Hmm. YMMV, but for me, I hit my max BG around 30 minutes after I eat something. Though 60 and 90 minute BG checks are useful for determining recovery time, they're usually nowhere near peak (though I don't have any recent experiences with funnel cake, elephant ears, etc.! )

Sounds like a good guidebook on Diabetes might be useful. ?? If so, Dr. Richard K. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution is a great reference. His YouTube vids are also gold mines.

@Batpapaw best of continued success.

Well that is good news.!If what I have read about intermittent fasting and diabetics is true - you would be proof of that. Congratulations! Have you been resourcing Dr. Fung and his books/website? If not, I encourage you too as he will back up what you are finding to be true. How long were you fasting at a time?

Sounds like you are making great progress!!! Keep it up!!!

Sounds like you are doing well. I also agree that it sounds like you may not need insulin if your BG came down like that without it.

But like another poster, my highest BG is about 30 minutes after eating and by 1.5 hours later my BG is almost always lower than it was before I ate. If I just went with before and 90 minute BG checks, my BG would look pretty good.

BUT if I eat higher carb, like state fair higher carb, for more than a day my BG goes up and stays up for a while. I consider my insulin resistance to be controlled and not cured because if I went back to a higher carb diet I am SURE my BG would go up again. KWIM? Be careful not to go down that slippery slope.

I second the recommendation for Fung's Obesity Code. That book is largely what you are doing now. His blog IDM (intensive dietary management I think) might be interesting for you to read.

I hope you have continued success.

Batpapaw wrote: »

I've just started making bone broth and kale smoothies if anyone has any good recipes. I'm trying to get use to the flavor of drinking grass. Lol

With all the great tasting LCHF foods, I am not sure why anyone would eat/drink anything that doesn't taste good.

If you decide you want to continue drinking grass, there are lots of recipe site links in the Launch Pad for this group, some of which will include smoothie options.

RalfLott wrote: »

Sounds like a good guidebook on Diabetes might be useful. ?? If so, Dr. Richard K. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution is a great reference. His YouTube vids are also gold mines very informative in his area of expertise, which clearly doesn't include fasting.

I know better than to rave indiscriminately about anything or anyone, and I just got a reminder of this watching Dr. Bernstein's August 2017 Q&A teleseminar.

For months, Dr. Bernstein has studiously avoided familiarizing himself with Fung's approach and has professed ignorance when asked by listeners about fasting.

After admitting he has no clue what intermittent fasting is, he flatly pronounced fasting to be "a myth" , thus tossing the work of Fung, Longo, etc., into the diabetes diet dumpster...

Bernstein's real point seems to be that if you follow his diet for T2D, your carb level is already very low but you'll start to lose muscle if you also stop eating protein for "a day or longer."

IF discussion starts around 19'10":

https://youtu.be/slRtZ70Yn0s
@Batpapaw @cstehansen @nvmomketo

For me, IF just happened after being keto for a while. I went close to 24 hrs a couple times just because I wasn't hungry. However, since I am not overweight and don't have fatty liver, i assumed longer fasts were not the answer for getting my BG down further.

Turns out I may be wrong - which I don't mind.

I did my first 48 hour fast 2 weeks ago. Since then, my morning FBG dropped from an average of about 121 to 107. I ended my second 48 hour fast at dinner last night, and my reading was 91 this morning.

Obviously, that is just one reading, but it is the lowest I have had since I started checking over a year ago.

After the first fast, I saw almost no rise from that substantial drop over the next 10 days except one morning after I had significantly overeaten the night before (around 2500 calories for dinner), and even that was only to 122 which was pretty much my pre-fast average.

I will continue to track and see if this drop (in full or part) is sustained. Even if it is only sustained for a couple weeks, fasting 48 hours every couple of weeks to get these results seems well worth it to me.

Autophagy is not just for those with disease. It is a necessary process for everyone. Art De Vany and others have done some pretty interesting analysis of existing data showing the benefits of fasting for everyone. For some IF is enough. For some, longer fasts are needed.

The 130g commonly sited is based on the brain needing about 500 calories a day, so if ALL of it comes from glucose, that is about 130g. However, only about 1/4 of that MUST be glucose. 3/4 of that energy need can be fueled by ketones. When you knock that number down to 30-35, the amount from glycerol that is in every triglyceride that breaks down will make up a larger percentage than when you try to come up with 130.

Also, given that amino acids (protein) are continuously being broken down and recycled, and some of them are damaged and unable to be recycled, you will be losing that protein anyway. Why not use it instead of getting it from diet? This is actually one of the reasons fasting is associated with healthier mitochondria, slower aging and improved health is it helps the body get rid of these damaged materials.

I will say, I work out much harder than most people a decade or two younger than me and I did not reduce intensity or duration of workouts during either of these fasts. I did not feel any negative effects. In fact, the first workout after the first fast, I noticed I had to increase the weights being used to generate the same level of effort.

Tearing down of muscle for energy, from the medical research I can find, is more associated with eating in a hypocaloric manner (under eating) than it is with true fasting. If you have research showing otherwise, please share. I am never afraid of being wrong. I want to have the correct information.

I had avoided fasting (outside of IF just because I wasn't hungry) because being at healthy weight, without fatty liver and a relatively low body fat %, I could find no studies showing BG benefit for someone like me. All the studies centered on those who were obese or had fatty liver. It was only through frustration that I could not get my BG lower was I willing to give it a shot. Turns out I was wrong and fasting does seem to be helping me with my BG control.