Coconut Oil fasts are great for managing diabetes. Coconut Oil will help keep you sated, provide energy and does not spike blood sugars.
- Fat Fasting is a great strategy for reducing blood sugars
- Fat Fasting also helps with weight stalls & resetting appetite
When I use the term ‘fat fast’, I am referring to a true fat fast. Meaning, I only consume fats, healthy fats of course. I have experimented with coconut oil fasts, butter fasts and combinations of the two.
In every experiment, all of the true fat fasts work to reduce blood sugars, help break through weight loss stalls and can help reset your appetite.
Fat Fasting
Fasting is awesome for the reasons mentioned above. I prefer trying fat fasting first, before a water-only-fast, because with a fat fast you are getting fuel … the fat. :)
Note: When I say fat fast, I mean a fat-only fast. If you consume protein or carbs, you are defeating the purpose of a fat fast. Protein and especially carbs can raise your blood sugars. Fats have a very minimal affect, if any.
Benefits of a True Fat Fast
- will help keep you satiated
- will not raise blood sugar
- provides fuel
- promotes weight loss
- helps reset appetite.
Next lets talk about my fat fast experiment.
Fat Fast Experiment: Coconut Oil
The fat fast was originally scheduled for 7 days, it only lasted four. I was disappointed but the reason it ended was a great reason. I ended the fat fast because my blood sugars dipped too low!
This proves that true fat fasts (consuming only fat) will help you reduce blood sugars! See below!
Coconut Oil Fasting for Diabetes
The main reason the experiment was discontinued, Blood Sugar Lows. As you can see from the picture above, as expected my blood sugar was trending lower each day. My fear on the evening of the fourth day … was waking up with a sub 50 mg/dl blood sugar reading.
I placed an asterisk on the 74 to note that I ate more Coconut Oil & Coffee than normal, hoping to raise my blood sugar, it worked. However, as you can see, it did not last for long.
What was a unexpected surprise was the lack of stabilization in my blood sugars. I expected an occasional dip into the the 60’s … but fully expected a stabilization in the 70’s.
Lessons Learned
1) Blood Sugar Affect this lesson is OBVIOUS , a ‘saturated fat only fast’ … will definitely lower blood sugar.
2) Strength and Stamina Affect – as my blood sugar went sub 70 mg/dl and especially sub 60 mg/dl, I lost all desire to exercise and I definitely felt tired and lethargic.
But this was to be expected, not having been this low before. The real test was to see the affects after a week of fasting.
3) Wanna lose weight? Eat Saturated Fat. In four days, I lost over 4 lbs and it ‘left’ at a rate of a pound a day.
Fat Fast Conclusion
I finally experienced a blood sugar ‘LOW’. Until this experiment, I had never felt a low blood sugar level.
Now I can at least know what people mean when they talk about it. Granted, many of my diabetic friends have far exceeded a “53 mg/dl” and have experienced much worse side affects. :(
If you have elevated blood sugars, try a true fat fast!
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I drink such coffee every morning but also add heavy cream. I think the flaw in your “fast” is that it lacked protein. If you added enough protein to meet minimal glucose needs of the 5% of your body’s cells which cannot utilize ketones instead, you should have been fine. You liver is capable of making more than enough glucose (from ingested protein) for these needs, but they most have some incoming protein to do it with otherwise your body might begin destroying your mucsles, clearly not a good thing. A zero-carb “fast” like the one you did but with some protein should be viable without limit and should bring about the desired BG stabilization in the 70s and 80s.
Even if you didn’t quite meet your goal this time, you still learned from the experience, and that’s pretty kickass.
Even cooler (to me) is that you know what going hypo feels like. It’s always interesting to try and explain to people, especially because it comes with so many different symptoms depending on my condition that day.
Thanks for sharing this, Steve! Wow, four pounds in four days?
Wow, this experience almost exactly replicates my experiment about two years ago. My reasoning was that coco oil would transition me faster into ketosis and minimize muscle cannibalization in the initial phase of the fast when I’m still on glucose metabolism. I can’t stand to eat coco oil “neat” so I mixed it in coffee…. on either the 2nd or 3rd day I began to have a intensely pounding pulse, to the point it scared me. At the time I had no glucometer but I did suspect LBG-and indeed, after munching a little crackers and candy the symptoms abated.
So it appears coco oil has powerful BG-lowering abilities, at least in isolation, since simple water fasting doesn’t appear to lower it so dramatically, but I’ve seen little about that in the literature. Now I am wondering if taking some before bedtime can address the DP issue. Has anyone had any experiences with coco lowering BG when used with food?
Unless I am ‘experimenting’ I eat coconut oil every day with food, and I typically have normal Overnight Fasting Blood Sugar, 70-100 mg/dl.
I need to try a water fast and see if my Blood Sugar Drops steadily as it did with the Coconut Oil alone … that may be my next test. :)
Thanks for the feedback– I am going to try coco oil in the evening and see if it can impact my pretty crappy AM readings (140-160), which, unlike PP highs, don’t respond to or are even exacerbated by exercize.
Please let me know how this works for you… great idea by the way! :)
Steve
Hello–thanks for the encouragement! Mindful of your bad timing experience, I decided to postpone any experiments till after the 4th of July “carb carnage” (I have two T2 parents who are poster children for the last couple of decades of conventional treatment/nontreatment of T2). Planning on a brief (3 days max) coconut/coffee fast next week, have just been trying cut the carbs and work some coco into my diet this week. Powerful stuff–seems to accelerate my pulse and can disturb sleep if too much to late, unless I’m just imaging stuff. I’ll be sure to report back.
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