Fat adapted and fasting glucose

[redfulcrum]

hey all, it's been a while. 

I was just wondering if anyone else have been playing around with low carb and checking their morning glucose levels.  I just notice after not eating carbs for a long time and eating carbs puts my next day fasting glucose in the low 100s.  If I'm just eating meat it stays in the 70-80s.  Anyone else notice this phenomenon?   

[klowcarb]

I've been ZC for 18 months now (NEVER eating off plan). I never check. Why care?

[redfulcrum]

I've noticed that when I try to carb up I end up being in a diabetic state.  Not just blood glucose numbers but actual symptoms like blood pressure and water retention, all from a slice of pizza or so.  I've seen my blood glucose as high as 120 post exercise after a carb up.  If I continue eating carbs it seems my body relearns to regulate it better and the diabetes goes away.  I wanted to try a cyclical ketogenic diet, but it's just too painful for me.  It's either I stay in a fat burning state or a carb burning state, constantly changing states sucks. 

[kurite]

I've noticed that when I try to carb up I end up being in a diabetic state.  Not just blood glucose numbers but actual symptoms like blood pressure and water retention, all from a slice of pizza or so.  I've seen my blood glucose as high as 120 post exercise after a carb up.  If I continue eating carbs it seems my body relearns to regulate it better and the diabetes goes away.  I wanted to try a cyclical ketogenic diet, but it's just too painful for me.  It's either I stay in a fat burning state or a carb burning state, constantly changing states sucks. 

Why would you carb up with pizza? Have you tryed just fruit?

[redfulcrum]

Carbing up with fruit sucks.  It doesn't fill glycogen levels as well as a glucose polymer does. 

[dsohei]

carb up with yams or other more paleo starches then?

[klowcarb]

Why would you carb up at all? You don't need it for performance if you are fat adapted.

[redfulcrum]

carbing up helps you grow.  It's just easier to eat carbs than to eat protein, hence all the fatties we see around us.  I could just eat a double serving of meat, but overeating meat is hard when you're in ketosis. 

[KD]

I asked about some of this in Lex's journal recently. I don't pretend to understand it all myself but it might be worth a look. I've never been into monitoring my BG but I did get lab work done 5 months apart or so and my numbers dropped from like 106 (which I thought was quite high) to I think 94 or something. This was eating very little carbs. His explanation for why numbers stay around the high 90's or so even without carbs (If i'm even interpreting that right) makes sense. To my knowledge based on that little reading I don't drop that low as you are finding, although I never really eat more than a piece or two of fruit or whatever for the time being. It might be something that has not as much to do with your current intake but other factors as well.

I've thought about doing more carb-cycling and other experiments in the future...

[ys]

Carbing up with fruit sucks.  It doesn't fill glycogen levels as well as a glucose polymer does.

not true at all according to this pubmed http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/instance/1176254/

none of the carb polymers can be adsorbed until broken down into individual monosaccharides.

[lex_rooker]

I've noticed that when I try to carb up I end up being in a diabetic state.  Not just blood glucose numbers but actual symptoms like blood pressure and water retention, all from a slice of pizza or so.  I've seen my blood glucose as high as 120 post exercise after a carb up.  If I continue eating carbs it seems my body relearns to regulate it better and the diabetes goes away.

All of this is normal once your body has adapted to using fatty acids as fuel rather than glucose.  When you ‘carb up’, each gram of glucose you eat will require your body to retain 6 grams of water to maintain proper osmotic fluid balance – hence the temporary rise in bp and the water retention.

Your glucose rise is due to physiological insulin resistance, a metabolic state that forces your muscles to use fatty acids as their primary fuel (muscular insulin resistance) and reserve glucose for the brain and other glucose dependent tissues when consuming a LC, VLC, or ZC diet.  Physiological insulin resistance is quickly reversed by eating carbs for 3 or 4 days at which point the body will detect the increase in glucose availability and again allow the muscles to use the excess glucose as fuel.  This is different than pathogenic insulin resistance which, over time can become irreversible and is the cause of type 2 diabetes.

Peter has written several posts on this subject with links to various studies in his Hyperlipid blog.  You can find them here:

http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/

On the right side of the blog is a long list of his posts.  Just scroll down to the “Ps” and you’ll find a half dozen or more posts on Physiological insulin resistance. 

Peter’s blog is a great resource.  I recommend you read all the posts.  It will be well worth your time.

Lex