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My personal hypothesis - T2 - Low insulin Diet

ickihun said:
When I ate in such proportions i added weight because my protein took the place of my missing carbs. Had bgs in 10s too. I was taking huge basal insulin thou. 200units approx.
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I’m not on insulin but I’ll keep measuring to make sure I’m doing the right thing for me.

Edited for spelling error.
 
Last edited:
Day 10 of the Low Insulin Diet (starting weight 91.6kg, current 84.8kg )

02.kg reduction and back to weighing first thing, so I seem to be back on track. Overnight fasting average 5.4 a bit higher also gradually rose all night long. This also seems to have translated into a good nights sleep. Morning liver dump 6.9.
ketonix ketones 4.6 , breathalyser 0.6 ( highest ever ) blood ketone meter ( must get a new battery! )

The only difference between yesterday and previous days was going for a walk - about 6000 steps.

Hopefully today will be a good day - a repeat of yesterday's prawns . plus another walk.

 
marathonmona said:
I think my protein needs to be in the 90s so yes that was quite low.
I’m not a macro counter to be fair but I occasionally look at the nutrition pie chart to see how I’m doing in terms of carbs.
My FBG was 5.7 this morning and I’ve lost 2.5 lbs this morning after one day of OMAD. That’s coming off a binge/carb fest all week so it’s probably all water.
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I'm intrigued as to what OMAD stands for ?

Well that was my first thought too! Maybe try a second day ? it really isn't that hard to eat one nice meal a day when you get into it :)
Would you mind revealing what your weight history and where you are trying to get to?.

I started off at 115kg BMI got down to 89K in 8 months following an LCHF diet of about 1250 calories
Then stalled at around 89kg for 5 months - though I think that was probably inadvertent snacking - so average calories up to about 1450 .
I set up this protocol after concluding that feasting and fasting was important, wanted to get the weight loss going again so thought if I try the 8 week VLC diet using real foods one meal a day then maybe I can trick my body into thinking it was feasting even though VLC overall , then found its ACTUAL feasting that seems to make the difference, not virtual feasting.
I am now going to stick with this until I hit a clear wall. Current goal is 75g .
 
CherryAA said:
I'm intrigued as to what OMAD stands for ?

Well that was my first thought too! Maybe try a second day ? it really isn't that hard to eat one nice meal a day when you get into it :)
Would you mind revealing what your weight history and where you are trying to get to?.

I started off at 115kg BMI got down to 89K in 8 months following an LCHF diet of about 1250 calories
Then stalled at around 89kg for 5 months - though I think that was probably inadvertent snacking - so average calories up to about 1450 .
I set up this protocol after concluding that feasting and fasting was important, wanted to get the weight loss going again so thought if I try the 8 week VLC diet using real foods one meal a day then maybe I can trick my body into thinking it was feasting even though VLC overall , then found its ACTUAL feasting that seems to make the difference, not virtual feasting.
I am now going to stick with this until I hit a clear wall. Current goal is 75g .
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One Meal A Day!
 
I’ve been overweight since baby no 2; that baby is now 19 years old...
Never been able to stick to anything longer than about a week. I was diagnosed in June 2014 and just kept getting iller and iller. Slight hypertension too; on Met and Ramipril.
Found this forum in 2016 and managed to lose two stone (17.5 to 15.5) last summer on LCHF. Then stalled. And snacked too much. Gained 5 lbs back and did five weeks of a 1000 cal a day diet this summer which resulted in a 16 lbs weight loss. So many lovely comments, new trousers etc. but oh my did I feel deprived. There’s people on here who have completed the 8 week Newcastle Diet and I take my hat off to them.
After I decided to finish the diet, I went on a ten day binge. Yep. Head’s pretty messed up. Can’t even say I enjoyed it!
So now I’ll try this. I’ve just cooked a breakfast for hubby and am not hungry at all. That fat from yesterday is keeping me nice and full!
I’ve not set any targets or goals as such. I want to get my HbA1C down from the 51 it is now and get my weight down from the 14st 5 it is now.
 
marathonmona said:
I’ve been overweight since baby no 2; that baby is now 19 years old...
Never been able to stick to anything longer than about a week. I was diagnosed in June 2014 and just kept getting iller and iller. Slight hypertension too; on Met and Ramipril.
Found this forum in 2016 and managed to lose two stone (17.5 to 15.5) last summer on LCHF. Then stalled. And snacked too much. Gained 5 lbs back and did five weeks of a 1000 cal a day diet this summer which resulted in a 16 lbs weight loss. So many lovely comments, new trousers etc. but oh my did I feel deprived. There’s people on here who have completed the 8 week Newcastle Diet and I take my hat off to them.
After I decided to finish the diet, I went on a ten day binge. Yep. Head’s pretty messed up. Can’t even say I enjoyed it!
So now I’ll try this. I’ve just cooked a breakfast for hubby and am not hungry at all. That fat from yesterday is keeping me nice and full!
I’ve not set any targets or goals as such. I want to get my HbA1C down from the 51 it is now and get my weight down from the 14st 5 it is now.
Click to expand...

Thanks - it sounds like we are in a pretty similar place at the moment so it will be fascinating to see if you have similar effects. To be honest for me getting on the scales last week was just surreal , I felt so stuffed for so much of the time, my mind just could not process it.
 
CherryAA said:
Thanks - it sounds like we are in a pretty similar place at the moment so it will be fascinating to see if you have similar effects. To be honest for me getting on the scales last week was just surreal , I felt so stuffed for so much of the time, my mind just could not process it.
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I’ll let you know!
 
I think this is the right thread for this.
I recently had my fasting insulin measured and it was 9.59 mIU/L. My HbA1c is 36.
To me, that means 3 things
  1. As a T2, I am still producing insulin, so my pancreas is OK
  2. As someone on a keto diet, I am producing too much insulin
  3. With too much insulin in my system, any spare fat will end up being stored as body fat
I think that explains my current situation, where everything is tightly locked down, but any diversion and I put on weight.
The following charts show what happens with my weight, fbs and ketones.
upload_2017-10-8_14-41-0.png
You can line up all the peaks and troughs and see that when my weight goes up, my fbs goes up and the ketones go down, Cause and effect are not clear, but it could be that all three stem from a deviation of diet, ie too much fat, carbs or protein. Perhaps I need to be keto and low calorie?
On a separate note, how do I reduce fasting insulin? Is it a matter of staying keto for a longer time?
 
BrianTheElder said:
I think this is the right thread for this.
I recently had my fasting insulin measured and it was 9.59 mIU/L. My HbA1c is 36.
To me, that means 3 things
  1. As a T2, I am still producing insulin, so my pancreas is OK
  2. As someone on a keto diet, I am producing too much insulin
  3. With too much insulin in my system, any spare fat will end up being stored as body fat
I think that explains my current situation, where everything is tightly locked down, but any diversion and I put on weight.
The following charts show what happens with my weight, fbs and ketones.
View attachment 24113
You can line up all the peaks and troughs and see that when my weight goes up, my fbs goes up and the ketones go down, Cause and effect are not clear, but it could be that all three stem from a deviation of diet, ie too much fat, carbs or protein. Perhaps I need to be keto and low calorie?
On a separate note, how do I reduce fasting insulin? Is it a matter of staying keto for a longer time?
Click to expand...

Thanks for this its a great job of showing what is happening and when.
I have long held the belief that ketones hold the key to weight loss. from the very first research, and whilst my data isn't as well organised as your is, I have noticed the same phenomenon.

During the early days of my diet my insulin levels were well beyond 20, so whatever I did actually getting into ketosis of more than 0.5 was just about impossible and even a slight increase in food intake put me right into a stall where it stayed for months.
it is only now that my weight has decisively moved to a new range after 10 days of one meal a day. My ketones have also moved upto circa 3 on this regime.

My take would be as follows ;
I do think fasting insulin will come down over time -purely with an LCHF/ keto diet, it is a long slow process though. ( 2-5 years) I think the primary reason its a long slow process is that each time you eat anything your body reacts to produce insulin which then prevents as much fasting insulin leaving your body as simply not eating would.

I am also concluding ( based on my tiny carrot slip up) and my friend's 5 g of candied ginger spike, that where we go wrong on diets is that we think that changes in proportions will make a big difference - i.e 3 small portions must do lot more good in terms of glucose control than three large one's even using a ketogenic diet .

We think of both insulin and glucose as quantity dependent. I no longer think that is so. Instead its ingestion dependent - hence why in a normal person a tiny snack can produce a similar result as an OGTT , for me a third of a carrot can produce a 2mml increase that lasts for hours and for those on the Newcastle Diet they experience an increase in glucose levels out of all proportion to the actual quantity of food eaten.

This would also explain why I ( and others who have posted here) have been incredibly pleased that the special occasion big meal they succumbed too, did not have quite a disastrous effect as we were expecting indeed sometimes quite the reverse.

This then leads to a dietary recommendations of " fasting" to get rid of the stall. fasting is hugely hard. I understand entirely from supporters of fasting that once properly ketotic hunger is no longer an issue and I can well believe that. The problem with it is that its counter to a natural way of life and socialising.

Having now being doing the One Meal a Day Insulin lowering diet for 10 days , I think that is a very good middle ground. The 23 hours fasting allows insulin to come down, The one meal feast seems to cause ketones to shoot up and that also means your metabolic rate goes up and the ketones start burning fat like mad. Most of all it also allows a totally " normal " life whilst feasting in company ( of LCHF foods) and no-one else will even notice you are dieting, just eating extraordinary amounts. ( and hopefully getting even thinner ... )

That is the only way I can rationalise what happened to me this week. I can't promise the weight loss will last for long, but for me this diet has been a total game changer in terms of how I think about food, how luxurious it is and how long I might be able to keep it up. My problem today has been eating enough food not too little. I will post separately on that.

Given all of the above I think my answer to your question would be, stick with the volume of keto food you are currently eating but make that once per day instead and see what that does to your ketones and thus weight. (make sure you eat enough omega 3 's - so cod liver oil if necessary )

I will be fascinated to see the result !
 
Day 10 update. My blood sugars have continued to be higher than they were whilst eating the magic lasgne though still in the 6-7 range. just not low 4-5's. I do think that is a read through of the protein overdose so it might take a couple of days to get rid of that.

If its still stays quite high after another two days using the salmon I abandoned, then I will conclude I need to eat meat a lot more than I do fish ! and make some more magic lasagne pronto !

I will be firmly in the 70g or less protein, (280 cal) 30g or less carbs ( 120 cal) , balance fats from here on in.
That in turn means that anyone who does want to try this in a VLC way can certainly fit enough proteins and veg for human health in that range .

Today I planned to eat 1600 calories - prawns turnip, tomatoes and onion. I also intended to eat a big portion of kale, spinach, coriander and cabbage, also sauteed in butter and cream with onion, ginger, turmeric and pepper sauce and finally finish off with fresh berries and cream and yoghurt and a bit of salted celery for fibre.

This meal defeated me. Half way through the veg I realised there was no way I was going to finish so I gave up at 1016 calories and 94% nutrients instead of the projected 99% and put the other half of the veg and the entire desert and celery into the fridge .

In truth I could have easily have also skipped the creamed veg entirely which was 485 calories of the total 1016 . Thus I was completely satisfied on 563 calories skipping them would have brought my daily nutrients down to only 80% so I ploughed on anyway.

I am still registering loud wailing sounds on the breathalyser an hour after eating and 12.4 on the ketonix.
I guess I will find out tomorrow if that translates to weight loss.
I am now comfortable that IF its necessary to go VLC to get there, then one meal a day real foods of 800 fatty calories covering 90% ish of dietary requirements is probably doable
 
CherryAA said:
Thanks for this its a great job of showing what is happening and when.
I have long held the belief that ketones hold the key to weight loss. from the very first research, and whilst my data isn't as well organised as your is, I have noticed the same phenomenon.

During the early days of my diet my insulin levels were well beyond 20, so whatever I did actually getting into ketosis of more than 0.5 was just about impossible and even a slight increase in food intake put me right into a stall where it stayed for months.
it is only now that my weight has decisively moved to a new range after 10 days of one meal a day. My ketones have also moved upto circa 3 on this regime.

My take would be as follows ;
I do think fasting insulin will come down over time -purely with an LCHF/ keto diet, it is a long slow process though. ( 2-5 years) I think the primary reason its a long slow process is that each time you eat anything your body reacts to produce insulin which then prevents as much fasting insulin leaving your body as simply not eating would.

I am also concluding ( based on my tiny carrot slip up) and my friend's 5 g of candied ginger spike, that where we go wrong on diets is that we think that changes in proportions will make a big difference - i.e 3 small portions must do lot more good in terms of glucose control than three large one's even using a ketogenic diet .

We think of both insulin and glucose as quantity dependent. I no longer think that is so. Instead its ingestion dependent - hence why in a normal person a tiny snack can produce a similar result as an OGTT , for me a third of a carrot can produce a 2mml increase that lasts for hours and for those on the Newcastle Diet they experience an increase in glucose levels out of all proportion to the actual quantity of food eaten.

This would also explain why I ( and others who have posted here) have been incredibly pleased that the special occasion big meal they succumbed too, did not have quite a disastrous effect as we were expecting indeed sometimes quite the reverse.

This then leads to a dietary recommendations of " fasting" to get rid of the stall. fasting is hugely hard. I understand entirely from supporters of fasting that once properly ketotic hunger is no longer an issue and I can well believe that. The problem with it is that its counter to a natural way of life and socialising.

Having now being doing the One Meal a Day Insulin lowering diet for 10 days , I think that is a very good middle ground. The 23 hours fasting allows insulin to come down, The one meal feast seems to cause ketones to shoot up and that also means your metabolic rate goes up and the ketones start burning fat like mad. Most of all it also allows a totally " normal " life whilst feasting in company ( of LCHF foods) and no-one else will even notice you are dieting, just eating extraordinary amounts. ( and hopefully getting even thinner ... )

That is the only way I can rationalise what happened to me this week. I can't promise the weight loss will last for long, but for me this diet has been a total game changer in terms of how I think about food, how luxurious it is and how long I might be able to keep it up. My problem today has been eating enough food not too little. I will post separately on that.

Given all of the above I think my answer to your question would be, stick with the volume of keto food you are currently eating but make that once per day instead and see what that does to your ketones and thus weight. (make sure you eat enough omega 3 's - so cod liver oil if necessary )

I will be fascinated to see the result !
Click to expand...
I like your proposal of living a normal life whilst feasting in company. Many of my problems are in fact social, I tend to eat out of pattern due to family activities and social events. In particular I am from the generation that believes in eating together, which I actually think IS important, but I sometimes end up eating things I don't want at times I don't want. Most of the time I am OK on my simple diet that I actually look forward to. But I will give your idea a try next time I have a restaurant meal and make that the only meal of the day, as close to LCHF as I can without making a fuss.
 
BrianTheElder said:
I like your proposal of living a normal life whilst feasting in company. Many of my problems are in fact social, I tend to eat out of pattern due to family activities and social events. In particular I am from the generation that believes in eating together, which I actually think IS important, but I sometimes end up eating things I don't want at times I don't want. Most of the time I am OK on my simple diet that I actually look forward to. But I will give your idea a try next time I have a restaurant meal and make that the only meal of the day, as close to LCHF as I can without making a fuss.
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I eat out 2-3 times per week sometimes more. I have found it increasingly easy to eat LCHF practically anywhere except fast food places. That;s why I want to see if I can work with this, because its it true one can maintain weight or even lose it by keeping ketones high through fasting otherwise, that would be perfect.

Would you mind telling me how long you have been on an LCHF diet and did you lose weight, and if so how much and how long were you overweight ot helps get a handle on how long tis likely to take to get it down.

I'm trying to see if it will correlated with the other data i have about fasting insulin and how long it takes to get it down - as becemes clear from the attached three representations of the problem ( the actual no are x 14.4) in the obesity versus insulin chart chart 9.69 = 139
 

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CherryAA said:
I eat out 2-3 times per week sometimes more. I have found it increasingly easy to eat LCHF practically anywhere except fast food places. That;s why I want to see if I can work with this, because its it true one can maintain weight or even lose it by keeping ketones high through fasting otherwise, that would be perfect.

Would you mind telling me how long you have been on an LCHF diet and did you lose weight, and if so how much and how long were you overweight ot helps get a handle on how long tis likely to take to get it down.

I'm trying to see if it will correlated with the other data i have about fasting insulin and how long it takes to get it down - as becemes clear from the attached three representations of the problem ( the actual no are x 14.4) in the obesity versus insulin chart chart 9.69 = 139
Click to expand...
I think all the information you need is in my profile. I started keto in August 2016 and it was very effective until my Florida holiday when I went off the rails with bread and ice cream. I will try to do better this year! From diagnosis in 2013, I lost about 30kg (about 30% body weight) on a low calorie diet with Metformin and statins. Of course, this gradually crept back up and I therefore started keto.
 
BrianTheElder said:
I think all the information you need is in my profile. I started keto in August 2016 and it was very effective until my Florida holiday when I went off the rails with bread and ice cream. I will try to do better this year! From diagnosis in 2013, I lost about 30kg (about 30% body weight) on a low calorie diet with Metformin and statins. Of course, this gradually crept back up and I therefore started keto.
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ok so to summarise the 9.69 is 4 years into a low cab diet which has been little on and off and thus you will probably have seen increases and reductions in fasting insulin along the way - I don't know where the Hba1c started and ended up - presumably that fluctuated a bit too?

Bulkbiker got from a 89 hba1c to one in the 20's with very strict LCHF / fasting and keto in 2 years which also brought his fasting insulin down from an unknown start point to normal.

It took me one year to get from some unknown number way over 20 to 8 and an hba1c of 90 down to 44 I dieted throughout and never put more than a couple of kilos on so far.
 
Hi CherryAA, recorded a loss of a quarter pound. Well a loss is a loss haha. FBG was 6.3 after a bit of a restless night.
Managed OMAD yesterday too and only got hungry at about 2pm so that was good.
Up early today for work so the dynamics in my body AND mind will be different, but I’ve done it before. Got my vegetable bouillon ready.
 
marathonmona said:
Hi CherryAA, recorded a loss of a quarter pound. Well a loss is a loss haha. FBG was 6.3 after a bit of a restless night.
Managed OMAD yesterday too and only got hungry at about 2pm so that was good.
Up early today for work so the dynamics in my body AND mind will be different, but I’ve done it before. Got my vegetable bouillon ready.
Click to expand...

Well a loss is a loss ! any day I have a loss is good !

A couple of points to bear in mind.
My protein misstep has taken 2 days before my libre looks similar to what is was before I doubled it up . The message I take from that is that it is important to only eat the actual amounts of protein I need fro my body which in my case appears to be about 50-80 g - so make sure its a fatty feast with a "normal" level of protein.

My one third of a carrot increased my blood sugars ( and presumably insulin response) by nearly 2 mol for many hours. The message I take from that is that both glucose and insulin are not as volume sensitive as I thought, so a vegetable bouillion might not be the best way to go in -between time . I personally use the spiced coffee for that - that has a whole bunch of specifically good for me ingredients and does not seem to cause any change to glucose levels. Vegetable bouillion may well be the same , but maybe check out what it did to your blood sugar rather than simply assuming it does nothing - just in case.

On the hunger front I'm finding it easier and easier to get to the next meal as my body has come to expect that is what will happen. Yesterday it responded to my meal much like it wold have done to the third meal of any normal day in telling me it was full way before I had planned for it.
 
@kokhongw . I have commented on your comment about don't measure fasting insulin in children here because I'm conscious it might be derailing that thread a little and this is my own thread so its my shout where the thread goes and for ANYONE reading this who has relevant thoughts on the subject please say so . The actual diet is just a test of the theory.

kokhongw said:
Unfortunately these views has likely carried over from children to adulthood...

International Committee Advises: Don’t Measure Fasting Insulin in Children
September 28th, 2009
http://www.diabetesincontrol.com/in...ses-dont-measure-fasting-insulin-in-children/

For all their medical training and insights, they fail to see the insulin connection...is it any wonder that the world faces an obesity/diabetes crisis?
Click to expand...

"Why do that when your eyes can tell you — or the body mass index can tell you. If you’re obese, the insulin level will be higher. You treat the obesity and the insulin comes down. You don’t treat the insulin.”

If that is the case - how on earth do some adults manage to get to a BMI of 44 and STILL have low fasting insulin !

To my mind this might be reasonably simple. - As per usual CAUSE and EFFECT is back to front.

Most humans are susceptible to insulin resistance, a lucky few may not be - ( whether that is genetic or something very specific about their foetal development - no clue - the fact that it can happen within the same family points towards foetal rather than genetic) .

Eating omega 6 industrial oils and refined foods trigger much bigger glucose responses than real foods. It is not even particularly volume related , so the chain of events can get started with quite small quantities of the wrong foods. Insulin rises to deal with the glucose hit, increased insulin causes insulin resistance needing more insulin to achieve the same job. Insulin is the fat making hormone and that's exactly what it does - make you fat. Diets which then suggest that the way to reduce weight is to lower fats, will cause even higher insulin levels because they will have to be carb based. Thus any diet that involves eating more carbs than before as a proportion of foods must be doomed to fail eventually because individual willpower simply cannot overcome the ever increasing pressure of the circulating insulin load . That is why 99% of diets fail.

When governments then ask the entire world to increase carbs and reduce saturated fats they then effectively induce insulin resistance in x billion people. When test are done of fasting insulin the "normal range " is stated to be 2-25 and as such even if you get the test done as a " normal person" if your test comes out wrong you will have no clue anything is wrong and neither will you doctor - my own doctor congratulated me on my " normal score of 20. above 8 and you have an 80% chance of being pre-diabetic .

Thus IF fasting insulin was a standard lipid profile test, then you would know from childhood onwards - are you prone to putting on weight through too high insulin levels and we could then figure out what to do with that info in terms of the diet - i.e. more fat less carbs.

If as an adult you can find a diet which reduces the insulin load then you stand a chance, LCHF does precisely that, fasting does it quicker. That is why these diets are more successful.

The fact that its not a standard test at the start and end of every clinical trial to do with diet, nutrition, obesity, and any other disease is criminal.
 
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