If you are not familiar with my ‘Date with the Devil’ posts, you should read Day 1 and Day 2 before proceeding.
In brief, I went very high carb for 24 hours, ‘the devil’ was high carbohydrates.
I received quite a few comments and questions regarding my experiment … which told me I needed to do a follow up to explain things.
This post will dig a little deeper into the ‘nutritional numbers’ and provide details as to how my body reacted post ‘high carb’.
Note: Despite going higher carb, I remained gluten free. :)
(click on all pictures to enlarge)
Nutritional Numbers
First, let’s take a closer look at the ‘big picture’.
Notes:
1. I went high carb… from approximately 20 grams per day to 209 grams per day, actually 417 grams of carbs in a 24 hour period.
Furthermore, of my typical 20 grams of carbs (in my normal diet) , approximately 10 are soluble fiber from vegetables.
** This is a ‘two day average’ but keep in mind, all of the carb consumption occurred in a 24 hour period.
2. LOW FAT – I did not discuss this much in the previous two posts but by going HIGH CARB something else must go down… in this case both fat and protein dropped significantly.
I normally eat between 175 to 200 grams of fats per day, approximately 65% of calories from fat. So this was a HUGE drop to only 48 grams of fat.
Protein went from approximately 175 grams to only 109 grams on average.
RESULTS
So … what was the effect of going HIGH CARB???
My blood sugars were elevated… no doubt about it.
Highest ‘post meal’ reading was 213 mg/dl after eating 89 grams of carbs (mostly sugar) from two bananas and an apple. This was breakfast on Day 2.
Good news? By lunch time my blood sugar recovered and I did have a 117 mg/dl two hours post lunch.
In a 24 hour period, I consumed 417 grams of carbs and two hours post, the last meal … I read a ‘pre-diabetic range’ of 117 mg/dl.
Reminder: I am encouraged by ‘all this’ because …
a) While my body did not process the carbohydrates as quickly as I would have liked … and remained too high for too long, it did recover without the aid of drugs or insulin.
b) As noted in a previous post, when you eat a very low carbohydrate meal plan for long periods of time your body adjusts to burning fat / ketones for fuel.
Anne Luther noted that some claim the body can take one to two weeks of eating higher carbohydrates before it will begin to process carbohydrates more efficiently.
What does this mean? I will try a highER carb experiment again, but this time I will eat more moderate carb meals and do them more frequently. I will attempt to see if I can acclimate my body to burning carbohydrates and give myself a true insulin resistant test.
Lasting Effects?
Not to make too much of this … but I truly believe that any time a diabetic (any diabetic) goes into higher blood glucose ranges, there is always a risk of permanent danger.
For type 2’s, you never know when the pancreas will say “enough” and stop functioning.
All diabetics should be concerned about the body becoming even more insulin resistant from a high glucose reading.
One never knows if the ‘next high’ will cause permanent damage from retinopathy or neuropathy.
Having said all that… I was concerned about raising my blood glucose levels but I can report …
“I have not felt any differently. I did not experience any (known) side effects other than high blood sugars.”
– no energy swings, no lethargy, no increased stamina… of course it was only a 24 hour test.
By the way, all those concerns above are even MORE reason why ALL diabetics… not just type 2’s should go low carb primal.
Blood Sugar Effect
Unfortunately, I ran out of blood sugar testing strips on the last day of my High Carb experiment. Therefore I can not show a steady progression of blood sugar reporting…. but the trend is undeniable.
Day 1 of High Carb – Overnight Fasting Blood Sugar Reading (before eating high carb) 90 mg/dl
Day 2 of High Carb – Overnight Fasting Blood Sugar Reading (after Day 1’s high carb meals) 93 mg/dl
End of High Carb Meals…
Day 5 – Overnight Fasting Blood Sugar Reading 106 mg/dl
Day 6 – Overnight Fasting Blood Sugar Reading 93 mg/dl
Day 7 – (Date of this Post) Overnight Fasting Blood Sugar Reading 82 mg/dl
Wooo HOOO!!! … it is SO GOOD to be back into NORMAL BLOOD SUGAR NUMBERS!!!!
… normal for non-diabetics… :)
CLOSING
When I started this I had three things I wanted to accomplish these three things …
1. See if I am still diabetic, still insulin resistant. I am.
2. Prove that I was a diabetic. I did.
3. If my blood sugars elevated, show others how YOU can reduce them naturally … GO LOW CARB PALEO!!! … I did. :)
I hope you learned something from this ‘experiment’… I did. I hope to continue learning … forever! :)
Hi Steve – been following your blog for quite a while – am a fellow diabetic (21+ years) but for 20 years, took the pills (3 types), was obese, more or less followed the ADA / CDA diet recommendations (except quantities). Got serious about nutrition a year ago, reading Dr. Richard Bernstein, then huge amounts more. Still on metformin, exercising daily, A1C finally heading to 6 and south. Total primal diet.
Anyway, just a little comment on your day 1 meal – I’ve read soemwhere that the posted carb ratings for yoghurt are way off, as they’re based on the original milk from which the yoghurt was made. This works for me, as I can easily eat a 1/2 cup or so of 3 or 4% yoghurt without any increase in BG – of course, definitely wouldn’t try this with “low fat” yoghurt of any type.
Your messages are very encouraging – keep up the good work.
Thanks for your comment and encouraging words. Re: yogurt … thank you for mentioning this!! For that reason, I asked a Type 1 friend of mine who uses a CGM if she had a blood sugar response when eating yogurt. She said she did not know. So thanks for clearing that up!