More evidence for IF for Diabetics

cstehansen

Short version is if you eat only breakfast and lunch you will lose more weight, lower your hepatic fat content (fatty liver) more, lower your FBG more, lower your peptide-C more and improve your insulin sensitivity more than if you eat the same number of calories/nutrients across 6 smaller meals.

Once again, showing the ADA recommendations to eat frequent small meals is bad advice.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24838678

One of these days, the ADA is going to have to start making recommendations that are actually backed up by science, right?

RalfLott

A couple cynical observations.... (keep or toss):

• If you start with the ADA's first unspoken assumption (per Dr. Bernstein) - that it is more important to the ADA to avoid association with even one case of serious hypoglycemia than it is to help x,000,000 diabetics whose BG is too high - then the recommendation to eat 6 carb-laden meals a day (and to cover the effects with insulin) falls into place.
• If you start with the ADA's second unspoken assumption - that humans are weak-willed, lazy, stupid, and ignorant gluttons - then the recommendation to eat 6 small meals is an obvious improvement over the logical alternative - 6 huge meals.

macchiatto

I would be STARVING!
But kudos to you IFers.

SuperCarLori

macchiatto wrote: »

I would be STARVING!
But kudos to you IFers.

I agree...I tried, but I run more efficiently on three meals.
I agree... Kudos!!

MyriiStorm

The study addresses the two-meal regimen as having breakfast and lunch only. I wonder if one could expect any difference in the results if the two meals had been lunch and dinner, or breakfast and dinner. I imagine that two large meals, regardless of the timing, would still provide more benefits than the six smaller meals. My guess is that the longer feeding window between breakfast and dinner would have less beneficial results than either the breakfast/lunch routine or lunch/dinner routine.

Sunny_Bunny_

It makes sense to me that the lunch/dinner IF would be even better since we tend to get more insulin sensitive as the day goes on. This is why it's so often recommended to have the fewest carbs in your earlier meals and the most at dinner. Still being very low of course.

RalfLott

Sunny_Bunny_ wrote: »

It makes sense to me that the lunch/dinner IF would be even better since we tend to get more insulin sensitive as the day goes on. This is why it's so often recommended to have the fewest carbs in your earlier meals and the most at dinner. Still being very low of course.

Dr. Bernstein (who alone advocates blood glucose targets for diabetics that mirror non-diabetics) has a similar approach - he recommends 6g carbs for breakfast, 12g each for lunch and dinner.

He cautions against eating too much protein at one time - no more than around 30g of protein (YMMV) per meal for diabetics.

And he warns against large meals, generally, as "even a bowl of pebbles" will cause a diabetic's BG to rise.

Foamroller

I think it's important to not confuse goals. If your goal is to keep BS lower, then the traditional ADA advice of eating many small meals is the way to go to avoid big PP spikes. BUT, if your goal is to lower basal insulin levels, then fasting seems to me, the only way to go short of a gastric bypass. Fasting allows the digestive system a much needed rest, but even more importantly the pancreas.

I'm not T2D. But I was probably prediabetes before this WOE. I haven't even done keto levels, but I can now allow myself a much higher carb level again, without the discomforts of a SAD diet and keeping my fat adaptation. I do most of my training in a fasted state and don't run out of energy even in very high intensity work. I think fasting has healing qualities the researchers are only at the start of realizing it's potency for health issues. Just my thoughts.

Edit: We're all different and you guys know yourself best. I encourage everyone to experiment with different protocols to find the system that works for YOUR body

ProCoffeenator

YMMV!!

Everyone's engine runs slightly different from the other guy! It also runs differently depending on where you are on your journey also as to what your goals are...

I'm prediabetic with other health problems (aka my engine runs differently). My last attempt with fasting 18:6 left me with tons of energy however for whatever reason my weight loss slowed dramatically and my FBS started to creep up a bit.

There are tons of factors to consider with what happened to me. Dawn phenomenon etc.

The important thing is to give it a shot for a week or so, monitor what's going on with your body and make adjustments as needed. So for now, I'm eating three meals a day. No fasting unless it's situational. I also tend to do better if my heavier carb meals or in the morning as opposed to evening!

Just my $.02

cstehansen

I'm glad many have weighed in on this. It goes with what many of us frequently say about YMMV. In order for us to all be successful though, we need to know what to try.
Although IR is the primary cause of T2D, it is not the only one. It can be caused by hormonal imbalances, beta cell damage where insulin is under produced and even by stress (can include what we typically think of physical stress like an injury).
It can also be caused by a combination of these issues.
Based on what has worked for me, I think that stress part was a contributing factor. The stress in my case was consistent lack of sleep for decades which as I have started approaching normal amounts, my BG has improved.
IF and other fasting strategies will work for some but not all. The percentage for whom it will work is anyone's guess at this point because we don't have enough quality research. One day maybe we will have
More and better research on strategies that don't involve meds and/or surgery. Until then, I am thankful for resources like this group to help at least point me in the right directions for options to try.

RalfLott

@cstehansen
I came across this interesting sleep/circadian rhythm interview with a Stanford sleep expert on the Selfhacker YouTube page (while chasing a wild goose of an entirely different honk).

https://youtu.be/ANBWovUfynQ

Here's another.:

https://youtu.be/kZZSLQFZnQM

RalfLott

Foamroller wrote: »

I think it's important to not confuse goals. If your goal is to keep BS lower, then the traditional ADA advice of eating many small meals is the way to go to avoid big PP spikes.

Edit: We're all different and you guys know yourself best. I encourage everyone to experiment with different protocols to find the system that works for YOUR body

I dunno. Eating too frequently may (depending on what you eat) keep your pre-meal BG from falling as far as it might. At least in my n=1, it seems that keeping your meal count to 4, or perhaps 3, during a limited feeding window, and keeping a lid on your protein and net carbs per meal, would both limit PP spikes and also let your BG drop (especially if you can time exercise well).

cstehansen

RalfLott wrote: »

@cstehansen
I came across this interesting sleep/circadian rhythm interview with a Stanford sleep expert on the Selfhacker YouTube page (while chasing a wild goose of an entirely different honk).

https://youtu.be/ANBWovUfynQ

Here's another.:

https://youtu.be/kZZSLQFZnQM

Thanks. Fortunately quality of sleep isn't an issue for me. It is strictly quantity. My Fitbit shows it is not uncommon for me to be asleep within a minute or two of laying down and have little to no restlessness until my alarm wakes me. My problem is I try to do too much everyday and have generally held the opinion that sleep wasted valuable time that could be spent more productively. In hindsight that was a dumb mindset. My goal now is to start getting to bed early enough to average over 6 1/2 hours a night.

canadjineh

re: sleeping and circadian rhythm.... Loughborough University's Sleep Research Center in Leicestershire, England did a study this past year showing women need at least 20 minutes more sleep than men (because our brains are more complex - the multitasking thing) and while men can recover better with naps as part of their sleep equation, women, not so much as ‘sleep spindles’ – the bursts of brain activity associated with higher IQs – were boosted when women enter the deepest dreamless sleep, only possible after longer sleep periods.