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NFI Diet. Experiences?

target6point4

Active Member
Messages
39
Location
Germany / Netherlands
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Insulin
Hello,

has anyone here tried the NFI diet for controlling their T2? I have been on the diet for a week now and was hoping to compare notes and/or gain some pointers.

At the start of the diet, I had fasting numbers around 11 which have come down to about 6.5 within just 7 days. I have been experiencing strong Hypos for the past three days around lunch (values around 4.5) which could mean that I could be taking too much medication. What has amazed me is the fact that I routinely consume around 100g of carbs per day and still the numbers are much different from those on any other diet.

Does anyone have any experience with this or any other food chemistry diets?
 
Hi target6point4,
I don't know anybody on that specific diet, though most of us (except for those on the Newcastle Diet) are on a whole/real/traditional food way of eating.

What medication are you on? It seems unlikely that you are on just Metformin if you are Type 2 and get Hypos.
 
I am on Metformin (2 x 1000) and 12 units of Insulin in the night. I have been taking it easy with my medication in general in the past but for the past week I have followed through religiously.

I have actually had a fourth Hypo last week when I went for a run and had to walk the last mile or so.

I am what you would call a skinny diabetic. I weigh a measly 71 kgs at 1.8 m and have never weighed more than 75. I have a family history of diabetes.

My experinces since my diagnosis (2013) can be summarised as below:

2014: Newcastle diet. Hung in there for two weeks and saw some improvement but later gave up on it as the hunger pangs were just too much.

2018-19: LCHF, Keto diet eating mostly animal products and starch free vegetables. Sugar numbers reduced again but A1C never went below 7.8

2019: Was on trulicity for 3 months. Horrible experience in general but sugar numbers improved slightly.

2019: Started prepping for a run and realized that energy levels were shot on LCHF. Could barely run a mile and took a week or so to recover from exertions. Adding carbs to the diet helped but sugar numbers spiralled out of control quickly. Switched overnight to a vegetarianan diet and that helped immensely with the running. Could casually finish a 15k in October last year. Bored the wife to death by chattering about what a great experience it was on the entire drive home. Did a 19k in freezing conditions in December and drove home alone.

2020: Despite all the running, sugar numbers still high. Doctor suggested "Truly ******" again so decided to seek an alternative. I have a feeling that it is easy to do a vegetarianan diet wrong. Hence the move now to a whole food vegan diet. During my last trulicity phase I had to give up dairy due to severe digestion issues (meat was okay) and had felt a real surge of energy. This past week without any dairy reminds me of that very time. I have another week to go before I have to decide if I wish to continue or try something else.
 

Have you ever had your c-peptide levels tested?
 
target6point4 said:
2020: Despite all the running, sugar numbers still high.
Click to expand...

I hope you aren't expecting the exercise to do the heavy lifting for you.
There is a saying that you can't out-run a poor diet. It is what you eat that will make the biggest difference unless you start taking strong medications such as SGLT-2, Trulicity or Insulin.

Being a slim T2 myself (TOFI) I'm surprised that you didn't have energy on LCHF. All I can think of is that for some reason you never got 'fat adapted', since many triathletes and marathon runners use LCHF in order to get fat adapted and so not need any additional fuel during their event.
It is very strange that on LCHF your BG numbers dropped but the average ( the HbA1C) didn't. Three months is usually plenty long enough to drop the HbA1C sine the red blood cells only 'live' for that long before being replaced.

Because of my relative lack of weight, I took LCHF quite slowly and so just Low Carb (40gms to 25gms of carbs per day) rather than Keto.
Despite this both my BG and my weight dropped, though it took about 3 months before I was sure that I had become fat adapted - due to no longer feeling hungry for Breakfast. So I went to 1 or 2 meals per day and always do my daily exercise in a fasted state.
 
target6point4 said:
Do you mean the insulin levels by that? I have been through two extensive checkups in 2014 and 2019 as part of a medical study and my peptide levels were normal on both occassions.
Click to expand...
Well sort of but slightly different.. if you had your fasting insulin measured what levels did you see?
 
The main website for NFI diet that @bulkbiker posted says it is all about scientifically balanced foods that happen to be plant based. The website has no science on it whatsoever nor any references. So it is ju-jitsu par extreme. Sorry I see no evidence that this is safe or properly researched. It uses nuts, and insists on there being nuts in it, which for some people represents a clear and present danger. There is also a lack of credible testimonials or trials evidence like Bulkbiker posted.

At least it is only supposed to be done for 2 weeks max, so is time limited. It is purported to be a keto diet, but 2 weeks is not feasible for clearing out the adipose fat like it claims. Especially since it is also unlimited calorie but seems to be low fat as well (hence. the nuts)
 
Hi. Something doesn't add-up here? Why were you put on Trulicity if you were slim? The Glutide drugs are normally used to help T2s who have excess weight to lose some of that weight yet you say you have always been slim; this seems strange to me. It's possible you are actually T1 in the early honeymoon phase but that's just a wild guess. It might be worth another C-Peptide test at some point. Vegan diets can be difficult with diabetes and it's important that you have the most suitable combination of the three food groups with enough fat and protein
 
target6point4 said:
Do you mean the insulin levels by that?
Click to expand...

It's worth knowing how your pancreas is doing, in my opinion. GPs might have other ideas because it all costs money and I don't think type IIs are regularly sent for a c-peptide so it's good that you've had extensive checkups including a c-pep.

My results have always been in the normal range so at least I know my problem is insulin resistance rather than insulin production.
 
Hi @bulkbiker, just a question....

I am normally pretty good at data and stats, but this particular chart has always baffled me, because to me, it seems to show two cohorts - those with a conventional and those with a vegan diet.

Both cohorts show much the same trends but the vegan data points for Hba1c are all a little lower than the conventional set, except for the first one, which is higher. So I am not sure how this supports the proposition that vegan diets are less sustainable than conventional ones.

I am not intending to criticise, I’m genuinely puzzled, as I was when I read the original. Am I missing something? Cos science is great, innit, and I’d like to understand!
 

Hello @target6point4,

First of all, congrats on seeing this much of an improvement by changing what you eat and your level of exercise. In the end, it is always a personal decision and depends on what works for you, the type of food you prefer to eat, is nutritionally adequate, and as on what type of diet you can maintain long-term.

Just a couple of thoughts, though:

Might it have been the inability to tolerate dairy that has led you to experience some of the symptoms (like lack of energy) on a low carb diet. This might be indicated as you say that once you dropped dairy, you felt more energetic. (For most of us, lack of energy disappears once we are fat-adapted, which takes around a month of being in ketogenesis).

Also 4.5 mmol is not technically a hypo (let alone a strong hypo), but certainly might feel like one if you are usually running higher than this. This is then known as a "false" hypo. Hypo territory technically starts at 3.9 mmol or below. However, as you are on insulin, this might still be cutting it a bit close. It might be worthwhile to have a talk with your nurse and GP about this -- maybe they will agree to lowering your insulin levels a bit.

Good luck on your journey.
 
Neither cohort actually succeeds in reducing levels into the prediabetic or non diabetic levels, Neither diet keeps their levels steady, and both are shown rising steadily in tandem so they track each other back up to diabetic, It may be sustainable to keep up with the diet, but the beneficial effects as regards HbA1c do not sustain.

The study that these graphics come from is often touted as evidence that a vegan style diet can be used to place T2D into remission, which it clearly does not.

The dip from the start is probably due to both cohorts abandoning their usual diets to follow stricter restricted diets where fast food and processed foods were omitted and probably the simple sugars reduced. Not sure, but portion sizes and snacking habits also may have changed over the period of the trial.
 

I'm guessing that at the start of the trial they put the slightly worst cases on the vegan arm to try to get the biggest benefit.
Or if it were truly randomised then maybe it just ended up that way.

I think it shows that a vegan low fat diet is better than the SAD diet (standard of care) but over time results deteriorate on both arms. The vegan is still better than SAD but not by much and longer term not so great.

If you compare those results to what we see here with low carb then the most beneficial way of eating becomes apparent.
 
Ahh for some reason I thought the comparison was between vegan and LCHF hence really not understanding the results.

Quote from the actual publication

“Free-living individuals with type 2 diabetes were randomly assigned to a low-fat vegan diet (n = 49) or a diet following 2003 American Diabetes Association guidelines (conventional, n = 50) for 74 wk. Glycated hemoglobin (Hb A(1c)) and plasma lipids were assessed at weeks 0, 11, 22, 35, 48, 61, and 74. Weight was measured at weeks 0, 22, and 74.”

So that makes perfect sense, conventional diet = ADA recommended diabetic diet circa 2003. No wonder it shows poor results for both cohorts!

Edit to add: apologies for thread hijack, but it’s been nagging at me for a while!
 
This is slightly relevant to the OP but is not the NFI diet per se.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4221319/

It is a recent meta analysis of vegetarian diets to establish if they improve diabetic pointers more than the standard diets used as controls

The conclusion from the study confirmed that there is a significant improvement of -0.39% in HbA1c compared to the Step II diet (Low Fat SAD) The study concludes that the benefit is equivalent to approx half the effect obtained by Metformin at max dose However, the study only gives comparison (delta change) results, and does not seem to mention what the average endpoint HbA1c ended up at. They do note that the fasting glucose levels did not change significantly which suggests they remained static.

This seems to correlate with the Neil Barnard study, which was based on the Adventist 2 study, but this is not surprising since the same study was one of the 6 being analysed by this study.

On a personal note I discovered that when I started LCHF (omnivore) diet, my HbA1c dropped from106 to 42 in the pace of 3 months or less, and I have been consistently in this latter ballpark for 5 years now.

Edit to add:
A further in depth read shows that they claim 6 trials were included, but only identify 5 in Table 1. Also there were a further 2 trials that were originally included, but were dropped from the final analysis. Including these two trials dropped the HbA1c benefit from -0.39% to -0,26% and the meta analysis became unbalanced and non significant. This admission is buried in the small print towards the end of the report.
 
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I have seen people add their results when low carbing to that particular graph but the line goes down about 2 pages of text to show their HbA1c levels.
 
Hi all,

I am overwhelmed by the interest in this thread and would like to answer some of your questions to nudge the discussion along.

I have become gradually convinced that diet plays the biggest role, not just for T2D but for health overall, in general. Hence this current attempt to take the diet route to improve the situation. Here in Germany the diet advice for diabetics is pretty generic, irrespective of your age, size, ethnicity, you are all encouraged to follow the same diet which mostly emphasises on portion control. I guess it works for most cases because people are diagnosed at a very early stage and these things help to bring their numbers under control. I was diagnosed by accident and my first A1C was 10.4. The ship had pretty much sailed for me so to say.

I guess I had poor results on LCHF because my carb intake was never low enough to force my body into a sustained ketosis. This lead to the situation where the carbs wouldn't provide enough energy and all the fat just kept piling up. Anyways, I don't think I could sustain a meat heavy lifestyle as towards the end of my LCHF phase I had developed a serious aversion for meat.

A couple of you enquired about my peptide levels. I remember vaguely that my peptide levels taken after an overnight fast and a glucagon shot were around 1.8 which is closer to the upper limit at 2. The doctors have hence ruled out T1.

@Oldvatr You have rightfully pointed out that the website does not link to any scientific studies and is pretty straight forward. All you find is a handful of testimonials on Youtube and those too are mostly of overweight individuals. The premise though sounded promising which is why Ihave decided to give it a shot. The way I see it, going low carb is essentially avoiding the problem and not exactly solving it.

@ziggy_w Dairy could be the culprit in my case as dropping it on two occassions has brought me immediate results. I am in no hurry to introduce it to my diet now. Also, my 4.5 mmol might not sound as a hypo for most people but I generally run levels around 8 or 9 and from there, this is a big drop. I have a feeling that hypos have a lot to do with how quickly your sugar drops than the absolute level it is at.
 


Hi @target6point4,

Wonderful, glad to meet a compatriot. I am from Germany too, so definitely agree that we are way behind in recommending helpful dietary approaches to combat T2. In fact, when I asked my GP about this at diagnosis, he even discouraged me from trying to control this by diet and said with levels as high as mine, there would be no way around insulin. Consider myself lucky, that I tried this in spite of his advice.

Yes, I agree when you are usually running higher, 4.5 mmol can feel awful. So, my comment wasn't meant to pooh-pooh your experience. There is actually no difference to how you would feel if it was a real hypo -- however, a level of 4.5 mmol is usually not life threatening. As your body gets used to lower levels, you will probably start feeling okay at this level.

As to a low-carb or ketogenic diet (disclosure: this is the way I personally choose to eat) not solving the problem, this probably depends on what you think the real problem in T2 diabetes is. Personally, I believe the major problem in most T2s is that we tend to genetically tend to overreact to the consumption of carbs by releasing too much insulin -- which leads to a vicious cycle of too much insulin, leading to insulin resitance, leading to a yet higher release of insulin to overcome the resistance, and in turn again increasing the resistance. This process, of course, can be made worse by eating consistently throughout the day (and thus keeping insulin constantly high) or by chronic stress (another way of making cells insulin resistant) among other things. So, if this explanation is true, lowering your carb intake might actually get to the root of the problem.

Of course, there is still a lot of disagreement among researchers what the root cause of diabetes is (so not claiming this is the correct explanation, though there definitely seems to be a lot of evidence supporting this). And even is the above explanation is true for some T2s, it might not apply to all of us.
 
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