Pooti's Metabollic Experiment

Pooti · Pooti's Metabollic Experiment

Introduction:

Hi everyone I'm starting this thread to track my progress over the next few weeks. I'm going to be trying some variations of the ZCarnivore method of eating in order to understand why I am not seeing the weight loss I need to see.

I have been eating under 5g/day from a meat, fat, butter, cheese, egg, decaf coffee menu for the last 3 weeks. Weight loss has been very slow and I've actually been gaining over the last few days. I eat when hungry but I eat a lot. I eat extra fat as well as big portions of protein. I have noticed a 14point spike in blood sugar 3 hours after meals. Now 14points isn't huge but the insulin spike underneath that is probably very big.

I had wine last night for the first time since New Years Eve. This morning I'm up almost 2lbs. :-/ Meh.

Here are my new rules for zero carnivoring:

1. I will eat 3 meals per day totalling 1800-1900 kcals/day with 80% cals from fat & 20% cals from protein. Each meal with have that approximate composition.

2. Set amounts at each meal: (i.e. I'm shooting for 20g of protein at breakfast, 30-35g protein for each of the two remaining meals).

3. Snacking will be allowed if absolutely necessary but it too will have to follow the rules of 80/20 the snack will have to be subtracted out of my daily nutrient allowance so that I'm still trying to hit the 1800-1900kcal daily target.

4. I am going to cut way the heck back on salt until I can completely cut it out in order to have a minimum of weight fluctuation from fluid retention. (I think I'm pretty susceptible to fluid retention.)

5. I will use spices and herbs in moderation.

6. No booze/wine.

7. I will eat anything I want from meats/seafood, butter, fats, eggs, cured meats (yep that will add salt so will look for the low sodium kind).

8. I will keep my carbs under 5 and as close to 0 as possible.

9. I will have 2-3 cups of water decaffeinated coffee, black per day.

10. If I have to take sf cough medicine for this cough I'm still fighting, I will do it but it will be a rarity and a minimum. Same thing goes with sf cough drops. (Those would be the only occurance of as products. )

11. The only other liquid I will consume will be water.

*****************************

Today is my first day. I will post my menus either at the end of the night or the following morning along with the Fitday nutrients and %ages. I will follow this plan for 2 weeks to see what kind of progress I have. By calculating my protein needs using Jenny's calculator here is what I know:

Healthy Nutrient Levels for Your Ketogenic Low Carb Diet

Your Height: 65.5 inches

Your Current Weight: 282 pounds

Your Age: 46

Your Gender: Female

Your Activity Level: Sedentary with Metabolic Advantage

Your Calculated Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR): 1,929

Activity Factor Used to Compute Activity Calories from BMR: 1.43

TO MAINTAIN YOUR CURRENT WEIGHT:
To maintain your body weight eat 2,759 calories.

You have decided to eat 2 grams of carbohydrate a day.

To avoid loss of muscle mass you must eat 150 grams of high quality protein each day. This can be found in 24.9 ounces of meat, eggs, or hard cheese.

Round out your diet with 239 grams of fat.

TO LOSE WEIGHT:
To lose a pound a week safely decrease your daily intake to 2,259 calories.

You have decided to eat 2 grams of carbohydrate a day. To avoid loss of lean muscle mass you must eat 150 grams of high quality protein each day. This can be found in 24.9 ounces of meat, eggs, or hard cheese.

Round out your diet with 184 grams of fat.

To lose 2 lbs per week, reduce fat calories 500kcals per day to 1759kcal/day.

*********************

I think her protein requirements are wrong. I believe that much of your energy needs are provided by the 80% fat that I will be taking in and that excess protein is being broken down to ammonia and urea in my body. I also think that a lot of it is going to gluconeogenesis which is why I'm seeing the blood sugar spike, which means fat is being stored.

Here is what I know from Jan Krasniewski's Optimal Diet figures for minimum protein requirements:

http://homodiet.netfirms.com/

"In order to work out the correct daily food intake using this proportion, one has to know how many grams of protein needs to be ingested in a day to satisfy body's requirements. This amount varies from person to person and depends on a "due body weight". Due body weight, in kilograms, is equal to person's height in centimetres less 100 (± 10%). Thus, for a person 160 cm tall, a due body weight is 60 kg ± 6 kg.
A correct amount of protein to be consumed in a day is approx. 1 g per 1 kilogram of a due body weight. Thus, a 60 kg person needs to consume 60 ± 6 g of protein to satisfy body's daily needs. Any excess of protein, above the daily requirement, is converted by the body to fat, provided energy requirements are met by other components. "
So to calculate my due body weight:

65.5" x 2.54cm/in = 166.37cm
166.37cm - 100 = 66.37kg
Protein Requirement = 66.37kg x 1g/kg due body wt. = 66.37 +/- 10%
66.37 +/- 6.6g = 59.77g to 72.97g

But JK also recomments having 30-50g of carbs per day to keep a person out of ketosis. I am only having about 2-5 carbs per day. So to make up for that extra nutrition that would be on the low end about 28g of carbs = 28g x 4 = 79.57kcals which equates to 79.57/4g = 19.9g of extra protein x 1.58 = about 30g of extra protein. I will use the estimate that up to 58% of protein CAN be converted to glucose and will figure that if I allow an extra 30g of protein to my minimum requirements, that puts me in a range of:

89.77g protein/day - 102.97g protein/day

I could be way off on this though. So for the sake of the next two weeks I am going to shoot for about 90g of protein daily with the cals between 1800-1900kcal/day and see what happens.

Please come in and visit and keep me accountable. Give you thoughts and feedback. Discussion is highly welcome.

You can also visit my blog to see photos of the food:
www.todayiatea.blogspot.com

Heather L

Pooti- I wish you well with your experiment. I'll be watching how it goes.

Pooti

Thanks Heather!

I appreciate your support. :)

Pooti · January 19 2009 Fitday Log

January 19 2009 Fitday Log

Dean

Pooti, please keep us posted on your regimen and your results. It will be very interesting to see. Yup

Lynne

i have clicked on that button down there that will watch this thread..
i'm anxious to see how you do, pooti!

Pooti

Thanks guys! I will keep you posted. :)

So I have a change on yesterday's menu already. I did not end up eating the cheese or butter. I had put them on there in order to get my calories up since I'd skipped breakfast while I was preparing the info for this new plan and also I just wasn't hungry.

I'd read in Bear's epic thread over at ALF that he ate 3 times a day whether he was hungry or not. That he simply doesn't get hungry so he merely schedules his meals and eats a quantity of food. I feel like I need that structure in my life and also to keep the amounts on an even keel from one day to the next. I believe it will aid in my insulin level reducing over time.

So here are the adjusted numbers for yesterday:

January 19, 2009

Daily Totals:
1552kcals
140.1g Fat (81%) - 61% SFA, 8% PUFA, 60.3% MUFA
3.7g Carbs (1%)
0g Fiber
64.8g Protein (18%)

12:30pm Lunch:
770kcals
68.1g Fat (80%) - 35% SFA, 6% PUFA, 33%MUFA
2g Carbs
0g Fiber
35.6g Protein (19%)

3 12oz Folger's Water Decaf, black
2 Lg Eggs, Soft Fried
2 Lg Yolks, Soft
2 oz Boneless Beef Riblets
1.5 oz Beef Tallow

7:30pm Dinner:
822kcals
73.4g Fat (81%) - 35% SFA, 4% PUFA, 36% MUFA
1.8gCarbs (1%)
35.9g Protein (18%)

5 oz Beef Shortribs, braised
1 c Beef Broth, homemade (I used the premade setting cuz it looks closest in nutrient values to how I really make mine).
.5 oz Meat Drippings

Current Weight : 285.4lbs

Notes:
I felt really good yesterday. I didn't have the driving hunger that seems to hit every other day. I did have a bit of anxiety last night, similar to my old adrenalin rushes. I used relaxation techniques and deep breathing to get past them. I also used it as a cue to hydrate. I'm thinking the buildup of ketones from dinner last night was causing a release of cortisol that resulted in the anxiousness. The best way to reduce ketone body load so I'm told is to hydrate. So I drank mas agua! Was better by bedtime, enough to be able to sleep.

Slept fitfully again however. Woke up with minimal pain. No poopy yet today but had one yesterday.

Lynne

morning pooti,

i had gone away for the weekend, really just 24 hours and back and ate regional foods and imbibed in wine too...
had a candy bar on monday.

all the weight i dropped came back.
lost 10, gained it back.
i'm back to the beginning.
but i will say this, it's a little difficult to try to eat this way and go visiting...
i wanted to enjoy her outstanding low carb cooking and i gained weight.

new parameters must be built now...
you can't travel and eat this way.

Miriam

jeff

Yes, I'm sure most of it is just water. It should drop pretty quickly.

Lynne

Dean

Pooti,

How's your experiment going?

Looks like my theory is panning out with my experiment.

Am curious if you are losing faster by cutting calories. I'm dropping my cals by a thousand this week to see what difference it makes.

y0u

Hello Pooti, I am new to the board but I read your thread here and the one leading up to it, and it caught my eye. I have been doing something very very similar.

I agree that the calculator you used gives a much too high protein recomendation. I am not sure that the author of it meant for it to be used with a zero carb diet, that may explain the high protein. I looked at that calculator at the beginning of my experiment and came to the same conclusions as you.

So I have been eating only meat, eggs(tho very few), poultry, spices and herbs, and 2 tbs of cream for 3 weeks(monday will be 3 weeks). I am not eating cheese or artificial sweeteners. I ate 1 cup of lettuce twice, and had one LC cheat day. And I am limiting my calories to 1500-1600. I average 73% fat, 25% protein, and 2% carbs. I am finishing out the month.

I do feel that maybe my protein is high, but I wan't to continue it as is for the sake of my "science experiment". I do get the amonia smell as well, so next month I may try an 80/20 ratio.

I will post my results at the end of the month.

I'm watching your experiment. Best of luck, y0u.

Pooti

Hey guys. Sorry to be missing in action. This weekend and the end of last week was such a confusing time for me and one where I felt really down about my weight and health. So I took the weekend off from worrying and obsessing about my eating (no I didn't cheat - exactly).

Meaning I did cheat if you apply it to zero carbing but didn't cheat if you apply it to 20g carbs/day.

I've had to quit zc and my experiment. I was unable to stick to the 80/20 and calorie restriction. I just couldn't do it. I was starving and didn't make it beyond 2 days. In addition to that last week I saw my blood sugars increasing, my adrenalin ruses and full head sweats with beet red face increasing and my heart pounding more and more often (even while laying still). My blood pressure also went back into the 140s/90s again after being in the 120s/80s (medicated).

I just felt crummy and got tired of feeling that way. So I added back some veggie carbs to bring me up to a lighter stage of ketosis. This is exactly what has happened to me in the past when trying to zero carb. I think that my body really started doing the ketoadaption thing with the 80/20 calorie restriction and it set off my cortisol levels which screwed with everything else.

Maybe it would have quit had I kept going but I was too afraid that it meant because my insulin levels were high, I would start storing all the fat I was eating in my arteries. So by eating around 20g of veggies carbs I'm slowly starting to feel better. My blood sugars have dropped again and so have my blood pressure and the crazy pounding of my heart.

I'm still having some adrenaline rushes but they are getting less and less and only lasting a couple of minutes now. I only had one yesterday.

I feel really weak like I am a loser or quitter. But the reality is that I wasn't losing on top of all the other crappy feelings.

So I don't know if you guys want me here anymore since I'm not zcing any more. Let me know what yall think, ok?

Thanks and sorry not to come post sooner. Cry

Lynne

pooti, you would be so missed if you quit coming here.. you were all ready missed in your absence.

please don't leave. you contribute so much to this forum.
honestly. Heart

Pooti

:hugs: Lynne! And thanks hon!

I wish someone could shed light on what's happening in my body when I ZC. I loved not being tempted by carbs although I had a very prodigious appetite on zc. I never went through the not hungry phase.

I don't know if it would help to eat some meals zc and some not. I really think that my cortisol has been spiking from the deep ketosis, causing a spike in my insulin and also a rise in blood sugar but I don't know that for certain. I just know when I saw 133 on my glucometer the other night 4 hours after eating meat and fat only I had to say enough is enough. I just wish I knew more about metabolism...

I hope everyone else feels the same way and will say to stay.

:hugs:

y0u

Hi Pooti, I am a newbie and I cannot speak for anyone else but myself. I don't think your a loser or a quitter. You know your own body better than anyone else and you have to do what is right for yourself. From what I have seen on this board, everyone that is eating LC,VLC or ZC is welcome.

I wish you the best of luck on your journey. Yup

jeff

Pooti, you're very welcome to stay here. There are not many here that are strict ZC. At least not on a permanent basis. You definitely have some issues that need to be worked out. I'm sure everybody here is willing to offer what help they can.

Lynne

POOTI, have you had your thyroid checked?
have you had any blood work done, lately?

i don't know what to tell you.
i have no answers because i don't know much about the body and the way it works..

now ask me about a camera and photo shop.....
and i'm all over it. ;)

i hope you get things worked out so you can jump back in the challenges!
we have one coming up in Feb..
i believe some of us agreed to it.

MAC

Pooti keep doing what you are doing. You seem to know best what you need. Keeping your BG in control is more important than ZC for now.

Dean

Pooti,

You certainly are welcome on the Bus! Yup

I'm not sure how it got the reputation as a ZC board, but, the Bus is NOT a ZC board! It's a Carnivore board!

While we all recognize animal food as being essential to our health, we all must figure out what non-animal foods we can handle or may need. Check out the February Challenge. You will fit right in, as will all members of the Bus. Cool

You are the best judge as to what is going on with you. You have to experiment with things. That's what the Bus is all about. It has a long legacy of experimenting with things, if you know what I mean. Wow

Hey, it's all Bear's doing. He turned us on to all of the above! Wink

Pooti

Thanks everyone I really appreciate your support! Heart

Lynne - I need to go get my blood work done. I've been putting it off cuz of the expense and the economy and hoping I could tackle it myself with diet. I have taken my temp the past two days in my armpit and it looks normal to me: 97.6* and 97.8*...

Thanks Dean, I appreciate your board and the very cool people here (not to mention the koolaide)! Heart

Heather L

Pooti- Stick around with us. I know that I take "liberties" with my eating plan that others here do not. No one has kicked me to the curb yet. LOL

You have to go with what works for you and your life. I wish you well with working out the glitches.

Lynne

Dean

Well, as far as I know, nobody has ever attempted to smoke the Kool-Aid. At least, I hope everyone is observing the no smoking sign at the back of the Bus. Wink

Of course, those Kool-Aid parties get pretty wild back there, so anything is possible, I suppose. Wow

Pooti

I thought we were snorting the koolaid? Devil

Dean

Some smoke it, some snort it, some shoot it, others just drink it right down. Yup

Either way, we all end up melting into a sea of beautiful radiance and delightful ecstasy Wow

... and waking up in some of the strangest positions. Devil

Lynne

Pooti

Ok, so I did a little experiment last night thanks to some advice and help from Dean, Jeff, Craig et al

What did I did and why did I did it? Well I "think" I see my blood sugar go up and stay up for hours when I eat big portions of protein and fat only (more protein than fat though). I am a big eater and recovering binge eater so volume is where it's at for me. I want that "FULL" feeling. Without that feeling - feelings of deprivation and diseuphoria set in. I feel funked out. So I don't last for long when eating only tiny portions.

The other part of the equation is that when I cut down protein and eat more fat respectively (somewhere in the 80% range)...I start feeling anxious and I have these adrenalin rushes where for no reason my heart starts beating fast, my head breaks out in drenching sweat and I get bright red in the face. I also feel tightness in my chest and breathless. If I pee on a stick at that point you would see my ketones in deep purple on the last rung.

The thing that's weird is that when I'm showing ketones to the first 3 levels I never have feelings like this. I think that is when my fats range from 65-75 percent continually. Meaning if I repeated eat at 75% fat and above, I will gradually start having that adrenalin thing again.

So between the need to eat to satiety with volume and the need to balance that with reducing my volume in order to reduce insulin but needing to be able to tolerate a higher fat load for satiety while keeping adrenalin rushes at bay...did you get all that? Confusing right?

I tried a little experiment last night with stellar results from a blood sugar standpoint!

I decided to try a little bit of a Jan Krasniewski style of eating. He is the guy who pioneered the Optimal Diet where you strive for ratios between individual ideal protein requirements, fat, and carbohydrate. He sets that ratio up as something that looks like this on a per gram basis: For every 1 gram of protein: you have 2.5-3.5g of fat: to .8g of carbs. But being T2, I know I can't handle that volume of carbs. So he recommends around 30g of carbs/day for T2s. I kinda arbitrarily set the carb ratio at .3g of carbs for every 1g of protein to 3.5g of fat.

So here's what dinner looked like last night. I was full but not stuffed and did not feel deprived:

Dinner Totals:
1342 kcals
36.5g protein : 130g fat : 8.7g carbs
Protein 36.5g (11%)
Fat 130g (87%) - SFAs 36%, PUFA 5%, MUFA 41%
Carbs 8.7g (2%)
Fiber 2.9g
Alcohol 0g (0%)

Dinner Menu:

4 oz Ribeye Tail Meat, grilled
2 oz Beef Tallow, pan broiled
4 oz Mushrooms, raw measure
1 Tbsp Beef Fat, rendered
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 cloves Garlic, sliced
1 Tbsp Butter
2 oz Broccoli, sauteed
1 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 clove Garlic

Here are my blood sugar results:

101 Pre-prandial
95 Hour 1
103 Hour 2
106 Hour 3
109 Hour 4
105 Hour 5
107 Hour 6

99 Fasting blood sugar this morning

Weight 283.8lbs (down from 286.6lbs yesterday but t be fair last night by the time I got home from taking Mom to radiation treatment and getting her settled my weight was down to 284.2lbs. So water weight was down already prior to eating dinner.)

The blood sugar numbers I saw last night are exactly what I strive for. They are statistically insignificant. An 8 point rise from pre-prandial to peak is what I would consider "tight control". The only thing that I don't like is that the elevation remains for soooo long. I hope that will improve with time. It would be almost a flat line.

I did however, have just the edge of adrenalin after eating. Slight breathlessness. Face flush. Slight tightness in the chest and anxiety. That tells me that although the blood sugar didn't rise, most likely my insulin did as did cortisol level. Which isn't so good.

I'm going to play with the numbers today and see how I feel. But maybe eating a JK style will help me reduce my protein intake, up my fat, keep carbs minimal while controlling the cortisol and insulin. Allowing me to not only regulate my blood sugar, but also feel better and lose weight to boot!?!

We'll see...

If you look at my blood sugar levels at 6 hours you see that I'm elevated at 105 still. Most people are eating their next meal at 4-6 hours after their previous meal and if I'm peaking at 4hours which is what I'm seeing with a protein/fat meal, then I'm compounding my insulin problem by adding more food, insulin and blood sugar into the mix before my numbers resume pre-prandial values. I think this is due to delayed stomach emptying or else, it's due to my liver continuing to make sugar via gluconeogenesis.

While that doesn't seem to be such a big deal when my blood sugar at 4 hours is 105, consider that with larger protein servings my blood sugar would be maybe in the 1teens or 120s at 4 hours. Then you add another spike to it and that's pushing into the danger zone where neuropathy begins. You also have to consider that this was only a 4oz portion of protein plus 8g of veggie carbs. Imagine how much bigger the spike is when I eat 12-14oz of meat or even a pound of meat. I can easily eat a pound of meat and am happiest when doing that - that is until the blood sugar spikes, and the adrenalin rushes begin. Then it sucks.

The question would be then, do I simply wait longer than 6 hours between meals? Sometimes that is easy, other times it isn't.

Miriam

Pooti, here is the website in case you haven't been there yet.

http://homodiet.netfirms.com/

On diabetes:

http://homodiet.netfirms.com/disorders/diabetes1.htm

The principles of the Optimal Diet
The main principle of this dietary model is a marked increase in the consumption of fat, and the reduction in the consumption carbohydrate, as the energy source for the body. There are, however, strict rules on the proportion between the three main food components, protein, fat and carbohydrates, which need to be followed (with few exceptions) in order to achieve claimed benefits of the Optimal Diet.
The ideal proportion between the main food components of protein, fat and carbohydrates should be in the range of:
m m 1 : 2.5 - 3.5 : 0.8
In order to work out the correct daily food intake using this proportion, one has to know how many grams of protein needs to be ingested in a day to satisfy body's requirements. This amount varies from person to person and depends on a "due body weight". Due body weight, in kilograms, is equal to person's height in centimetres less 100 (± 10%). Thus, for a person 160 cm tall, a due body weight is 60 kg ± 6 kg.
A correct amount of protein to be consumed in a day is approx. 1 g per 1 kilogram of a due body weight. Thus, a 60 kg person needs to consume 60 ± 6 g of protein to satisfy body's daily needs. Any excess of protein, above the daily requirement, is converted by the body to fat, provided energy requirements are met by other components.
Having worked out the amount of protein, one can then calculate the amount of other components in a daily menu. Thus, for our typical 60 kg person, the consumption of 60 g of protein has to be accompanied by between 150 to 210 g of fat, and 30 to 50 g of carbohydrate in order to follow the principles of the Optimal Diet.

Heather L

Pooti- Wow, that is confusing. I hope that the adjusting of the ratios helps you. That would be awesome.

SnowDog2003

The rise is blood sugar with meat is no surprise. I think Dr. Bernstein says it's about 2 points per ounce of lean meat. That's basically what I see. I ate an 18 ounce strip yesterday, and my blood sugar went from 103 - 139 and stayed there for over 4 hours.

This is something that Charles would never accept: protein metabolizes into glucose. He's convinced that meat can't cause insulin spikes, but that's how protein is processed.

jeff

Keep in mind, though, that 36 point increase in BG translates to maybe 2g of glucose. An average size person with a BG reading of 100 will have only about 5g of glucose in their bloodstream.

Let me think out loud here for a minute. When we start cooking a meal and smell the food cooking, we have the phase one insulin response. This begins to clear the bloodstream of glucose, among other things. This would of course result in a lowered BG. Then, as we begin to eat, we have the phase two insulin response. Even eating only meat and fat will produce an insulin response.

Now, just suppose that the body realeases glycogen in order to maintain adequate BG levels. Maybe it even overcompensates a little. Bear says this is glycogen's function......to maintain BG levels.

So, that's my idea. Maybe the BG increase after eating protein is not from the protein being converted to glucose, but from glycogen being released to replenish the bloodstream.

Any thoughts? Am I crazy? LOL

Pooti

Hi guys!

Heather :love: and hugs. Thanks for you support!

Craig, I see almost exactly the same thing more or less. I've never done and absolute correlation of 2pts/oz but know that Dr. B estimates this and it's certainly within the confines of my experience.

Jeff, I also think it's possible about the function of the liver and glycogen but in ketosis you are supposed to empty your glycogen stores, yes? So theoretically we aren't supposed to have these glycogen stores that's what enables gluconeogenesis, right?

My theory, especially with people having impaired glucose metabolism either from hyperinsulinimia or from t2 or from fatty liver is that the liver has an impaired ability to process glucose and fatty acids. That somehow gluconeogenesis gets "turned on" much more readily and with less control than usual. That causes blood sugar to rise.

What I've found is that my blood sugar usually rises when I fast and it also rises more the deeper into ketosis I get and also it rises the larger the portion of protein. I can also go outside and garden or push my mom in a wheelchair or drive a stick shift/manual car for two hours or do anything that causes me to use my muscles and my blood sugar rises pretty immediately afterward.

I also know, on the experiment, I am having trouble being satisfied with 4oz of protein/meal (something I've been trying) and I usually am eating now around 5-8oz per meal. That still leaves me hungry. But I'm afraid to eat more...

Personally, Craig, I believe Dr B more than I believe Charles. And Jeff, my diabetes educator told me phase 2 response doesn't usually begin until after 4-6 hours? I haven't done a search for this so don't know if it's true or not.

SnowDog2003

Dean

jeff

SnowDog2003

I could be wrong, but it is my understanding that a phase 2 insulin response starts shortly after eating, but is slow to work, which generally gives people a post-prandial peak at 2 hours. I've seen healthy people test normal after a post-prandial peak which occurs within an hour. That's the phase 1 response.

jeff

That sounds reasonable, but I base that opinion on almost nothing. LOL Just a "hunch" or "gut feeling".

Lynne

jeff

Dean

Um, I'm failing to see the "logic" here. Confused

jeff

Dean, Bear says this about gluconeogenesis:

"Gluconeogenesis cannot and will not even take place so long as there is enough fat intake, period. 'Excess' dietary protein is broken down and discarded, never converted to glucose except in an emergency- such as under heavy and extensive fasting- and then only after all the stored glycogen in liver and muscle has been converted first."

You seem to disagree.

Dean

Yes, I remember quoting this very stuff in the Cafe. Cool

jeff

Dean

SnowDog2003

Dean

Very well put, Craig. ITA with everything you are saying.

Yah, the enormous sums of money that are raked in by Big Pharma, Big Medicine, Big Ag, and the Food Industry is what perpetuates all the misinformation. The bogus studies alone make them criminally duplicitous.

Pooti

Dean no threadjacking at all! I'm hoping to shed some light on my experience so I for one hope yall will stick around in here and discuss this some more!

Dean, so why happens in a diabetic or pre-diabetic body upon eating too much protein? Like for instance, if I eat a lb of meat which I want to do at times, my blood sugar is gonna rise from the 100s or 1teens into the 120s and 130s (actually it will most likely be here in the 130s). It will stay elevated above 120 for at least 4-6 hours!

Obviously my body is not reacting like yours and Jeffs. At that level the insulin in my body is telling my body to store fat cuz of the high insulin. Why is it elevating that high?

And more importantly. If protein does not convert to glucose then why is my blood sugar rise post prandially with protein and fat only, dose dependent? i.e. why will I have different levels of severity based on the quantity I eat? If fat doesn't affect blood sugar and insulin response, then the protein has to be doing that. I know there is a small amount of glycogen available in the meat...but I don't think that is solely responsible for my bg rise. It seems like it's pretty on track with what Dr. B says about protein having a net effect on blood sugar of about 2pts/gm of protein consumed.

Also, why does having a little bit of glucose from veggie carbohydrate seem to help me keep my blood sugars down a little bit? When I added back carbs and since I'm keeping the carbs mostly in the 10s and teens for the day, my blood sugar has dropped a little back into the 100s and 1teens from where it had risen to the 120s and 130s etc.

I maintain that not everyone's body performs as Bear says it will or Charles for that matter. It depends on what level of broken we have. I think that is why there are so many people doing zc that are not having the results CW is expecting and why there is a lack of weight loss or even a gain for many...

I think a broken body responds much differently metabollically than a healthy or even semi-healthy person and I think it has to do with the extent of the liver and pancreatic impairment. It also has to do with whether or not the fat cells are insulin resistant, not just the degree of muscle cell insulin resistance.

Craig - the nonsense spouted by the ADA has to do with costs. If they treated everyone in order to "get their glucose out of the 180s", the cost would be stupendous they think. :( My diabetes educator tried to bargain with me not to go below a 30g/meal deck because she was sooooo worried about me having a hypoglycemic event! Ha!!! As you know diabetics can have what feels like hypo events at normal blood sugar levels when their bodies are used to having high sugars... The ADA is total nonsense of course... excellent post btw.

jeff

Let's take a look at Pooti's BG numbers again.

Here are my blood sugar results:

101 Pre-prandial
95 Hour 1
103 Hour 2
106 Hour 3
109 Hour 4
105 Hour 5
107 Hour 6

1 hour after eating she has a 6 point drop. This is the phase one insulin response, right? Ok, after another hour there is an 8 point rise. Many people seem to want to say that was caused by protein being converted to glucose. But who is to say that some, if not all, of that rise isn't from glycogen being released in order to bring her BG back up to normal?

Patricia

As I've said previously (and you've seen this, Pooti), men are going to lose on this much easier than women. We also have a lot more hormones running around and since insulin is related to hormones it's going to hang on for dear life. I want to see someone like me or you with a lot of weight to lose work this. I'm committing myself to this because I know from past experience that I feel much better when I'm meat/fat/occasional eggs and I have lost weight. If eating this way makes you feel like crap, don't do it.

Dean

jeff

I never said it had to be glycogen being released. I only asked "How do we know it's not?"

I guess we need to define "fine tuning" then. I would consider going from 95 to 103 fine tuning. Both values are within a few points of her fasting BG levels. This represents a miniscule amount of glucose.....less than half a gram.

Dean, are you saying then that you think protein does convert to glucose?

Dean

Of course it does. So does fat. They get converted all the time. It's not an option. GNG MUST occur, and occur on a constant basis. The question isn't whether various substrates get converted to glucose via GNG, but, simply, how much do they. As Bear correctly stated, when one is fat/keto adapted, fat will be used instead of protein and the liver will not have to make as much glucose, so the amount will be less, because, basically, only blood cells need glucose, while the other cells can use ketones and FFAs, once the adaptation is made. Just how long that adaptation takes is up in the air. Perhaps if you have a compromised metabolism, you should be very patient with the enzyme switch out that must occur. Of course, most people are not very patient, and they decide to eat carbs, so, there goes that idea.

jeff

Ok, this topic has exhausted me. LOL

Dean

Time to break out the black box, huh? Bonkers

jeff

Yeah, time for the infamous black box. Yup

Pooti

So how do I get keto fat adapted so that my liver doesn't make so much protein? When I go too deep into ketosis I start feeling that adrenalin rush stuff.

In that experiment with the blood sugar numbers it's important to note that the serving size of that protein isn't sustainable to me for a meal. I was unsatisfied. If I remember it was about 4oz of lean and 2oz of fat or something like that.

Do you think it would be interesting to see what happens to me on a big 1lb ribeye with fat? I could run the numbers again. Of course now that I'm eating veggie carbs, I'm guessing I'm not fat adapted? Although, the other confusing thing is that Dr. Atkins says by eating less than 20g of carbs you do become a fat burner and keto-adapted. Do you think this is true or not?

Dean

Probably depends on the person.

I'm curious what would happen to your BG levels if you would just eat a bunch of fat. Have you ever tried that?

Pooti

No I haven't tried eating fat only then testing but oddly, I thought about that this weekend while sitting in a hotel room in Metarie Louisiana!

How much fat do you think I would need to eat to get a good test? I'm thinking saute'd beef tallow till it's brownish?

SnowDog2003

Pooti, low carbers are usually in ketosys. Do you have any ketone strips, and have you measured your ketones?

That should tell you if you're in ketosys, and hence, burning fat.

Pooti

No Craig, I haven't used them since about 2004. I could get some of course. I have "heard" that keto stix measure dietary fat as much as they measure ketone bodies in the urine. Do you have any information on this? I can tell you that when eating induction levels it usually shows up one of the first two squares on the stick (back then). But when it would go toward the end 3 colors, that's when I start feeling very unwell and having adrenalin storms. So maybe they do measure true ketosis?

Heather

SnowDog2003

Dean

Craig,

I think the ones who show no ketones have perhaps become keto-adapted and are using the ketones. I've never used those stix, but, I suppose I'd make an excellent test subject since I've been so close to ZC for a long time now.

Pooti

Dean...I'm "feeling something" maybe a voice saying....it's saying....wait a second...it's saying, "Dean....DEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN...you need to try the ketostix for all of earth's well being!!!!! DEEEEEEANNNNNN!"

Oh wow! What was that? I think I was channelling or something! :D ;) Devil

jeff

SnowDog2003

Dean, the ketostix are cheap. If you find the time, tell us what you see.