Well I stuck to my guns - no Metformin and had my HbA1c checked on the 6th November...
On the 13th July, 2018, it was 7.5% (59 mmol/mol) and drum roll... on the 6th November it was 5.1% (32 mmol/mol) without drugs! So just under 4 months of LCHF alone brought my numbers into the realms of “normal” - I’m pretty amazed!
I told my diabetes specialist that I had been following a ketogenic diet and, whilst saying I had good blood work, he told me that I needed to eat some toast for breakfast and potatoes with veg and chicken or fish for lunch and dinner, and of course fruit (because my brain needs carbs). He told me that this was the best way of eating - he said that after all this was the way he ate and he didn’t have diabetes! I nearly pointed out that that was precisely why he was able to eat that way but I just grinned and said OK - realising that he didn’t have a clue. I thought of Gary Taubes. So neither my specialist nor my GP have been of much help or support on this journey.
Other tests that may be of interest:
Total Cholesterol down from 5.3 mmol/L to 4.5
Triglycerides down from 1.3 mmol/L to 0.8 (my understanding is that if less than 1.0 there are no small dense particles of LDL)
LDL down from 3.3 mmol/L to 2.7
HDL constant at 1.4 mmol/L
I asked the GP for an Insulin test but he wouldn’t budge - “we already know you’re insulin resistant” he told me... so I got it done privately along with a fasting glucose test at the same time - results are as follows:
Fasting BG 6.0 mmol/L (still getting a bit of the “dawn phenomenon”)
Fasting Insulin 7 mU/L (less than 10 considered normal insulin sensitivity by the LAB)
Plugging these figures into the HOMA-IR test formula, I haven’t got my calculator on me but from memory, the result was 1.96 - borderline, so still a bit of work to do there. It’s such a shame that I had no previous results against which to compare this - I can only assume it was quite a bit higher.
For anyone still on the fence regarding low carb for Type 2, I hope this gives you inspiration. Oh I almost forgot, whilst not as impressive as some, I have lost 13kg over those 4 months.