Day Eight

I have to confess that today I ate more than 600 calories. After two miles of running and a three sets each of eight weight-training exercises I needed some protein so had some nuts and an extra whey protein shake, bringing my total calorie intake to around 900. Not too bad but not the target I was really aiming for. I'll be doubling my efforts for the rest of the week.

Today's overeat (if that's a sensible thing to say about 900 calories) made me think about the way that I want to approach this experiment over the coming weeks. I've been losing weight too quickly, and some of that has been muscle. I've also been finding it more difficult to concentrate occasionally, which is not a good thing in my job. I've therefore decided that the remainder of my two week break from work will continue as planned, eating 600 calories per day. I had previously considered continuing this for a further four to six weeks. I've decided instead that I will increase my calorie intake after the second week.

I'm not sure what target I'll aim for but I expect that it will be around the 1,000 calorie mark, perhaps 1,200. This will still leave me with a large calorie deficit so I should continue to lose fat but hopefully I'll be able to maintain muscle. The aim of this experiment is to try to lose visceral fat, which the original study suggested allowed the liver to have improve insulin sensitivity, hence "fixing" the type 2 diabetes. Hopefully a slightly increased calorie count will allow me to lose any remaining visceral fat and reap the benefits.

Today's numbers: fasting blood glucose was 5.2mmol/l (94mg/dL). The highest yet since the starting Saturday but still lower than my previous average.