Day Three

This is getting confusing now. Three days into the experiment and I'm feeling no adverse effects. Despite only five hours of sleep last night, and just 1,800 calories eaten in three days, I feel fine. I've been slightly tired but I'm pretty sure that that's the lack of sleep, rather than the deficit of food. I haven't felt hungry today at all.

I started the day with a blood glucose reading that was within the "normal range", at 4.9mmol/l (88mg/dL), which matches my lowest ever fasting blood glucose reading. No headache this morning and no hungriness. I have lost two pounds of weight in just two days, which is a bit of a worry. Hopefully that's fat from my liver and around my pancreas, which the original study suggests may be one of the problems that causes type 2 diabetes.

My food intake was essentially the same as yesterday. A vanilla shake for breakfast, some coffees (I needed those today) and a large salad for an evening meal. With today's salad I had a couple of soya sausages, which meant slightly less olive oil. I've had another few peanuts to take my total up to the magic 600 calories.

No specific exercise today. Instead I went to the seaside with my wife, Lisa. A day at Scarborough in North Yorkshire gave us the opportunity to walk down the coast and back for a total of around five miles. Half way through this walk I checked my blood glucose. The level was 4.4mmol/l (79mg/dL). This would be an excellent reading for me normally but I think signifies nothing except that I'm not eating a lot.

I got to see a very tall, metal chap who I may have mistaken for Santa on his day off. (I asked for a new bike for Christmas but I don't think I'll be lucky - he looked grumpy). Still, I got to sit on his knee for a minute half way through our walk whilst Lisa took a snap (inset).

The image to the left shows the first mile and a half of our route. It was the perfect day for walking. Quite warm and dry and the tide was out so we didn't get splashed.

The cliff in the distance isn't the end of the journey. The road continues round for another half mile or so before reaching the town centre, the amusement arcades and the many tempting food outlets. These sell chips (the British kind that you eat with fish), donuts, ice cream and some of the biggest, sweetest sweets you can imagine.

Lisa had a tray of chips (photo to the right). I used to eat chips quite often but I had a meal with just six chips soon after I had got my blood glucose levels under control and found they spiked my BG badly. At first I missed them but nowadays I don't really care any more as my tastes have changed drastically. I did like the smell of the vinegar though.

I had a black coffee and no food. Ha ha!

Day Two

I thought day two would be a problem but actually it was another pretty easy day. I started the day with a minor headache; nothing too bad, more of a niggle than a real pain. Not sure if it's because of the dietary changes or because of a late night last night. My fasting blood glucose was 5.2mmol/l (94mg/dL), which is on the low side of average for me.

Breakfast was another chocolate flavoured protein shake made with soy milk. I think I'll have to restock on almond milk for a bit of a change another day. I've also got some vanilla flavoured whey protein to mix it up a little.

Because of the late night I had my breakfast shake pretty late too so didn't bother with one at lunch time. Instead I went for a walk for an hour, after which my blood glucose had lowered to 4.5mmol/l (81mg/dL). I'm quite pleased with that, though not surprised as my calorie intake at that point was 730kcal in 36 hours.

Evening meal was salad again. As I had over 450 calories to play with I had a huge salad of lettuce, cabbage, peppers, tomato, onion and jalapenos, with 75 calories worth of quorn thrown in. Adding 15ml of olive oil brought the calorie count to 327. Subtracting the calories from a couple of cups of coffee left me with approximately 125 calories for the small bowl of nuts I'm currently munching as my last snack of the day.

During the day I've taken my BG reading several times. The highest value I've had was the fasting level this morning of 5.2mmol/l (94mg/dL). One hour after my main meal I had the same value again. Two hours after eating this was just 5.1mmol/l (92mg/dL).

Surprisingly I haven't felt hungry or tired today at all. I suspect this may change tomorrow.

What are Normal Blood Glucose Levels?

One of the biggest problems I found when I was diagnosed was that it was hard to find out what the "normal" blood glucose (BG) levels are. Actually, at first I didn't even measure my BG as I received the standard advice for a type 2 diabetic who has not yet been prescribed any drugs: eat lots of complex carbohydrates, little fat and don't get a BG meter. For a couple of weeks I followed that advice but I also did my own investigation, starting with Gretchen Becker's excellent book, "Type 2 Diabetes: The First Year". This changed my mind about the dietary advice I had been given and made me decide to buy a meter. I'm glad I did as my fasting blood glucose (FBG) was not improved since diagnosis, still being 8.0mmol/l (144mg/dL) or more.

So what are normal levels? To be honest, I still wonder because there are so many different answers to a seemingly simple question.

Diabetes UK say that before meals normal BG is between 3.5 and 5.5mmol/l (63 to 99mg/dL) and below 8.0mmol/l (144mg/dL) two hours after eating. On the same page they give more relaxed numbers for diabetics to aim for. I prefer to aim for the normal range at all times as I believe from my own research that this will lower the risk of diabetic complications to near normal levels. However, for diabetics that use insulin or oral BG-lowering medications there is logic in aiming higher to avoid hypoglycemia.

Diabetes.co.uk have slightly different "normal" levels. They suggest that before meals a normal person's BG is between 4.0 and 5.9mmol/l (72 to 106mg/dL), a little higher than Diabetes UK. Post-meal they are a little more stringent, suggesting 7.8mmol/l (140mg/dL). This lower two-hour post-meal number is interesting as some studies have shown that damage to the body starts, or increases greatly, when 7.8mmol/l is reached. However, reading down the linked page you see that for diabetics they still say to aim for values that are higher than these numbers.

If you take a look at the Wikipedia article, the normal blood ranges are shown as quite different from those of the above two diabetes organisations. The normal value is given as 4.0mmol/l (72mg/dL), though this fluctuates throughout the day. The article goes on to say that the normal test result before meals would be 3.9 to 7.2mmol/l (70 to 130 mg/dL). This is a substantially larger range than already mentioned. Wikipedia specifies that a post-meal reading of below 10mmol/l (180mg/dL) is normal. This is a large different indeed - I need to increase my carbohydrate intake by a substantial percentage to see the difference between 7.8 and 10mmol/l (and a 10 on my meter would make me very nervous indeed!)

Netdoctor says similar things to Wikipedia, as does the ADA (American Diabetes Association). These numbers seem to be the established answer given by medical practitioners.

Lower numbers are provided as targets for diabetics by the great web site, Blood Sugar 101. Here the suggestion is that 5.6mmol/l (100mg/dL) should be the maximum for fasting levels and the two-hour test should give a result of no more than 6.7mmol/l (120mg/dL). There's quite a bit of research to support these values and I heartily recommend that you look around the Blood Sugar 101 web site and read it.

All of this left me pretty confused about what targets I should aim for. If I follow my doctor's advice I will be happy with BG levels that would put me into the "damaging" range indicated by others. I decided to play safe. My fasting levels are what they are. Sometimes they are a little higher than 5.5mmol/l (99mg/dL), other times they are below. Post-meal is easier to control. I always aim to be below 7.0mmol/l (136mg/dL) one hour after eating and below 6.0mmol/l (108mg/dL) two hours after eating. Very occasionally I'll stray above those numbers by 0.1 or 0.2mmol/l. If I do, I find a ten-minute run or 30 minute walk usually lowers my BG considerably.

Day One

Well, that was quite easy actually. I didn't expect it to be otherwise (I've done some intermittent fasting a little in the past and that included 24 hour periods with no food). Today I spread my 600 calories throughout the day to stave off hunger and it seemed to work. It's now 10:15pm and I've just finished a snack. Throughout the day I've had only one bout of hunger and it went away after twenty minutes. I suspect that tomorrow and the following few days will be harder.

For breakfast today I had a bunch of supplements with a whey protein shake (chocolate flavour). Mixed with light Alpro soya milk it gave a total of 130 calories. I've had these shakes for breakfast quite often as they stop me from being hungry and don't seem to affect my blood glucose levels too badly. That's important because I seem to be the most insulin resistant in the morning. Today, one hour after breakfast my BG level was 5.9mmol/l (106mg/dL). Before breakfast it was 5.5mmol/l, which is 99mg/dL. That fasting level is about average for me.

Lunch was another protein shake and a decaffeinated coffee for a total of 138 calories. Before lunch I'd also popped in to a local coffee shop and had an Americano. Handily, Starbucks shows the calorie content of its drinks so that was measurable: 11 calories (though on the web site it says 10 calories). That's a total of 279 calories at the day's midpoint.

For my evening meal I had my first solid food. A salad of lettuce, peppers and tomato with pickled jalapenos, onions and red cabbage. To treble the calorie count I added 10ml of extra virgin olive oil. For something more substantial, and hot, I also had a small Indian selection. This was a vegetable pakora, a vegetable samosa and an onion bhaji. The total for all of this food was 242 calories, giving me 71 to play with. I finished that off with a 12g portion of chilli-flavoured peanuts.

My liver has been doing its job today though, so my blood glucose isn't low. Before my last meal I went for a run, which turned into a half run, half walk of two miles. Before the exercise my BG was 5.1mmol/l (92 mg/dL). Afterwards it had only gone down a tiny amount to 5.0mmol/l, or 90mg/dL.

That's it for today. I've got two exercises to do from my weekly round-up before the day ends. Some tricep extensions and Pec Deck Flies. So I'll be off now.