Six common beliefs addressed, Part 257

1. Why is some people's blood glucose so sensitive, while others aren't? For example, my friend can eat popcorn, when we go to the movies, but if I do my blood glucose takes a hit. I am not diabetic but was prediabetic at one time. I hate that I can't eat the simplest of things that others can.

Popcorn is mostly fiber, rather than glucose so it usually should not have much of an impact on blood glucose but, like I had said so many times before, blood glucose is pretty variable amongst individuals. What can cause a problem with one person, may not with another. 

This is determined by many factors such as insulin function and body composition. Once insulin function begins to deteriorate, due to blood glucose abnormalities, it becomes more difficult for the body to handle dietary glucose, even in minute amounts. When these abnormalities cause a metabolic disturbance which changes your body composition into more fat than muscle, this becomes even more difficult. The problems begin to compound until there is no one thing that is causing the issue but a combination of different things.

2. Why do some carbs not taste sweet even though they have "sugar" in them?

There are many different types of sugars. The differences are in their chemical composition. Sugars are found in all carbs. Fiber is also considered a carb but it is irrelevant.

Fructose is what tastes sweet. Glucose is what causes a rise in blood sugar. Their combinations vary, changing their ratios, depending on the food and this is what makes the difference in taste. For example, fruit has more fructose than bread. This is why fruit tastes sweet but bread does not, though they both cause a rise in blood glucose.

Sucrose, or regular table sugar, is composed of one molecule of glucose and one molecular of fructose. Like I stated above, fructose is what tastes sweet but causes no rise in blood glucose. Glucose, on the other hand, does not taste like anything but causes a rise in blood glucose. Sugar is the only food on the planet that is both a carb and a fat. This is because fructose does not rise blood glucose but causes fat accumulation in the liver. So every time you eat fructose, you are "eating" liver fat.

Both a rise in blood sugar from glucose and the accumulation of liver fat cause metabolic syndrome. This is what makes sugar particularly obesogenic, unlike any other food. That doesn't mean you cannot get metabolic disease from potatoes, which are mostly starch (glucose), or from agave syrup which is all fructose. Both of these chemical compounds, on their own, can cause metabolic syndrome just like they can together.

So, the carbs you want to avoid are both glucose and fructose, whether together or separate, not any other.

3. I have friend who has always been slim. It didn't matter how much they ate, which were enormous amounts by the way, they always remained slim regardless. I was always jealous as there was no way I could eat like they did. A few years ago they started having serious health problems and were finally diagnosed with lupus. They have ballooned to 300 lbs. during this interim. What in the world happened? I couldn't believe it when I saw them. I truly thought they would never be able to become overweight.

Blood glucose dysregulation. When the body cannot properly regulate its blood glucose, it will stop burning fat through a direct effect on leptin. Your super leptin sensitive friend just became obese, without changing a thing in their diet. This again shows how obesity is rooted in blood glucose homeostasis and not in how much you eat.

Many things can interfere with blood glucose regulation, besides diet. Chronic conditions like lupus put the body in a high state of stress. These adrenal stress hormones are trying to mitigate the uncontrolled inflammation caused by this type of auto immune condition. This puts the patient at a high risk for obesity as their body is releasing large amounts of glucose from the break down of their own muscle mass. This circulating glucose interferes with glucose homeostasis and insulin function. The person with lupus is eating chocolate cake 24/7, but from their own body rather than from the dessert bar.

Blood glucose dysregulation puts the body into starvation mode by default. In order to acquire starvation mode, the body has to down regulate leptin expression so it burns very little fat. After all, the body is trying to preserve fat in order to combat the starvation. Any increase in its metabolic rate is for the sole purpose of breaking down lean muscle mass into glucose, not the burning of body fat. The only way the body would now burn its body fat is through severe and permanent starvation, along side strenuous prolonged physical activity. Neither are recommended as they would put overall health at high risk, particularly if the person already has a condition like lupus. They would die of complications before they lost a pound.

The reason that I mention it though is to show how ridiculous eat less/move more is in the context of obesity. Instead of working harder, you have to work smarter. Do not eat less and move more, rather take control of your blood glucose regulation so you can reverse the starvation mode.

Now your friend has to take control of their lupus as best they can and watch their diet carefully in order to try and treat their obesity. After all, they don't want further blood glucose disruption through the introduction of dietary glucose. Aside from dietary glucose there are many other dietary components that can further exacerbate the immune response in certain people, compounding the effects they are already having from lupus. The more immune reactions, the more inflammation and the further stress the body will be in, making it impossible to control blood glucose.

Your friend has to be very precise so they can not only take control of their condition but also avoid the number of medications they would have to take as these also interfere in blood glucose regulation.

4. Is "keto" a good diet for hypothyroid?

We like to stick to discussions related to metabolic syndrome and not any other condition as they go beyond the scope of this blog. I don't want to be like all of these low carb advocates that are jacks of all trades and masters of none. I can only dedicate my time to researching one subject - obesity. I can help you get past the quackery though since this blog is dedicated to weeding through BS.

There are multiple factors that can cause hypothyroid. Some obese people naturally have a slow thyroid because of a hormonal profile which is dedicated to storing and sparing body fat. Others exhibit hyperthyroid instead because of a hormonal profile which is dedicated to storing and sparing body fat. This is because you can store and spare body fat by using no energy causing hypothyroid or by using a lot of energy, dedicated to storing fat, causing hyperthyroid. As you can see, obesity affects thyroid function in different ways.

This means "keto" will only help you depending on what's causing your hypothyroid. If it's an actual mechanical dysfunction of the thyroid caused by an auto immune condition or some other process, "keto" will not help you and instead possibly make your thyroid problems worse.

If your hypothyroid is being caused by active obesity, then "keto" might help you if it can halt or reverse this process, speeding up your thyroid naturally. So you have to discuss with your doctor what your actual diagnosis is so you can proceed with what's best for you.

5. Does fruit juice have vitamins and minerals?

Yes. All of them useless for you but great for the plant it came from. You can get all of your vitamins and minerals from meat without the added sugar load.

6. My fasting blood glucose always runs a bit high but my HbA1C is going down. I read on a low carb site that HbA1C was more important than blood glucose.

All markers work together in order to give you a metabolic profile. You cannot take any one individual marker and make a metabolic assessment from it. No one marker is better than any other. They all have to be used in conjunction to get the most information you can in order to assess your current metabolic state.

I don't know what "a bit high" is. I would need actual numbers. I don't know how low your HbA1C is or from how high it lowered. All I can tell you is that HbA1C is a measure of your average blood glucose in an approximate three month period. It is useful but it can also hide the fact that your blood glucose can be 300 mg/dL postprandial and then 50 mg/dL during the night time fast. After all, it's average blood glucose which takes the highest and the lowest readings to come up with a number. HbA1C also doesn't factor in red blood cell turnover rate, which tends to be slower in people following low carb causing a higher HbA1C.

This means you have to check your fasting and postprandial blood glucose at home to get a better picture of what may be going on.

Six common beliefs addressed, Part 243

1. Is it better to cut back fat and "do more protein"?

It's better to cut back period and not "do more" of anything. I have said many times before that replacement doesn't do anything but keep you in the same square you're already on. Elimination is the only thing that makes a difference. So, the correct thing to do is cut back fat and eat adequate protein.

"Why Gina, if protein does not contribute to fat mass?" Because the "protein" you will be eating does. Farmed animals, the common meat we all eat in modernity, have quite a bit of fat compared to the wild game we evolved to eat. This means that every time you cut back fat and "do more protein", you are actually just eating more fat. So, unless you only consume wild game, you have to be careful on "doing more" protein.

2. I have a relative who had a heart attack and was told to eat heart healthy "whole wheat pastas" and remain "low sodium". Is that a good idea?

It depends on what caused the heart attack. Many factors are involved in "heart attacks". It's not just one thing that causes them. There are people who have certain genetic lipid abnormalities that worsen when saturated fat is increased in the diet. This means, in theory, they have to remain on "low saturated fat" diets. Grains are low in saturated fats, so they basically replace the meat in the diet.

Of course, that comes with its own set of issues as grains contribute to metabolic syndrome which also puts you at risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD). So, the best way these individuals should deal with this problem is not by replacing saturated fats with grains but actually replacing them with monounsaturated fats instead and skip the grains. Eat very lean meats, preferably wild game.

This is why it's so important to know what caused the heart attack so that you can make lifestyle changes that actually work. Was it a clog from arterial damage? Was it an arterial spasm? Was it a genetic lipid abnormality and if so, which one as there are many? Was it smoking? Was it an actual mechanical failure of the heart itself? Do you have a family history of CVD or are you the first one to get it? Do you have co-morbid conditions that contributed to it? It's good to have an in-depth conversation with your doctor about this and not accept basic explanations such as "you had a heart attack" and that's it, since that tells you nothing.

If you have a condition where your lipids are affected by diet in a negative way, then you have to follow a diet that doesn't exacerbate this further. After all, once you have CVD you want to address as much as possible to prevent another heart attack. Just be smart and don't put all your focus on lipids but include blood glucose as well, as both put you at risk.

The science behind the salt recommendation is not as solid. There are some individuals who are sensitive to the sodium in their diet, but this is much rarer than the individual whose lipids are sensitive to diet. So, this would have to be determined on an individual basis. If your kidneys are working well, then you should be eliminating sodium properly. Some cardiac patients are put on medications where sodium has to be reduced as it interferes with the medication's efficacy, but again, this has be determined individually.

3. I hear that people are putting eggs in their coffee. Should I do this too?

I am patiently waiting for the day when they say they put turds in their coffee, just to see how many people will try it out and I can basically LMAO watching.

Eat normally. Keep it as close to your traditional way of eating as possible. Eat the things you like to eat and are familiar with. Choose those foods from two food groups - meat and vegetables. Cook and prepare them as you would normally. That is what keeps the diet sustainable because it doesn't cause the change to be outside of your comfort zone. Do not dabble in nonsense that will only cause you to dump your diet in a week and return to International Delight and doughnuts.

People are habitual with their food and when they drastically change something, they tend to revert to what they know after a short while. Don't try out novelties. Stick to familiar things so that you can actually develop a new habit rather than follow a dumb fad.

4. I am following a vegan diet. I have recently been losing my hair and my joints ache badly. What should I do?

If you are following a vegan diet and refuse to change it, then you have to talk to your doctor about these symptoms so you can get properly tested for deficiencies. 

You should also speak to your doctor about vitamin B12 supplementation, preferably in sublingual form but you can also get it as a shot. This is serious, so make sure you get this checked out and supplement according as this type of deficiency can result in irreversible nerve damage.

5. I have Sjogren's and even though I eat high fat "keto" my eyes and mouth still feel very dry. I feel dry everywhere.

Sjogren's is not caused by the absence of "high fat". It is an autoimmune condition where your immune system attacks the glands that produce moisture for your eyes, mouth and other areas of the body.

You need to discuss with your doctor any persistent symptoms you are having related to any autoimmune disease because this means your illness is not being well managed nor put under control. This can cause long term irreversible damage. Eating high fat "keto" will not help with this as you can very well see from your ongoing symptoms. "Keto" is a diet that is used for the management of metabolic conditions, not to treat any illness.

6. What is a "meat bar"? I have been hearing low carb people talk about this and I was wondering if it's worth trying.

No. It is not worth trying nor is it worth the price. It's the "keto" version of a Slim Jim. A stick of beef jerky sold as a "snack bar" and slapped with a "keto" or "carnivore" sticker. "Step into a Slim Jim!" but you should really just step into a gym and leave all snacks behind.

Look, new snack junk is going to come out daily. Just eat real food. I don't know what is so difficult about that. Meat and vegetables, prepared and cooked at home. Meat is supposed to look like a steak, burger, stew or kebob. Buy meat at the butcher's counter. Eat your meals on a plate, with a knife and fork, not in a plastic wrap while leaning against the soda machine at the gas station.

Unless you are going out into the wilderness for a few weeks or hiking up a mountain or taking a very long raft trip to Africa, there should be no need for cured, dried, salted meats. We have refrigerators and stoves now. You don't have to eat like a Caribbean pirate.

A "meat bar" is not going to cut it as a meal so that means it would only become a snack. Snacking is obesogenic. If you need to snack, just have three meals instead of two so there is no room to snack.

Six common beliefs addressed, Part 111

1. Blood glucose and HbA1C can go up on carnivore. 

HbA1C alone is not suffice to determine abnormalities in blood glucose, while on carnivore, because your red blood cells might have a longer turnover rate on this diet. So, it's vital that you actually monitor your blood glucose as well as your HbA1C. 

The reason that a no carb diet can cause blood glucose to elevate is because carbs are not the only cause of this problem. Counter regulatory malfunction causes blood glucose to elevate, regardless of diet. So, there can be some potential reasons why this diet can affect blood glucose. Some common ones are: 

• Prior hyperglucagonemia - Many people who have metabolic syndrome have lost their first phase insulin response. This means that their insulin levels rise, after protein intake, just enough to cause glucose to be released by glucagon from the liver, but not enough to stop it. It takes a much higher release of insulin to stop catabolism than to start it. If your insulin levels never reach the appropriate spike because you are simply not producing enough, catabolism does not stop and you continue producing an enormous amount of glucose, from not only the foods you eat, but from the breakdown of your own body. Specifically liver glycogen and lean muscle mass. This is most obvious on carnivore, since it’s a protein centered diet. Protein did not cause this and avoiding it will not fix it. It will take time for this to normalize and your blood glucose to begin lowering. Carnivore only makes this problem obvious in the short term. The diet is simply unmasking a problem you already had beforehand. 
• Stress response - People who go carnivore oftentimes end up not eating enough calories because of the satiating effect of protein or because they believe they will end up eating "too much meat" and so they restrict their portions. Make sure you aren’t doing this due to eating one meal a day (OMAD) or doing extended fasts. So, make sure you are eating enough and that you are moderate in fat intake. Do not do “no fat” because that would be a protein sparing modified fast, not carnivore. 
• Incorrect carnivore protocols - Make sure you are truly eating carnivore and not eating ham and salami all day. Processed, cured meats contain carbohydrate fillers and this can potentially deteriorate blood glucose over time. Quality of food is vital for people with metabolic disorders. 

So, revisit your diet and address the above issues. If they cannot be successfully addressed, on this type of protocol, dump it and follow a moderate low carb diet instead. 

2. Blood glucose will not run high, in the mornings, if you are following a low carbohydrate diet. 

False. That is actually being tackled by some pretty intelligent people in diabetes research. Those people are way smarter than me. As of this time, there is no single answer for this, as no one has found the cure for diabetes, regardless of what your favorite low carb diet doctor says. When they win the Nobel Prize in medicine for finding "the cure" for diabetes, please inform me. 

High morning blood glucose, or any high blood glucose resulting from fasting, is called ‘Dawn Phenomenon’ (DP). It is simply an over expression of adrenal counter regulation to falling blood glucose, as you fast. Your body is trying to prevent lower blood glucose, as it is adapted towards hyperglycemia. This is the result of chronic large disparities between lows and highs in blood glucose. The body is trying to protect itself from the lows by keeping blood glucose as high as possible. 

Eating breakfast can help lower this blood glucose. Early morning exercise can also help lower it. Eating dinner later, the night before, can help lower it. You can do all kinds of circus tricks to lower your morning blood glucose, but the only way to truly control it is by consistently adhering to a proper dietary and lifestyle protocol that corrects your glucose regulation. 

Reduce your fasting times to no more than 12 hours a day and eat three meals during your eating window. This helps reduce ups and downs in blood glucose and helps stop this exaggerated response by the body over time. 

3. You should include extended fasting alongside your ketogenic protocol in order to address auto immune conditions. 

Stop stimulating your counter regulatory systems to produce more glucose with this fasting BS. Reduce your fasting regimen to only 12 hours a day. 

The main thing that helps autoimmune diseases is lowering the stress response. People with autoimmune conditions do very well in environments that are predictable and routinized. This means consistent meal times, consistent sleep times, consistent fasting times and consistent exercise times. This helps the natural pulsatile rhythms of the immune system and the hormones that work with it. Any kind of stress and disruption to routines, causes flare ups of these conditions. 

4. You cannot do "keto" if you are allergic to dairy and eggs. 

Ketogenic protocols are not "dairy and eggs". Ketogenic protocols for the treatment of overweight/obesity and/or metabolic conditions are simply very low in carbohydrate. This means that you can do this protocol eating meat and vegetables only. 

5. Stevia raises insulin levels. 

Some studies have shown that artificial sweeteners like stevia have a long-term effect on insulin levels, but other studies have not shown this correlation. For that reason, the avoidance of artificial sweeteners, on this blog, is primarily focused on their effects on dopamine. 

Dopamine is a very powerful metabolic regulator that is affected by the constant taste of sweet and will have you storing fat, as if you are preparing for winter. For that reason, you want to stop this constant stimulation of dopamine by halting taking hits from the sweet pipe. The taste of sweet also has some effects on leptin, which are not well understood. But if you look at it through the lens of dopamine and how it helps you store fat for winter, then it is not difficult to understand that storage requires other metabolic hormones to cooperate, including leptin and insulin. In essence, they are all affected. So, this blog is anti-sweet. Sweet is always pro obesogenic. 

6. ‘Dawn Phenomenon’ is the way your liver gives you a shot of glucose, so you already have your breakfast internally. This means you do not have to eat breakfast. 

I hate to say this, but that’s stupid. It’s truly the stupidest thing I have heard so far, on here, and I have heard some really stupid stuff before. I apologize, but there truly is no other way to describe this. 

Dawn Phenomenon is not truly a “phenomenon”. It is the natural process that the body has of waking up and getting you going. It is a counter regulatory system activated by low insulin levels and falling glucose levels. It is exaggerated in people with metabolic syndrome/diabetes and they release an enormous amount of unnecessary glucose, since their bodies are trying to keep their glucose levels as high as possible to counteract their chronic high insulin levels and any sudden drops in blood glucose it could cause. Basically, the body wants your blood glucose to stay at 200 mg/dL because that’s how high it will get after doughnuts. It has adapted to higher than normal blood glucose from a bad diet. 

None of this has anything to do with your liver providing you breakfast. You will produce glucose in the morning regardless, so no, you don’t have to skip breakfast if you don’t want to. What you have to do is fix the issue and it’s not fixed by skipping breakfast. It takes much more than that. I know people want an easy, one liner fix to their problem, but it doesn’t work that way. Life is much more complicated than that. 

For some people blood glucose drops after they eat breakfast, as it causes their body to stop producing glucose, since it’s coming in from the diet and the rise in insulin stops the catabolic process. For others, it makes their blood glucose worse. The rise in insulin only causes for catabolism to increase, since their insulin is just not rising enough to stop it. How far along you are in the disease process determines this. The more first phase insulin response loss you have, the higher your blood glucose will go after a meal. Reacting to this symptom and trying to correct it, every morning, by chasing it down with either breakfast/no breakfast or exercise/no exercise is not fixing the problem that’s causing it. You will only be on the symptom merry go round daily. 

The way this is fixed is by stopping the drops in blood glucose you are experiencing nightly. This isn’t done by any one thing. This is done by having an entire lifestyle change that addresses all metabolic hormones at once in order to stabilize blood glucose. A dietary and exercise protocol that you follow consistently and adhere to diligently gets you on the right path to address this.

Six common beliefs addressed, Part 88

1. A diabetic cannot control their stress response.

That is the core problem of diabetes and the day it's successfully controlled, then it would be the cure. Diet has a very minimal effect on the stress response. The majority of the blood sugar that diabetics make is coming directly from the inside, not the outside. It is extremely difficult to reverse this stress response adaptation. For some people, it’s much easier than others. Some people are just wired to have high stress responses. Consistency in eating, fasting, sleep and exercise is a good way of taking back control, as normalizing circadian rhythms has a profound effect on regulating the stress response.

For some people going very low carb, without enough protein, like is the case for “keto”, can result in the body doubling down on its stress response. This is why we recommend eating carbs to tolerance and from whole foods only. Remember, diabetes is primarily a starvation adaptation, hence the high stress response. You never want to aggravate that further.

2. Do people lose weight and lower blood glucose on starch diets because these diets are very low in animal products?

The absence of animal products is irrelevant to the efficacy of these diets.

In the short term, all diets cause weight loss and lower blood glucose. Why? Because all diets create some form of caloric deficit and this has a mild and short term effect on metabolism, mainly through the lowering of glucose which affects insulin. But all diets fail in the long term because in order to manage weight, you need profound and long term effects on metabolism, as a whole, which is mainly done through the proper regulation of blood glucose. 

Weight management cannot be achieved using short term treatments, which do not impact blood glucose enough. Bypassing proper blood glucose regulation for simply a lowering of blood glucose in order to temporarily affect insulin, will not achieve long term results. All you are doing is releasing water weight and breaking down muscle mass, not burning body fat.

So, anytime someone points to a diet and claims that people are "losing weight" and "lowering blood glucose" on it, they are not making any special claim, as both of these effects are true of every diet on the planet.

3. They say meat builds muscle, but you can get fatter on carnivore.

"Meat" does not build muscle. Protein builds muscle and that is only stimulated through exercise.

Meat is not just protein. It contains plenty of fat and that’s what can make you fatter on carnivore. Consume leaner cuts of meat. Remember, the only true lean meat is wild game.

If you can't make your protein goal for the day, because it will cause you to go over your fat goal, supplement with whey protein. Remember, you must also have an exercise regimen in place. You won’t build muscle if you don’t use them.

4. An occasional bag of potato chips is not enough to gain weight.

That is correct. Again, it's all about proper blood glucose regulation. If a bag of potato chips does not affect your blood glucose regulation, then you can eat them but if it does, you cannot. For people who already have problems regulating their blood glucose, it does not take much to see a negative affect to their blood glucose so for them, an occasional bag of potato chips is enough to affect their goals.

Potato chips are very obesogenic. The refined oil, that the potato chips are fried in, mixed with the high starch of “baking potatoes”, makes for a very obesogenic food item and the obese are particularly sensitive to any condition that facilitates the growth of body fat. Potato chips are just that condition.

As a rough example, potato chips for a healthy person will cause a 0.5 increase in body fat in a span of months. Potato chips for an overweight/obese person will cause 2 pounds of body fat in a span of weeks. This is why obese people often complain that “just looking at a cupcake" causes them to gain weight. Fat people are extremely efficient and perfectly adapted at growing body fat. They must stay away from anything that makes it easier for them to do just that. 

So stay away from any food that disrupts blood glucose, even "occasionally" because it only takes one occasional hypoglycemic event to reinforce the adaptation towards obesity.  

5. Ever since I went carnivore, my belly fat has increased.

This is due to a badly formulated carnivore diet. When eating carnivore you must:

• Watch the fat content of your meat. Stop slathering rib eyes with sticks of butter or fat based sauces. Farmed animal meat is already very high in fat, even when it's marked "lean".
• Watch your dairy intake. Carnivore is a protein centered diet, not a fat centered diet. Dairy is mostly fat. You can easily go over your daily fat goal eating plates of cheese with bacon and drinking cartons of heavy cream.
• Watch the type of meat you’re eating. Carnivore should be done using fresh meat not cold cuts, processed, pre-cooked, pre-seasoned, pre-prepared meats. Hot dogs and sausages are party food, not health food.
• Stay away from one meal a day (OMAD). Meat is very satiating and boring, so this can cause you to get into the habit of eating only once a day. Don’t. Eating once a day is not a good practice for people who are overweight/obese and/or have metabolic conditions. Eat two meals a day and divide your daily protein between them. Stuffing yourself once a day will only further disrupt your insulin to glucagon ratio and the inability to acquire your daily protein requirement.

6. Carnivore exacerbates autoimmune conditions.

Read the carnivore recommendation above and watch your calorie intake. It is very easy to not eat enough, while on carnivore without realizing it, because of satiety. This can cause a stress response, in the body, that can trigger an immune response for some people.

Also, talk to your healthcare professional about any non improving and/or worsening symptoms when it comes to autoimmune conditions. Carnivore is suppose to be a metabolic treatment, not an autoimmune treatment. Diet, exercise and other lifestyle interventions are only complimentary to proper medical care.

Six common beliefs addressed, Part 86

1. The hunger felt during a fast is "false".

Hunger is never “false”. Cravings are false and we can easily figure those out because no one “craves” a real meal. They crave specific junk food items or tastes.

Hunger is real hunger. The question is should you be hungry or not. A short fast of 18 hours or less is usually not enough time to cause hunger. You should be able to use your own body fat for fuel, during this time. Gluconeogenesis takes care of any glucose demands and helps regulate your blood glucose, while you fast. 

But being hungry is not necessarily a bad thing either. It can just mean that your using fuel and you need more to replenish. All hunger means something and that is determined by your neuroendocrine state so there is no one way of interpreting it. The only thing that matters is whether you are in active obesity or not. Hunger is mostly inconsequential.

2. Starvation is not the only thing that produces autophagy. "Normal fasting” can also produce it.

"Normal fasting" is starvation. I don’t understand why people think they are two different things. They are the same thing. The only difference is the length of time you starve for. You can starve for an hour or until you're dead. The starving are fasting. You can get all technical and wise by saying that the obese are starving without fasting, but that’s a completely different conversation. We are only discussing "not eating". All “not eating” is starvation. "Fasting" is just a fancy term for starvation that doesn’t end in death.

Autophagy is triggered constantly in the human body. It is triggered every night, during the night time fast, and for other reasons, such as exercising. Even caloric restriction increases autophagy. Autophagy is useless for the treatment of obesity. It is just something the body does on its own and will not reduce your body fat. You need to burn body fat in order to get rid of it.

3. Will fasting lower blood glucose?

High body fat puts a very high insulin demand on the body, so when your blood glucose should be lowering, your body kicks in its counter regulatory system to prevent this. This is because this system is responding to your basal insulin levels. Higher basal insulin levels require higher glucose production in order to avoid glucose from dropping too low. So, as long as you have high body fat, your fasting blood glucose will be very difficult to get into the normal range of about 83 mg/dL. It will always be slightly higher. Lower blood glucose does not automatically equate to normal blood glucose.

4. Will fasting help with autoimmune disease?

This blog's focus is general metabolic health information, not autoimmune diseases, which should be monitored by a healthcare professional. But I am going to make an exception for this statement, since I want to make clear that "fasting for autoimmune health" is complete quackery and utter nonsense.

When you fast, the body goes into a temporary anabolic state where it under expresses certain non-essential processes. Some of those processes are immune system related. If the immune system is being "suppressed", then it can reduce autoimmune symptoms. This does not occur in everyone. For many, their symptoms increase rather than decrease. So, these short-term symptom chasing treatments, like fasting, are futile and do not treat nor improve the disease itself. You are doing no better than taking an aspirin for a broken leg. The pain is reduced, but the leg stays broken and you’re also damaging your stomach lining in the interim.

Treat your autoimmune disease with a healthcare professional and use supportive lifestyle habits like proper diet, exercise and systemic stress reduction to increase your treatments effectiveness.

5. Can fasting cause diabetes?

The claim that fasting causes diabetes went viral, a while back, causing all the people who make money off of low carb and fasting to have a cow. They claim this is based off a study that "wasn’t peer reviewed" and "couldn't be read", as it wasn’t even published yet. You know, just like the studies they like using to try and "prove" their own nonsense. It’s a tit for tat of BS. But this does make you wonder. If the study supposedly "couldn’t be read", then why are they so sure nothing was found or if what was found was even false?

Either way, we don’t care about any of that here. A healthy metabolism is diabetes resistant. The body does not naturally want to be in a diabetic state. So, it takes much more than just intermittent fasting to cause diabetes. But, that doesn’t mean that fasting is completely benign to metabolic health. Remember, your metabolic state is never "diseased", it is adapted.

Starvation adapts the body to hoard and increase its fat mass. This is a very well understood metabolic process that has been studied multiple times, in multiple settings, and with multiple animals, including humans. If you starve yourself too much, you die. If you starve yourself a little, you tend to get fat over time, after some initial “weight loss”. That’s how the body protects itself from future death. It’s been doing this, since the beginning of time. This is what keeps you alive during a famine and makes you more robust to survive a second one. Our metabolisms are extraordinarily adaptable. You can begin to adapt metabolism, in a very short time, to just about anything. Though it takes decades to adapt into diabetes, it takes a few weeks to adapt into “starvation”.

So, whatever this study was, and whatever it found, it wasn’t anything new. We have always known that starvation spares and increases body fat. Any person who has followed caloric restriction, for a long while, can attest to that fact. Increasing body fat puts you at risk for diabetes because high body fat puts a high insulin demand on the body, which further dysregulates blood glucose. 

But why? Because remember, the only question that matters with metabolic conditions is - Is my blood glucose being disrupted? Fasting disrupts blood glucose, just like carbohydrates, so that can lead to the starvation adaptation described above. It does this though:

• Fast for too long.
• Not eating enough at meal times.
• Binging at meal times.
  

If you do what’s on the above list, fasting will only make you fatter, in the long run, regardless of what the scale says in the short run. This is precisely why fasting has never been used as a proper protocol to address obesity and we have known about fasting, since we have known about eating. Just because you see fasting now on Facebook and trending on Twitter does not mean it’s a new discovery. Books on fasting have been published, since books began being published and just like all other "weight loss" strategies, it's been an utter FAIL.

So, the takeaway message is that if fasting is done correctly, not the way these low carb advocates say, it can be beneficial as an addition to your dietary and exercise protocol. But if done incorrectly, it can increase your body fat over time, through its affects on blood glucose regulation, regardless of what you eat.

6. Does blood glucose go up during illness?

People who have diabetes, or any other type of metabolic syndrome, tend to run high blood glucose during any type of illness or injury. This is caused by an over expression of the adrenal stress hormones that over react to any type of stress in the body.

Six common beliefs addressed, Part 84

1. Following "keto" will help you lower blood glucose and get off diabetes medications, but if you stop consuming high fat, your blood glucose will go back up.

You aren't "cured" and are still a diabetic, if you have to eat enormous amounts of fat to not see your blood glucose rise. You are simply masking your symptoms using a pretty simple and well-established fact about metabolism: fat metabolism displaces glucose metabolism and vice versa.

Fat consumption may give the affect of lower blood glucose simply because it raises basal insulin levels. You need insulin to store excess dietary fat. Higher insulin lowers blood glucose but it also lowers it when you don't want it to lower, which is when you are fasting. Abnormally low blood glucose while fasting disrupts proper blood glucose regulation in the long run. It is the main driver of metabolic syndrome. Remember, the lows in blood glucose, not the highs, set the rules.

2. Is Nutrisystem a "scam"?

Nutrisystem is a calorie centered weight loss approach, similar to Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Slim Fast, etc. Just like the others, it is also not appropriate for addressing metabolic dysfunction or obesity, since they only target one contributing factor for these conditions - all energy in. Basically calories.

Trying to address metabolic disease and obesity using only all energy in, with metrics such as calories, is a fool’s errand. The only thing you should care about is your blood glucose control. This is better done though macronutrient tracking, not calories. Not all macronutrients affect blood glucose the same way. 

With this program, no other lifestyle intervention is addressed, in any sustainable way. It is also not a whole food based program because when you use calories, as your tracking method, food quality becomes irrelevant. But, we know food quality effects the obese profoundly, as it affects their blood glucose regulation and energy out. You can be on a low calorie diet that is still affecting blood glucose regulation and preventing you from burning fat.

So, if you need to lose 20 pounds for bikini season, and you are otherwise healthy, try Nutrisystem. If you are also a lazy healthy person, who refuses to cook, use Nutrisystem. But, if you need to lose 50 lbs. and have diabetes, don’t bother. It will not affect your metabolism profoundly enough to be of any help in the long term because it does not address blood glucose regulation enough to do so.

BTW, don’t fall for the low carb/"keto" BS that claims these programs are "scams". That’s the pot calling the kettle metal. There are specific reasons, explained above, as to why these programs have low efficacy and it’s not simply because "keto" is better. "Keto" is also a rip off, as we also see the same unsustainability, nutrient poor food, expensive unnecessary junk (including books), concessions and marketing schemes galore. There are many iterations of 'keto' that do not help improve blood glucose regulation.

3. Can starchy vegetables affect ketosis and blood glucose?

That depends on the overall composition of the diet, amount eaten and how long you’ve been low carb. If you started a ketogenic diet yesterday, your blood glucose will still be affected. As time goes on, blood glucose is less affected because the body partitions it’s fuel better and blood glucose regulation improves. That is why it’s better to eat starchy vegetables, once your blood glucose stabilizes and you start losing body fat. 

You can absolutely be in ketosis, while eating potatoes because ketosis also occurs from starvation. So, if you only eat potatoes, but not too much of them, you’ll be in ketosis. Of course, starvation is never recommended, particularly to try and keep potatoes in the diet. Eliminate them instead.

4. Should you tackle blood glucose first and then weight?

You should normalize blood glucose first and then you can start losing body fat. Once blood glucose is normalized, the body metabolic adaptation that excessively stores and spares body fat will be broken.

5. Fasting is "anabolic", it increases metabolic rate and lowers lipids. 

The anabolic effect and increase in metabolism, that fasting produces, is extremely short lived. It is so short lived, in fact, that it is useless to even mention them as a "benefit", since the long-term effects of catabolism and lowering of metabolic rate, far outweigh any initial benefits seen. 

Also, the lowering of lipids, during a fast, is the same as the lowering of blood glucose. Both are temporary mumbo-jumbo, as it's expected that if your engine is OFF, you won't see any malfunction. The car is always running great, when it's simply not running.

6. Can plants exacerbate autoimmune conditions and other digestive conditions in some people?

Some people have to go on an all meat, "carnivore" style diet because plants interfere with their health. There are many reasons for this, from phytotoxins, to lack of enzymes, to lectins, to glutens, to residual pesticides and herbicides, but to make things really simple, plants may exacerbate health conditions because they simply weren’t in the food supply for 99% of our history on earth. Every single fruit and vegetable you see, at your farmer's market, has been man-made through cultivation and breeding. When you eat your plate of salad, you are actually eating a "processed" food. It is no wonder that, for many people, plants are intolerable to their health.

Foods with high amounts of indigestible cellulose and other fibers can change gut bacteria, causing excess gas and unnecessary bulk. This is the normal result of turning your one stomach into a fermentation vat, that requires four stomachs to digest, and ultimately end up filling your small intestine with roughage. We were made with a short colon because we aren’t supposed to carry around large amounts of unusable bulk. Your small intestine is designed to extract the most from nutrient dense foods. Plants aren’t those types of foods, so it puts extra strain on a system that wasn’t designed to process this type of stuff to begin with.

The safest plants are berries and roots. That’s what we would gather, in small amounts, and consume. Any other plant material we consumed came directly from the intestine of the animals we hunted and ate. That plant material was already broken down for us, so we didn’t have to do it.

People who aren’t affected by the consumption of plants have simply developed a tolerance for them, just like we developed an ability to digest milk, well into adulthood, from simply being exposed to it. Milk has proven to be advantageous, plants not so much. Therefore, for a large group of people, vegetables are problematic. Depending on the issues you are having, limit their consumption or eliminate them all together. You can also replace them with tubers, roots and/or squashes if you fare better on those.

At the end of the day the priority in your diet is meat, not plants. Plants are great side dishes and recipe enhancers, but nothing else.