Would either lc or fasting work?

What do you mean by 'normal eating'?

Why do you want to go back to it, are you having problems? we might be able to help.

Higher carb = sugar spikes, which are not a good idea.

MrsA2 said:

I'm not thinking of doing it, I'm just trying to understand the reasoning behind it. At the moment, to me, extended fasting seems very extreme and surely just results in much less food being eaten. So if less food is eaten, say 8 meals in a week, might that food actually have more carbs in than if the food was more spread out?

Click to expand...

I am not sure if I understand.

I have 80g of carbs a day. I eat usually once a day, or twice within a 6 hour window. I am having the same amount of carbs as if I spread that quantity of food out to 4 snacks.

Low carb or keto as a way of eating works very well alongside fasting because of the type of energy used by the body. Using fat and ketones for energy which you do when eating keto or low carb seems to make it easier, once adjusted, to fast even for short periods. When eating medium/high carb and low fat in the past but with restricted calories, and using the carbs and therefore sugar for energy, I’ve found it impossible to fast at all as hunger has been a huge issue presumably caused by blood sugar spikes and drops. So if anyone is keen to have the benefits of fasting it’s much easier combined with keto/low carb. As a diabetic managing my blood sugar and keeping them as low and level as possible works really well by combining the two but at a low weight I don’t do extended fasts just restricted eating windows. Hope this helps.

MrsA2 said:

I've been reading up on fasting but most info I find combines fasting with low carb.
As a type 2 diabetic do you think fasting alone would counteract any carbs if I went back to normal eating?
The benefits of fasting seem the same as low carbing, e.g lowering bg and weight, so why would I need to do both?

Just hypothetical, looking for opinions and experiences

Click to expand...

I’ve heard success stories from people who fast, I.e. eating every other day. Though from a weight loss perspective, not sure how this would affect BG. Personally I think fasting is pretty hard to maintain, especially as a long term maintenance plan. IMHO, a useful tool for a target weight.

low carb just seems better as a lifestyle

MrsA2 said:

I'm not thinking of doing it, I'm just trying to understand the reasoning behind it. At the moment, to me, extended fasting seems very extreme and surely just results in much less food being eaten. So if less food is eaten, say 8 meals in a week, might that food actually have more carbs in than if the food was more spread out?

Click to expand...

I think I have some experience now under the belt to answer this. You see I started with Alternate Day Fasting but soon I was doing extended fasting just because I wanted to see how far I can take it and to try the theory of eating more carbs in doing so. I can tell you that atleast my body outrightly rejects higher carb diet by taking sugar levels high. Now it does mean that with extended fasting giving me lower BG reading on fasting days can still bring my average down and thus show on HbA1c as normal but the fact is anytime my carb intake is high enough to take my BG readings beyond 7.5 mmol.L I am exposing my body and organs to a risk that we ultimately want to avoid.

The best way, therefore, for me to think of being a diabetic is to think I am "carb intolerant" and so it does not matter if I fast or not when I do eat I must ensure I eat low carb.

What might then be the benefit of extended fasting one might ask. Well as I have found in last 3 months is that extended fasting helps me with the following:

• Lot of time in hand because I don't have to cook.
• Once I went completely on LCHF (keto levels) hunger pangs disappeared making fasting as normal as gap between two meals and so fasting made it possible to stick with low carb diet.
• Calorie deficit allowed for a faster weight loss bringing my weight to the Goal I had set in a very short period of time.
• Extended fasting allows for body to undergo Autophagy and greater than 72hrs allows for regeneration of immune cells and brings our body into therapeutic levels of ketosis thus reducing risks to some dangerous diseases like Alzheimer, cancer etc.
  • It was probably for the first time in past 10 years that I went through the whole of December without falling ill or catching a common cold despite all my regular activities and exposure to outdoor staying the same - possibly even more as I was taking my dog for more walks than usual. WFH in the past year has zero impact as I have always done that.
• I know it sounds silly, but it is practical and true that when you eat less you save financially, so you can afford to eat better quality food. Sure Almond flour is slightly expensive, but it's actually turning out cheaper as I feel more full on half a slice of Almond flour bread than I do with about 4 slices of brown bread and then am eating less due to fasting so yes there is a financial incentive, although that is not my motivation.

So long story short duration of fasting and low carb do go hand in hand and while you could manage sugar level without fasting just by low carb diet, fasting will perhaps add / enhance the benefits but extended fasting with higher carb intake is perhaps not a good idea at least based on my own experience.

nutribolt said:

I think I have some experience now under the belt to answer this.

Click to expand...

@nutribolt - Your analysis is making more and more sense to me. Much needed observations, clearly delineated.

Fasting turbo charges LCHF, Keto supercharges it.

These are my observations. If I were starting from scratch, with the HbA1c level I had, I would go to Germany or Russia and under clinical supervision do an extended fast, and I must stress this in bold undertake the programmes that they do, and not attempt this at home privately (see YouTube below). This ultra aggressive form of diabetes treatment would have dropped the visceral / liver / pancreatic fat like a stone, so for my version of Type 2, would have got me to physical results extremely quickly.

This would have been painful, but I was in extreme pain anyway, and either the German or Russian centres have demonstrated expertise, with track records. I believe technical remission would have been within a month. Mental conditioning would have been required as a larger person would have gone in a thinner would have come out.

The trick would have then been how to eat "normally" to the condition status afterwards, which in my view is as @nutribolt says - acknowledging that high carb days are over, but the right carbs are in. I would have wanted some basic meals I could use for a month that were sympathetic to maintenance and follow up support.

A more conservative fasting I think is optimal such as 16 / 8 or 18 / 6. Once someone is fat adapted, as it becomes natural to not want to eat often anyway. I have been testing for some time OMAD and TMAD. I believe that OMAD is great for general purposes. I am doing more TMAD with a window of around 6 hours to get enough protein in to support my workouts; but sometimes I slip into OMAD just because of how the day is going.

I don't think multi-day fasting is a long term strategy, I would drive autophagy via the exercise route.