lucylocket61
Expert
I wonder if, by its very nature, 800-1000 cals involves a reduction in daily carb intake for most, and that is being masked by the hype about the calorific value?
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Tannith's views on reversing T2
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I wonder if, by its very nature, 800-1000 cals involves a reduction in daily carb intake for most, and that is being masked by the hype about the calorific value?
Your experience and my own reflection, as well as Prof Taylor's results, where his subjects did not reach the max 95% of normal insulin response till 12 months, has led me to believe that it may take beta cells a while after they stop actually drowning in fat, to become sufficiently healthy again. In which case I could already have reached my PFT. For this reason, even if my OGT (the best available indicator of Beta Cell Function/return of 1st phase insulin production), is still not back to the normal range when I reach the bottom of normal BMI, I shall stop there anyway, as I don't want to be underweight. And hope of course that my beta cells catch up.
Oldvatr
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The nutritional content of the shakes is available, and when I last looked, The Optifast one comes in with a carb count of approx 20gm, I think from memory that Taylor used 3 shakes a day in his first trial.
The OPTIFAST Ready-to-Drink shakes are one of the core products of this total meal replacement diet.
Contains Milk, Soy and Fish. Contains Phenylalanine. Gluten-free.
OPTIFAST VLCD Shake Vanilla 53g
Servings Per Pack: 12 Serving Size: 53g (Powder) Average Quantity per Serving Ave Qty per 100ml (made up with 200ml water)
201 Cal
Protein 20 g
Fat-total 4.5 g
Carbohydrate 18.2 g
- Sugars 10.1 g
- Lactose 9.5 g
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HSSS
Expert
It’s been 3 yrs for me They haven’t caught up yet. In fact they haven’t improved beyond the initial 3 month improvement.
I’m pleased you have set some limits.
How do you know? How do you do your measuring?
Lamont D
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Do you actually know why T2 is caused? Do you know why only certain people get metabolic conditions?
The main cause or the root of most endocrine conditions is inflammation, this will have a significant impact on how your hormonal response changes because the next stage is insulin resistance, insulin response and a tendency to higher than normal blood sugar levels. Because this can be a long process even getting to prediabetes and the .main assumption that obesity causes T2 diabetes.
You only mention beta cells, what about alpha cells and how your circulating insulin is stored. This wasted insulin can cause hyperinsulinaemia, which will effect your health. This insulin is the cause of unwanted fat. That will effect the liver and become fatty, along with liver function, also kidney, pancreas function. Too much circulating insulin is definitely not good for you.
If you maintain a diet that is high in carbs and starch, and to some extents, the wrong fats, as in low or no fat, low sugar, no sugar, reduced sugar, there is still sugar in it!
Because of our nutritional needs as I explained in one of my posts, the diet that we have grown up with and are advised as healthy, to someone who has a metabolic syndrome and a tendency not to process glucose derived, because the insulin response is going to be too low, then it is usual that so many people get diabetes or a metabolic condition. To those like you and me, this is not healthy. Healthy for someone else is not healthy for me.
Along with the glucose tolerance tests, I had a range of other tests that included some that looked into a variety of how my hormones responded, to see if other than my low insulin response, my other hormones were checked, my thyroid along with adrenal and so on were fine.
In my experience with my condition and knowledge of how I ended up with my rare condition, finding answers is dependent on who you are reading. And as I've said before, what works for me won't work for you.
The bottom line is what causes your diabetes and how you treat the higher than normal blood sugar levels, it has to be sustainable, it has to prevent further complications, it has to get you healthier, it has to make you realise that knowing your body is so important. You do have to look into keeping your mind and opinions open. It is you, you're trying to understand.
Some of the strange things I have experienced and the foods that I cannot eat can be surprising, who would of thought that a staple healthy food like potatoes are my nemesis. It's the starch, it's the quickness of how it spikes me, it's the highest glucose levels that makes me have the symptoms of hyperglycaemia, then the rapid drop towards normal, because of a secondary insulin response called an overshoot, which drives me into Hypoglycaemia.
The only way I can control my blood sugar, is to avoid all those foods that causes a spike.
The main cause or the root of most endocrine conditions is inflammation, this will have a significant impact on how your hormonal response changes because the next stage is insulin resistance, insulin response and a tendency to higher than normal blood sugar levels. Because this can be a long process even getting to prediabetes and the .main assumption that obesity causes T2 diabetes.
You only mention beta cells, what about alpha cells and how your circulating insulin is stored. This wasted insulin can cause hyperinsulinaemia, which will effect your health. This insulin is the cause of unwanted fat. That will effect the liver and become fatty, along with liver function, also kidney, pancreas function. Too much circulating insulin is definitely not good for you.
If you maintain a diet that is high in carbs and starch, and to some extents, the wrong fats, as in low or no fat, low sugar, no sugar, reduced sugar, there is still sugar in it!
Because of our nutritional needs as I explained in one of my posts, the diet that we have grown up with and are advised as healthy, to someone who has a metabolic syndrome and a tendency not to process glucose derived, because the insulin response is going to be too low, then it is usual that so many people get diabetes or a metabolic condition. To those like you and me, this is not healthy. Healthy for someone else is not healthy for me.
Along with the glucose tolerance tests, I had a range of other tests that included some that looked into a variety of how my hormones responded, to see if other than my low insulin response, my other hormones were checked, my thyroid along with adrenal and so on were fine.
In my experience with my condition and knowledge of how I ended up with my rare condition, finding answers is dependent on who you are reading. And as I've said before, what works for me won't work for you.
The bottom line is what causes your diabetes and how you treat the higher than normal blood sugar levels, it has to be sustainable, it has to prevent further complications, it has to get you healthier, it has to make you realise that knowing your body is so important. You do have to look into keeping your mind and opinions open. It is you, you're trying to understand.
Some of the strange things I have experienced and the foods that I cannot eat can be surprising, who would of thought that a staple healthy food like potatoes are my nemesis. It's the starch, it's the quickness of how it spikes me, it's the highest glucose levels that makes me have the symptoms of hyperglycaemia, then the rapid drop towards normal, because of a secondary insulin response called an overshoot, which drives me into Hypoglycaemia.
The only way I can control my blood sugar, is to avoid all those foods that causes a spike.
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Thank you for the clarification, @Tannith. Your posts have seemed misleading, but I understand better now. You are not following the Newcastle Diet then with 1000 calories a day. That is not even following the principles of the Blood Sugar 800 calories a day, either. That could confuse people looking for information, it certainly confusd me, and I have personal experience of the Newcastle Diet method. I
I am less concerned about your physical health. Apart from the repeated OGTTs. With respect, as another ‘senior’ I think it is probably going to be enough calories to live on , if you choose to do the calorie counting route. Unless you are very physically active, I mean extreme sports and the like. From my own experience I need less food now I am older, and move less. I have better understanding of what you are trying to achieve now. I wish you well, and hope you achieve your goal, even though I have doubts about your method.
My understanding of Professor Taylor’s theory is that the most important weight loss is the fat around the pancreas and liver. Visceral fat. It becomes a bit confusing when he mentions a figure of 15kg, but the emphasis is on the loss of visceral , internal fat. Also on a short period of 8 to 12 weeks on the Very Low Calorie Diet. So to keep striving to lose weight on 1000 calories a day for a prolonged period and testing regularly with OGTTs is nothing like the ND model.
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It did for me. Resulted in ketosis, so was using fat stores. Haven’t managed prolonged ketosis on standard LCHF with real food. So as in my signature, I do not decry the ND method. Yes it has flaws, and it won’t work for everyone. As several others have discovered including myself, there are other ways of eating that seem to produce ‘miracles’ for many, but not all.
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Yes, products I used came to less than 60 g total carb a day.
lucylocket61
Expert
OGT measures insulin secretions, not beta cell function. https://insights.omnia-health.com/l...on-patients-type-2-diabetes-clinical-practice
lucylocket61
Expert
Yes, far fewer carbs daily than most would have been eating usually as part of their diet.
please provide a reference for the claim that a glucose tolerance test is the best available indicator for beta cell function and for the return of first phase insulin production.
You have made this claim repeatedly, so I would be very interested to read the research you are quoting when you say it.
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Did you ever stop to wonder why that might be exactly?
Oldvatr
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Technically speaking, 3 shakes a day is certainly in the range to be classed as Low Carb (<130g). However, I can see exactly why they call it Vlcal. To get the support and funding they needed.
Most nutritionists do not bat an eyelid at VlCal diets for weight loss. It is a prescription treatment for obesity on the NHS and the three diets I identified earlier have been around for decades. So there was no contest, no red lines crossed, no Fad Diet slurs. The NHS can jump straight in and accept it. GP's can accept it, Dieticians can accept it.
Low Carb would have been a red stoplight. Keto or threat of keto is an even brighter Red Stoplight, Hence the Vlcal tag.
HSSS
Expert
Fbg, quarterly hb1ac, testing around meals and response to carbs on the odd occasion I choose to test a satisfying and pleasant higher load.
Although as I am generally very low carb I should really carb up for a few days prior to the carb challenges for that and even the fbg to be relevant and avoid misleading adaptive glucose sparing results that make things look worse than they are. I am not willing to do this on anything like the regular basis you are willing to do as for me the difference will be significant and quite possibly start an avalanche of cravings for sweetness and grains.and certainly not for a foul tasting glucose drink that has zero nutritional benefit either.
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Resurgam
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I was nagged and nattered at to do low calorie diets repeatedly for most of my adult life.
Perhaps I am not standard but for several decades now, if I start off with the usual diet sheet from a GP diet in a couple of days I lose colour from my skin, become feeble and dismal, faint and weary and my mental state gets rather strange. I do lose weight, but very very slowly.
I am sure that it is all down to the repeated attempts at dieting using a regime which is not suited to my metabolism.
When I can get back to what is normal eating for me, I have been known to sit weeping over a bowl of scrambled eggs with cheese and tomato and to take half an hour to eat it due to the huge emotional impact others have engendered in me. Of course in just a few hours I was much more normal and HCPs would have to lock me up if they wanted to feed me a 'healthy' diet now - but they have threatened that previously, so I would not put it past them.
It did take quite some time to reach that state, but repeatedly doing low calorie diets with carbohydrate (which has little nutritional value) can bring on some very unhelpful symptoms of physical distress and an inability to cope with life.
Perhaps I am not standard but for several decades now, if I start off with the usual diet sheet from a GP diet in a couple of days I lose colour from my skin, become feeble and dismal, faint and weary and my mental state gets rather strange. I do lose weight, but very very slowly.
I am sure that it is all down to the repeated attempts at dieting using a regime which is not suited to my metabolism.
When I can get back to what is normal eating for me, I have been known to sit weeping over a bowl of scrambled eggs with cheese and tomato and to take half an hour to eat it due to the huge emotional impact others have engendered in me. Of course in just a few hours I was much more normal and HCPs would have to lock me up if they wanted to feed me a 'healthy' diet now - but they have threatened that previously, so I would not put it past them.
It did take quite some time to reach that state, but repeatedly doing low calorie diets with carbohydrate (which has little nutritional value) can bring on some very unhelpful symptoms of physical distress and an inability to cope with life.
use the word
I use the word "available" to mean available to ordinary people outside the lab. I believe the HOMA and C Peptide etc tests used by Prof Taylor's subjects are indeed better, but the OGT is the nearest we can get to that outside the lab or from the NHS unless we are some kind of special case. I am of course aware that OGT takes into account insulin resistance as well as beta cell function. However I have also read in an article on Taiwanese women to which I didn't keep the link, that insulin resistance only influence the result by 15%. And as low cal diet also reduces insulin resistance, probably even less in my own case.
Hotpepper20000
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I think in all this we also have to consider what a very low calorie diet long term does to ones mental health.
The constant hunger and obsession with the calories of food is not healthy for mental or physical health.
I have chosen to take care of both by eating low carb sometimes very low carb to feed my body and brain so I can move on with living my life.
I am healthy, active, and happy.
The constant hunger and obsession with the calories of food is not healthy for mental or physical health.
I have chosen to take care of both by eating low carb sometimes very low carb to feed my body and brain so I can move on with living my life.
I am healthy, active, and happy.
In that case, could you please remember to explain those relevant details next time, instead of making vague and inaccurate claims.
I just don’t understand why and how you think that measuring blood glucose with a glucose tolerance test is testing beta cell function?
Because it isn’t.
It is testing glucose levels. The clue is in the name.
The link given by @Lucylocket (above) makes it very clear how problematic it is to gauge beta cell function even in a lab, and how inaccurate the results are. If you read the link, it is clear that a glucose tolerance test is only useful to assess beta cell function when it is used simultaneously with an insulin clamp test. The two test results used side by side, so the glucose tolerance test result is useless alone.
In addition, by your own admission, insulin resistance muddies the water further.
I think you would get much more useful information from getting a fasting insulin test done at the same time as a fasting blood glucose test, and using the HOMO-IR index calculation to work out your fasting insulin resistance.
you are already stepping way outside Professor Taylor’s ND guidance, and NHS guidance, with your repeated (and possibly damaging) home glucose tolerance tests. Getting your own private blood tests for fasting insulin, combined with a home fasting glucose test would yield much more useful information.
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lucylocket61
Expert
and, as you know full well, there is a reason for that.
I also add the the form of unmedically supervised repeated 'OGT test' you are self administering are not the same as the ones a medical person would do. Its an attempt at an OGT, nothing more. And nothing to do with measuring beta cell production and action.
I say this so others reading your posts are aware that your home made self administered dangerous 'OGT tests' are nothing of the sort, and harmful. Letting your words stand unchallenged is, in my view, dangerously irresponsible.
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