This coming Thursday will mark my 6th week of intermittent fasting (IF). It has gotten so easy that I can now ignore any kind of food during my fasting time (18 hours). Also, I began to decrease the amount of food I eat during my eating window (6 hours). Several times during this 6 week period, I've done 19/5 days; that is, 19 hours of fasting with a 5 hour eating window and I even did a 20/4 day one time. I finally lost some weight although it's not enough for me to brag about (4 lbs). The thing is, those 4 lbs came of pretty much without me noticing or suffering.
The primary purpose of IF was to control my diabetes by giving my body a break from insulin production. About 3 weeks ago I began to walk during my lunch hour and have done it consistently to today. Here's something however; if I walk as fast as I can for say, 20 to 30 minutes, my blood sugar actually goes up! I've tested this twice. Everywhere I checked on the web, I read that this rise is temporary. We'll see in about one and a half hour from now when I check my postprandial blood sugar. It better not be super high!
****UPDATE****
Yes indeed, the postprandial reading was 20 mg/dL lower than the reading right before I ate my lunch. Interesting!!
I went to the doctor for my 3 month check up. My HA1c was 9.5. Much higher than I hoped but much lower than the last time I went in. Part of the problem was that in the last 3 months, I experimented quite a bit with food, medication and fasting. For one, the insulin was making me ravenously hungry. I wish I had started this IF as soon as I left the doctor's office last time. That's ok though. I expect my A1c to be around 6.5 when I go back in June. My blood pressure was much better too but still a tad bit high. Again, I think that the next visit will be a really good one.
Thank you for stopping by!
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
A day in the Intermittent Fasting life.
I am so happy with the results of Intermittent Fasting (IF) that I can't stop talking about it. By the way, please don't do anything based on what you read here. These are my anecdotes and I am not trying to push IF or anything else on you. At the end of the day, I AM under the care of a physician, and although he may not condone me doing IF, if I get in trouble, he is there to bail me out.
As it turns out however, I am far from being in trouble. Let me walk you through yesterday's IF:
I ate my first meal at noon. My meal consisted of
* Three bananas
* Two Carbmaster peach yogurt (disgusting) to which I added cinnamon and 1-2 tbsp chia seeds.
* A small serving of Cheez Its
* A large salad (A bag of salad bought at Dillon's (Kroger)) with Italian vinaigrette dressing.
* 3 cups of cooked white rice. I am guessing here, I didn't measure but it was one cup uncooked.
* 7 meatballs in tomato sauce that I made myself from tomato paste. I made it myself to control sodium.
* 5 large slices of summer sausage. They sell two kinds around here; one thicker than the other.
As you can see, this is a ridiculous amount of food. This is the first time I added bananas and yogurt in an attempt to boost my potassium intake. The chia also packs in the potassium and a ton of other nutrients.
My eating window closes at 6 but by 5 I still felt stuffed so around 5:20 I stopped at Taco Bell and bought a couple of soft tacos, mostly so I could take my metformin, which I take at both meals.
When I got up this morning, my blood sugar was 180. Yes, far from perfect but I will confess to you that before IF, EVEN WITH INSULIN, my fasting blood sugar was creeping up into the upper 200's. Now I am not taking insulin. And this 180 reading is high. Yesterday my fasting reading was 140. I check my blood sugar before I eat my first meal and it is typically 20-30 mg/dl lower than my first reading in the morning. I am not eating as much food today.
So here are some observations:
I am eating WAY too much on my first meal and I need to scale it back. This is due mainly to the apprehension caused by my food addiction. I am beginning to differentiate real hunger from apprehension, which makes doing IF so much easier. So far, doing IF is by far the easiest way to change my eating habits. For one, I don't snack. After my first meal, I have no desired to eat anything else! For another, I have eaten fast food only a couple of times since I began and only because of extenuating circumstances. I don't know why but doing IF has compelled me to cook my own lunch.
I need to add exercise to my day. I was afraid to add exercise before I got used to IF. I feel that I may be able to add exercise now. I think I'll begin by walking but I have a NordicTrak machine at home and I think I'll start using that eventually.
I need to balance my meals better so that I don't load up in just one meal. However, I feel that if don't have to take the second dose of metformin I could do a 24/0 IF which means you only eat one meal every 24 hours. I think that once I consistently wake up with sugars in the lower 100's, I may go to one dose of metformin. In fact, my doctor originally put me on only one dose of metformin but his diabetes nurse doubled it because she felt me walking around with blood sugars in the mid to upper 400's was not a good thing (LOL! go figure!). I also think that doubling the metforming allowed her to give me insulin. Anyway, we'll see.
One other thing about IF that I must mention and that is how it affects the people around you. My family began to complain about me not eating with them. I mean, I do sit at the table but if they are not ready to eat within my eating window, then I just sit and visit with them as they eat. So they are adjusting as well as I. I sometimes move my window up an hour if I can so that I can eat dinner with them and sometimes they eat a little earlier to fit my schedule.
I am very excited about IF. I have been doing it for almost 3 weeks now and I am not even close to feeling burned out. On the contrary, I have more energy; noticeably more. My joints quit aching overnight. I am sleeping much, much more soundly and thus I wake up refreshed and rested. And, most amazing of all, my back pain completely disappeared!
Alright, I'll be quiet now. Thank you for stopping by!
As it turns out however, I am far from being in trouble. Let me walk you through yesterday's IF:
I ate my first meal at noon. My meal consisted of
* Three bananas
* Two Carbmaster peach yogurt (disgusting) to which I added cinnamon and 1-2 tbsp chia seeds.
* A small serving of Cheez Its
* A large salad (A bag of salad bought at Dillon's (Kroger)) with Italian vinaigrette dressing.
* 3 cups of cooked white rice. I am guessing here, I didn't measure but it was one cup uncooked.
* 7 meatballs in tomato sauce that I made myself from tomato paste. I made it myself to control sodium.
* 5 large slices of summer sausage. They sell two kinds around here; one thicker than the other.
As you can see, this is a ridiculous amount of food. This is the first time I added bananas and yogurt in an attempt to boost my potassium intake. The chia also packs in the potassium and a ton of other nutrients.
My eating window closes at 6 but by 5 I still felt stuffed so around 5:20 I stopped at Taco Bell and bought a couple of soft tacos, mostly so I could take my metformin, which I take at both meals.
When I got up this morning, my blood sugar was 180. Yes, far from perfect but I will confess to you that before IF, EVEN WITH INSULIN, my fasting blood sugar was creeping up into the upper 200's. Now I am not taking insulin. And this 180 reading is high. Yesterday my fasting reading was 140. I check my blood sugar before I eat my first meal and it is typically 20-30 mg/dl lower than my first reading in the morning. I am not eating as much food today.
So here are some observations:
I am eating WAY too much on my first meal and I need to scale it back. This is due mainly to the apprehension caused by my food addiction. I am beginning to differentiate real hunger from apprehension, which makes doing IF so much easier. So far, doing IF is by far the easiest way to change my eating habits. For one, I don't snack. After my first meal, I have no desired to eat anything else! For another, I have eaten fast food only a couple of times since I began and only because of extenuating circumstances. I don't know why but doing IF has compelled me to cook my own lunch.
I need to add exercise to my day. I was afraid to add exercise before I got used to IF. I feel that I may be able to add exercise now. I think I'll begin by walking but I have a NordicTrak machine at home and I think I'll start using that eventually.
I need to balance my meals better so that I don't load up in just one meal. However, I feel that if don't have to take the second dose of metformin I could do a 24/0 IF which means you only eat one meal every 24 hours. I think that once I consistently wake up with sugars in the lower 100's, I may go to one dose of metformin. In fact, my doctor originally put me on only one dose of metformin but his diabetes nurse doubled it because she felt me walking around with blood sugars in the mid to upper 400's was not a good thing (LOL! go figure!). I also think that doubling the metforming allowed her to give me insulin. Anyway, we'll see.
One other thing about IF that I must mention and that is how it affects the people around you. My family began to complain about me not eating with them. I mean, I do sit at the table but if they are not ready to eat within my eating window, then I just sit and visit with them as they eat. So they are adjusting as well as I. I sometimes move my window up an hour if I can so that I can eat dinner with them and sometimes they eat a little earlier to fit my schedule.
I am very excited about IF. I have been doing it for almost 3 weeks now and I am not even close to feeling burned out. On the contrary, I have more energy; noticeably more. My joints quit aching overnight. I am sleeping much, much more soundly and thus I wake up refreshed and rested. And, most amazing of all, my back pain completely disappeared!
Alright, I'll be quiet now. Thank you for stopping by!
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