atrial fibrillation avoided, but if all it takes is one meal a day, then count me in.
Like you, I have roasted seaweed and also Dulse flakes in my pantry, usually I add the dulse flakes to soup, (excellent with mushrooms).
You are such an inspiration, CherryAA, You may just have saved me from a potential stroke.
 

That's great news , glad to be of assistance. One of the things that was bothering me about eating quite so low carb, was that I was getting the odd heart palpitation. which even though the general message seems to be - no need to worry - it can happen on LCHF , it didn't seem quite right. One of the things I have noticed using this method of eating is that even if the total carbs in the day is still only about 30g , the heart palpitations disappeared completely.

Eating less often certainly seems to improve blood pressure, There were two studies I looked at in thinking about this
http://journals.lww.com/jhypertensi...uency_predicts_new_onset_hypertension.11.aspx
this seemed to suggest that eating frequently increases the growth of hypertension.
Offsetting that was one done in Korea
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24518746

This one seemed to suggest that eating more frequently is better. The first study was in American adults and obesity, the second in Korean adults who were not hypertensive.

I know that I personally was a frequent grazer of tiny meals in my quest to lose weight. Overall I decided that the American study was more meaningful to me. I think that such a lot of the time there is evidence in both directions, so you have to try and pick your way carefully to the stuff that might be meaningful to you personally.
 
Day 20 of the Low Insulin Diet (starting weight 91.6 kg, current 86.0 kg )
Waist size 86.0 cm (starting 94 cm)

Well a slightly different experiment yesterday , I've been stalled at around 85 for a week now and also confused as to whether the 1500 calories a day I was eating constituted a feast or a fast in Dr Fung's terms. Yesterday I ate my main mean a bit earlier that usual around 2pm and that evening found myself in the kitchen really wanting some food. Dr Fung keeps making the point that it is important to " switch up" what you are doing - in order to keep your metabolism on its toes. So I decided to indulge myself by doing " wrong things" - in the end I am no longer interested in sweet stuff - so my wrongdoing was effectively to eat a second big meal that day , late at night- I had 80 g pork scratchings, 2 organic farm pork sausages, an orange and about 100 g clotted cream with a handful of cashew nuts. then on waking this morning I've had chicken livers and heart ( from a farm shop chicken). So basically having only received food for nearly three weeks at around 4pm. I've just confused the hell out of myself by both eating late at night and early the following morning.

Interestingly despite what was effectively a massive binge ( about 3,000 calories yesterday) my blood ketones are still reading 1.2 .

Blood sugars have so far swung around a bit overnight, but always topped out at 7.8 mmol. I expect it will take a day to get back to my " smooth blood sugar profile ". I am going to try to skip the main meal altogether tonight and so make today a very low calorie day to compensate. Hopefully that will constitute the kind of " switching things up " Dr Fung recommends ! ( alternatively - maybe I'm just being a pig
 
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I also lost consistently for about 10 days and then stalled. I have been the same for 5 days. I am very interested to know how things go for you for the next couple days.
 
chalup said:
I also lost consistently for about 10 days and then stalled. I have been the same for 5 days. I am very interested to know how things go for you for the next couple days.
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That's very interesting. It just goes to show just how hard your body will fight you to keep you where it is used to being !
Interestingly this research indicates that actually if you want to loss weight most easily the goal should be a two week diet, followed by two weeks of energy balance.

http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ijo2017206a.html

I'm wondering if the best way to go about the next phase might be to do say - two 900 calorie meals for two weeks - so I keep the long periods of fasting but am balanced overall, , then switch back to one 1100 calorie a day meal for two weeks when I am definitely in fasting mode. Given the extent of my little binge yesterday, I should still restrict today to get back to an energy balance couple of days overall, but I'm still mulling as to which way to go next.

If there is some mechanism whereby one could repeat what happened on the first two weeks of this diet on a regular basis then I am all for trying it!

The problem for me is that I've become so wedded to the idea that there has to be a restriction, that the very idea of deliberately eating 1800 calorie every day for two weeks fills me with panic.
 
So new decision - I started this on 27th Sept in 14 days by the 11th Oct I had got down to 84.2 - since then I have been fluctuating around 85 for 8 days and excluding the binge yesterday I have been eating an average of 1430 calories a day - so it looks to me like I might have brought my metabolic rate down to match that number. If Dr Fung is right, I have been wasting my time trying to stick to a calorie restricted diet since that point and indeed my own body saying " binge " yesterday was just its own way of trying to tell me precisely that.

So I am going to assume I am now 9 days into my " eating normally phase" , and gradually try to increase my calories and see how high I can get over the next five days and still be close to 85kg at the end of it. I am going to stick to the low insulin principals - i.e. effectively real foods, ketogenic diet, matching om 3 and 6, codliver oil, vinegar, spiced coffee etc ( ie a healthy diet giving 95%+ nutrients ) with a big eating window - so just two meals a day upto day 28 and see if I can simply hold my weight steady during that period.

Then I will go back to another 14 day period, this time trying to limit the one meal a day to 1000-1200 calories so there is a clear differentiation between the two periods. Hopefully if Dr Fung is right, one should be able to hold steadyish for two weeks, then get another " new diet" spurt next time round. Fingers crossed !
 

So similar to the Fast Mimicking diet where windows of five day restrictions are taken and then normal eating whatever that is chosen to be ? One a month ( 5 Day ) is suggested and four of these in a row for optimal results ( 4 Months ).
Now this does not need to be the paid for diet plan the eating parameters can be chosen by you.

https://thequantifiedbody.net/fast-mimicking-diet/


https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/07/23/fasting-mimicking-diet.aspx
 

I think both of those still make the basic assumption that you are trying to restrict calories a lot of the time by going very low calorie as a " fast or pretend fast" for a few days then eating what you like or some variation of it for the rest of the time.

I think I might be saying - perhaps its not necessary to do the " fasting part" at all - simply to make sure that you still get nearly 100% of your nutrients on a lowish calorie diet that you can stick to for a couple of weeks at a time ( you can do that on about 1000-1100 calories with wise food choices ), but maybe not letting your metabolism drop too much by then making sure that you eat as much as you can to stay stable for a couple of weeks - but still making the good dietary food choices

In both instances trying to keep your insulin levels low by restricting when you are eating the foods and picking foods with a low insulin index - ie ketogenic foods. In the end I'm just experimenting , so no clue what will happen kinda fun to find out though !
 
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How about chucking a couple of fasting days in there as well? Just for fun of course..
 
bulkbiker said:
How about chucking a couple of fasting days in there as well? Just for fun of course..
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I do so like my foods , but yes I have steeled myself to the idea that probably on the switch over one should probably give the whole thing a kick start by a proper fast if you can.

My thinking on that one, is that if every month is actually a "new diet" push instead of a " same old same old continuation " then maybe in the same way we can all manage a few days of enthusisam right up front, and those first couple of days we really do manage to stick to it, perhaps if those are the fasting days to really kickstart ketosis that could be a good switch up.

I must admit I am amazed to find that despite all the food I've been eating for what feels like days now and the 3000 calories yesterday I am STILL seriously in ketosis with a reading of 15ppm which is as high as the fasting guys. So it will be fascinating to see what happens tomorrow on the scales !

In practice if one could do this then mentally you are only steeling yourself to a few days pain for a few kilos, and ignoring the entire - but I've got this much to lose - and that's a drop in the bucket so why bother attitude that has beset me for years.
 
Make those drops add up to a full bucket load though and you have this thing licked... Good luck!
 
bulkbiker said:
Make those drops add up to a full bucket load though and you have this thing licked... Good luck!
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well the bucket is now quite heavy already but I would like to chuck another couple of pints in
 
Very interesting stuff @CherryAA, I have been doing the VLCD ND for 30 days now and am still loosing weight - now through my BMI, waist height and most of the other markers I can find and people have started to tell me I need to stop losing weight. I had lost about 3 stone before I started. I had predicted the stop would be after about 15days but it carried on for 28 (at least).
I am really interested in your fibre experiment and whilst I cannot do that at the moment due to the strict approach I am taking to ND I will do my best to give it a go and see what happens and post here. I think the more people who try it and see what impact the better. It might be a good way for helping with celebration events etc.
 

I have nothing but total respect for anyone keeping up an 800 calorie diet for 30 days . As a matter of interest, how much weight have you lost over the 30days so far? I'm down 7kg via this method at the moment.

I did lose 35kg myself using a very low calorie diet a long time ago. It took me around 9 months, but my issue with it is that I think that that set me up for the next 30 years of a very unhealthy relationship with food which is why I am trying to find a more "natural " means of achieving something similar. Right at the start of this thread I was merely thinking that the 800 calories eaten once per day of real food might be a more "long term" doable way to achieve VLC. it was only when weight started to drop off at double those calories that I had a bit of a rethink.

Do you have a plan as to what you are hoping to achieve through this diet - for example are you seeing any changes to your blood sugars, or your morning liver dump? I recall some-one was having an issue that the food content was increasing blood glucose - have you found that?
One of the things that seems pretty reliable with this method is that I can eat more carbs (real food only - not trying to eat the processed junk - I consider that both gone and good riddance ) within the context of a proper meal and it not impact blood sugar at all. There is no doubt that my own capacity to absorb carbs is much higher with this way of eating than it was trying to spread 1200 calories over three meals.

Do you have anything to compare before and after in terms of any of the measures/ hba1c etc? I've been surprised to find that both the binge and the subsequent liver dump stayed rock solid under 7.8 mmol .I hope that's telling me that the fact that the weight I have lost came straight off my waist is a good omen. I've checked my measurements and pretty much the only thing that has changed with this last stone is my waist and midriff.
 
I have lost 15lbs so far.
I had lost just over 3 stone in the months leading up to it. About 4 months but it included a few holidays where I let things go (not carbs ever). I didn't really have much weight to lose when I started this and it was not the plan to lose weight just a benefit. I want some form of reversal, that is the only reason I am doing it. The weight was coming off rapidly enough on the LCHF but my BG was going up as was my morning liver dumps though on reflection I wonder if I had gone to hard aiming for approx. 10 a day and rarely going over 15g of carbs.

Yes I have got comprehensive notes on my BG - I use a Libre so have saved all of my data. I was averaging a FBG on 5.5 and a daily peeks of less than 7.8 but I could not for love nor money tolerate any carbs - as soon as I tried 20 or 30 bang it went up - to 10 or 11.

Already I am seeing that consuming 75g of carbs as part of the shake based diet is not peeking anywhere near 10 or 11 - max I have I think is 9 and it had started to fall lower. I can see a nice curve now - though nothing like the levels you are achieving.

I log every day I can and you can find it here:-
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/newcastle-diet.126691/page-6#post-1591682

A the end of this I will probably - possibly - undertake a raft of private blood tests and perhaps even a OGTT from the site that @bulkbiker used. But no hurry for that - I intend to get LC again real food and a slow progression up to 2000 calories a day. On the LCHF 2000 calories was still dropping my weight.

That is probably more than what you asked for but I hope answers your questions.

Keep going on this thread I haven't ruled out trying this after Xmas if the ND does not deliver what it could do.
 
I am repeating this post (in answer to thread about fructose) here - because its reminding me my I'm doing this !

"In my opinion,
Of course ingesting too much fructose in the form of fruits -with juiced fruit being far worse ( because they have no fibre- which helps slow the ingestion ) will not assist in the quest for low fructose. However as far as I understand it , yes it probably IS mainly fructose that is the problem but not in the way we generally understand fructose.

If the theory set out in the video below is correct then it explains a few things about both the problem of too much insulin and why diabetic people have a much worse time eating carbs than others. I posted the video in my blog around the theory of why its the insulin that matters.

The theory in a nutshell is that the body converts ingested carbohyrdrates into what it needs and generally speaking about 3% of the carbohydrates one consumes get converted into fructose to feed the liver and too much leads to fatty liver with all the consequent problems. . However in the presence of HIGH INSULIN instead of converting 3% into fructose it converts 30% into fructose, so once levels of insulin are high if you feed the body carbohydrates the effect is to create the fatty liver even if you don't actually consume fructose as a natural product.

This is a vicious cycle and this is why a very low carb diet helps so dramatically because now you are not only not triggering the high glucose, and with it your insulin levels but you are not giving your gradually lowering insulin levels anything to convert into fructose and that helps clear your liver.

This is part of why my theory is that the way to recover health has to be to try to bring down insulin -first and foremost
effectively by using foods low on the FII index ( i.e. effectively ketogenic -very low carb) and leaving long gaps between meals ( plus fasting if you can ) and that is what helps clear the organs as quickly as possible to free them up to to do the job they were originally intended for.

https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/low-carb-breckenridge-gary-fettke-nutrition-inflammation/14471

What this theory also tells us is that whilst fruits are currently pretty toxic to us, that's not really because of the level of natural fructose they contain but because they, like all other carbs, they are being converted into way more fructose than is being ingested.

If we can bring down our insulin levels ( which is a long slow process - from the data I've seen I would suggest probably at least 2 years) then our sensitivity to carbs including fruit should decrease.

Thus if the theory is right then eventually it may be possible to get insulin back to low levels, then clear the liver ( which might take even longer than just getting the insulin down - because you not only have to stop the insulin putting too much new fructose in, but also have to get rid of all the fructose it already has. )

At the same time that this is all happening, refined carbs cooked in the presence of omega 6 oils cause a much bigger spike in insulin than real foods such that the level of omega 6 oils in human body fat has gone up by 300% since the 1960's , Over time the build up of the omega 6 leads to the inflammation that causes so much of the " side effects" of obesity.

What the above says to me is that there is a long term vicious cycle that leads to diabetes and disease that is the ingestion of refined carbohydrates and omega 6 oils , which increase reactions to glucose ingested and insulin volume as a result. The insulin then increases fructose production on consumption of carbohydrates leading to the fatty liver -and the omega 6 leads to inflammation and these combined can take many years to manifest as diabetes or other diseases -

Overall therefore the last 30 years have been a kind of perfect storm of bad nutritional advice by focusing people on refined carbs and omega 6 oils in preference to red meat and saturated fats .

However on the plus side there is then probably a similar long term virtuous cycle that might lead to "complete" recovery if one can get rid of these toxic constituents - that would be first stage - get the glucose down, second get the omega 6 gone. Omega 6 as a proportion of body fat will go down if one stops putting much in , and will probably go away in volume terms if you also lose extraneous body fat. Third stage get the insulin down. The order of 2 and 3 will depend on just how high either omega 6 fat or insulin got into your body before you start tackling it.

For me the $60m question would be - if you can get rid of the omega 6 fat ( which promotes the inflammation ) by reducing weight and if you can get insulin back down to proper levels can you also flip the switch back to it no longer producing too much fructose , or are you stuck with that happening forever and therefore needing to follow a " low carb" diet forever. I am not too sure that matters too much because if its the refined products and omega 6 oils which start the whole thing off, why would anyone ever go back to putting them into your body once you know ?

Instead I think that if you want to remain as healthy as possible the answer must be to eat a nutrient dense real foods diet which will inherently be low carb and higher natural fat. Within that it should be possible eventually to eat small amounts of any fruit within the confines of a very high fibre meal and not have one's glucose meter go through the roof.

@Kentoldlady1 effectively tried this with a national trust scone i.e. by taking fibrogel first she had a much smaller reaction to a national trust scone than she had had the previous day without the fibre. I am also experiencing this effect by deliberately adding doses of fibre to my meals ( through Japanese nori and konjac noodles and celery) .My guess is that it probably works in a similar fashion for fruits if anyone wants to try a specific fruit. That is something I will be checking out on my own diet thread eventually."
 

Thanks for the info. In the end this is all about sharing ideas and seeing if we can find ways to help ourselves and others. Its a long slow haul, so simply sharing is great.
 


Mentioned in despatches!!

I agree with you absolutely about the fibre. I would say that at the beginning of my t2d I was trying whole meal every thing. It didn't seem to make much difference to my numbers which still stayed high.

For me, I have decided that I need a lot more fibre than recommended. I have started with the celery (thank you cherry) but admit I find it hard to eat enough.

I am not going to make a habit out of eating high carb anything, but will use more fibre before my next national trust scone.

Thanks again for this very informative thread cherry.
 
I'm not a lover of celery - do you think psyllium husk would do the trick (stirred in to water and drink before a meal?)
 
http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/51/15/1111
I am impressed to see that here, finally a doctor is putting the issue in terms that a layman can actually understand.
the term "insulin resistance " has been used millions of times and still leads to major confusion from many of us as to whether we do or do not make insulin. Here he is stating it succinctly

"Coronary artery disease pathogenesis and treatment urgently requires a paradigm shift. Despite popular belief among doctors and the public, the conceptual model of dietary saturated fat clogging a pipe is just plain wrong. A landmark systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies showed no association between saturated fat consumption and (1) all-cause mortality, (2) coronary heart disease (CHD), (3) CHD mortality, (4) ischaemic stroke or (5) type 2 diabetes in healthy adults.1 Similarly in the secondary prevention of CHD there is no benefit from reduced fat, including saturated fat, on myocardial infarction, cardiovascular or all-cause mortality.2 It is instructive to note that in an angiographic study of postmenopausal women with CHD, greater intake of saturated fat was associated with less progression of atherosclerosis whereas carbohydrate and polyunsaturated fat intake were associated with greater progression.3

A high TC to HDL ratio is also a surrogate marker for insulin resistance (ie, chronically elevated serum insulin at the root of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and obesity). And in those over 60 years, a recent systematic review concluded that LDL cholesterol is not associated with cardiovascular disease and is inversely associated with all-cause mortality.8 A high TC to HDL ratio drops rapidly with dietary changes such as replacing refined carbohydrates with healthy high fat foods.

"A simple way to combat insulin resistance (chronically high levels of serum insulin) and inflammation coronary artery disease is a chronic inflammatory disease and it can be reduced effectively by walking 22 min a day and eating real food. There is no business model or market to help spread this simple yet powerful intervention."

"In comparison with advice to follow a ‘low fat’ diet (37% fat), an energy-unrestricted Mediterranean diet (41% fat) supplemented with at least four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil or a handful of nuts (PREDIMED) achieved a significant 30% (number needed to treat (NNT)=61) reduction in cardiovascular events in over 7500 high-risk patients"

4 tablespoons of olive oil is 444 calories of oil and will turn a 41% fat diet into a 60% fat diet - aka LCHF

"It is the alpha linoleic acid, polyphenols and omega-3 fatty acids present in nuts, extra virgin olive oil, vegetables and oily fish that rapidly attenuate inflammation and coronary thrombosis."

Dr Malhotra is very keen on the "Pioppi diet ( his book) - but I do not believe there is any real need to distinguish that from a plain old LCHF diet made of good quality real food ingredients of whatever kind floats your boat !

The alpha linoleic acid is also available in grass fed beef.

I HATE the fact that people have come to think that a Mediterranean diet has to be one that stops us enjoying red meat.
Pioppi is in Tuscany -delicacies of Tuscany include
wild boar, Florence Porterhouse steak, antipasto toscano - a cutting board full of meats and cheeses of the region
classic ingredients "porcini mushrooms, meat sauces, artichokes, sausages."

I currently eat olive oil and cod liver oil, the cod liver oil has a much bigger content of Om 3, it also has huge quantities of Vit D ( which most people with diabetes will be deficient of) and Vit K (Vit D is only absorbed in the presence of K) - just that people can't sell books based on it ! ( though beware taking too much codliver oil it has so much Vit A that you really don't need to have much of it!- so neither do you get so many calories from it.


 
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