Progress update #9
Welcome to the ninth instalment of my regular update series where I review what does and doesn't work on the journey to type 2 diabetes remission.
Sunday roast disaster
Pub-dinner-roulette struck again on Sunday afternoon. We'd been out all day getting the car MOT sorted so I didn't want to cook by the time we got home and went out for a roast dinner at the local pub. Meat portions were a bit mean and even though I jettisoned one Yorkshire pudding and half of the potatoes, I still got a carb-clobbering and adding a couple of beers really didn't help.
Million step challenge
I managed to reach my half-way milestone of 500,000 steps on Tuesday. I was hoping to save it for Wednesday, with nicer weather, but I got carried away when I spotted a footpath sign that took me up to Lowercroft (not "Lowestoft" 😅) reservoirs. I found a new pub in Starling called The Black Bull that I'm going to test drive next week. Really enjoyed this six mile walk but overdid it and gave myself tendonitis again so had to rest for another couple of days. My average daily steps is down to 10,474 which is quite low for me but I've learned that tendonitis needs serious resting days to resolve it as quickly as possible.
Having food before or after exercise is something I'm still trying to figure out. A fairly small lunch after my big walk on Tuesday set my blood glucose much higher than before I'd started. I decided to test things out by having the same meal for breakfast before walking to my gym session and back on Friday morning. Results were impressive as I didn't have any spike at all and my gym session normally sends my glucose up quite a bit. It also made me really hungry so I had a large bacon and scrambled egg lunch, with sprouts and cherry tomatoes. There was also no spike from that so I'm going to make sure I have breakfast before I do my morning exercise now and see if that works out better. This is far from a rigorous scientific study so try alternative meals and timings yourself and see what works best for you.
BDNF boosting and cortisol modulation
I've been trying to hone my BDNF routine in terms of exercise and morning sunlight rather than worrying too much about getting all of the different foods in (which has taken the stress out of it). I've sat out in the garden for a good 20-30 minutes on rest days to get some sunlight first thing in the morning. Getting bright light from above head-height also helps to boost cortisol in the mornings. My gym routine is working out really well and I am sticking to it, although I did have to cut my cardio short on Monday to make breakfast in time.
Fasting practice and fails
I've given the intermittent fasting eating time windows a bit of a rest as it was stressing me out and I need to get used to not logging every single minute of my day before I drive myself insane. I don't eat if I'm not hungry and am just keeping track of my day-long fasts for now. I did a 29 hour fast over Wednesday and into Thursday morning. I've got a new coffee filter and got carried away by having a second mug of black coffee on Wednesday afternoon which left me feeling jittery all evening. I went to bed shortly after 10pm but struggled to get to sleep and woke up a couple of times during the night. At 3.30am I was dehydrated and feeling dizzy so had a mad rush to check my blood glucose (3.9 mmol/L) and ketones (4.0 mmol/L). I'd normally be just about okay at 3.9 but as I wasn't feeling great, I made a hypo-hurry-meal from frozen minced beef, peppers, onions and scrambled in 2 eggs for breakfast. Apparently ketone levels of up to 5 mmol/L are not unusual during fasting but 4 was higher than I'm used to so I didn't want to chance running them any higher so broke my fast earlier than I'd planned.
Taking a retrospective look at this, I think the main issue was too much caffeine during the day (my green tea also contains caffeine). As this is a diuretic I've probably become dehydrated and lost more electrolytes than usual. This can lead to low blood pressure, which is probably what was making me dizzy rather than being hypoglycemic (I'm normally feeling okay at 3.9 but do start making sure I get some food in shortly).
What to do about it
- Drink plenty of water and don't forget to have a small pinch of sea (or rock) salt after each glass.
- Limit to one mug of black coffee or green tea per day and before 1pm on fasting days.
- Drink more herbal/leafy teas that don't contain caffeine and help to boost electrolytes.
- Take a glass of water to bed, especially on fasting days as I would have probably been okay if I'd had some water when I first woke up in the night.
- Have more nuts and dark chocolate the day before a fast.
- Avoid fasting days after a day of drinking alcohol.
Blood glucose stuck at 6.2
My 7-day average is stuck at 6.0-6.2 mmol/L again which is still, extremely frustrating as I was aiming to get to the 5.7 lower limit I've had so far. If I can get back to 5.7 mmol/L and maintain that for a few days, I'll be happy with that as a goal for now.
My average daily net carbs is 64g this week which is an improvement on 80g from last week but I need to try again to keep it below 60g and ideally aim for 50g per day. I think some smarter choices on ingredients for meals will help. The MyNetDiary app is good at showing carb levels on ingredients as I add them so I just need to remember to keep an eye on the amount for each item. I still need to work on morning dawn effect rises coming from drinking too much alcohol and the resulting evening snacks. I even had half a bag of crisps at the pub this week - that's a first in about two months!
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