Day Five

Five days in and still no hunger. Surely it will come eventually! The only effect I noticed today was that I felt tired this afternoon during a walk. However, I had been for a run before the walk so it could just be that. It was nothing serious, I just found that after the first couple of miles I became fed up and wanted the walking to be over.

Fasting blood glucose was a little lower again this morning at 4.8mmol/l (86mg/dL), which is the lowest I've ever recorded. I've created a chart now that there are a few results so you can see the progression. My fasting levels are definitely lower than they usually are, by an average of about 0.5mmol/l (9mg/dL). I'm not sure how significant this is in terms of improved health but every decrease is a bonus.

My highest blood glucose readings today were both 6.1mmol/l (110mg/dL). The first time I got this reading was immediately following my morning run. This is the first time that running has increased by results; normally a run lowers my BG significantly. The second was ninety minutes after my evening salad. I won't bore you with the details of my food; they are pretty much the same as the previous four days: whey protein shake, vitamin supplements, salad and some nuts.

My concern at the moment is my weight loss. In four days I've lost four pounds. I'm still at a good weight for my height but if this continues for too long I won't remain that way. I'm hoping my weight stabilises somewhat, though on such a calorie-restricted diet this is unlikely. If the weight loss slows a little I'm be happier.

Day Four

Four days into the experiment and I've now consumed a total of 2,400 calories. That's 100 calories fewer than the recommended intake for a single day. And yet, I still do not feel hungry.

My fasting blood glucose was a little higher than yesterday at 5.0mmol/l (90mg/dL). That's about as low as I would normally see before the experiment but slightly disappointing after yesterday's lower number. I guess there's a range that my body likes to be in and it's doing its best to stay within that range with the limited fuel I'm giving it. Certainly I'm not at risk of hypoglycaemia at present.

Reporting on my food intake is going to be quite repetitive. Vanilla protein shake, coffee and salad. Today Lisa prepared me some delicious garlic mushrooms using 8 calories-worth of mushrooms and 15ml of olive oil infused with garlic. There's little to tell on the food side because there's not a lot of food to talk about.

I spent four hours cleaning, polishing and waxing my car today so not much time left for exercising. I did some weight training afterwards, fitting in five exercises with three sets for each. One of the exercises seemed more difficult than normal and I couldn't finish the third set. I'm not sure if this is due to lack of energy from the diet, if I was fatigued from all of the car polishing or if I'm getting a little bit weaker; I hope my body isn't starting to use my muscles for food instead of that nasty visceral fat. I've read that you should be able to fast for a long period without losing muscle mass as long as you keep exercising. I hope that's true - only time will tell.

Paracetamol Overdose Drugs and Type 2 Diabetes

From "The Scotsman".

A MEDICAL breakthrough has given Scotland’s 200,000 sufferers of type-2 diabetes fresh hope of avoiding heart disease – the major cause of reduced life expectancy in sufferers. Scientists at the University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) have discovered that a drug used in reversing the effects of paracetamol overdose has the potential to reduce the risk of heart disease in patients.

>> Read the original article

What Constitutes Success?

I've been thinking about the goals of this experiment and how I measure those goals. Firstly, the goal. Clearly the ideal would be to cure my type 2 diabetes. However, cure is a loaded word. Lots of people have claimed to have cured type 2. Every other day my Google Alerts box gets another so-called cure. Some  are studies by professional scientists that have been blown out of proportion by the media. Scientist says, eating dust seems to show, in a tiny uncontrolled study, that insulin resistance was lowered by an almost statistically insignificant amount. The newspapers turn this into, "Dust Miracle Cure for Diabetes!" (not a typo - they would drop the type 2 part as well).

Another bunch of alerts are snake oil salespeople. Perhaps I'm a cynic but I'm unconvinced by a magical diabetes cure that couldn't describe on page one of an overly colourful dedicated web site, but could be explained for just $19.95. If I had discovered that cure, I might not try to get a few pounds or dollars for it. Instead I might subject it to scientific scrutiny via the peer review process. I might not get my $20 a sale for a year but I may well get a Nobel prize, a patent and become a hero for millions of people with this terrible disease.

Anyway, the goals...

I'll see this experiment as an amazing success if my blood sugars normalise and I can eat "normally" again. That means that I can eat carbohydrates without spiking my blood sugar over 7.0mmol/l (126mg/dL). Will I go back to eating high carbohydrate food? Probably not. I wouldn't mind being able to go out for a meal once a month and not have to hunt around the menu for the one (if there is one) low-carb, vegetarian meal. An occasional relaxation of the low-carb diet, rather than giving up on it.

Would that be a cure? Maybe, maybe not. Talking about a cure is controversial to many. Some would say that normalising my blood sugar and insulin response would not be a cure, but would be remission or reversal of diabetes. The expectation is that going back to my old style of eating would reverse the reversal and I would become diabetic again. This is probably true and is the reason that I will never become a high carbohydrate eater again.

I suppose what I'm hoping for (and I'm not that hopeful to be honest) is something better than being in a position of managing my diabetes, along with the daily, nay hourly, work that this entails.