If you have not watched the Australian documentary " The Magic Pill" yet on Netflix, get to it asap. I was thinking about a Keto diet for some time now, and this documentary added the necessary kick to it with how native tribes ate and what has changed for them.
The premise of the documentary is basically that us human beings over 5,000 generations have become the most fearsome adapt predator on the planet due to physical strength and intelligence and what has changed since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution?
The one thing that has changed is our nutrition, our diet. And the information we are given about it of what is good and what is bad.
Anyhow, do yourself the favor, watch the movie, read about it, think about it. And keep an open mind that our food pyramid as we know it, might be upside down.
I started on Monday, not so much as a Keto-diet but eliminating carbs and turning my food pyramid upside down, anything that has a glycemic index, and replacing it with fat and protein, fewer fruit, more vegetables. No grains, no bread. Replace with nuts. Almond flower breads. No potatoes, no rice, no pasta. Replace with cauliflower mash, zucchini gratin, zucchini spirals. Whole milk out, in comes the heavy cream. In comes the avocado. Blueberries, as often promoted in Keto diets, actually have a higher glycemic Index than apples, pears, and plums with about 38 and cherries, 22, and grapefruit with 25 being the lowest. I will not say ânoâ to those but reserve them for very light snacks and emergencies when and if running low. And a fair warning: It appears that âthe industryâ has already gotten a hand on that âGlycemic Indexâ and there is a lot of misleading info out there. Best example: skim milk, whole milk, heavy cream. The higher the fat the better since you are replacing carbs with fat. Personal example so far: replacing whole milk with heavy cream in coffee = bolus reduction by 50%, resulting in a steady level while whole milk has a spike even though the bolus is 50% higher.
Results for Monday with keeping the Basal as is and being very careful with the Bolus, I ended up with an 121 average, deviation of 28, 100% TiR set at 60-180 and most importantly no sharp spikes. All very gradual soft changes. Food intake was Coffee w/ heavy cream instead of whole milk with normal Bolus = slight drop instead of steady. Egg w/cheese and chives, no Bolus = steady. Big dinner with roasted chicken and roasted veggies, all low glycemic, no potatoes. Romaine with normal Bolus = no spike but extremely steady level all night long. I expected somewhat of a drop in the middle of the night and tried to cover with some nuts, pecan and almonds, which led to a slow and steady rise to Tuesday morning of a 178 reading. Lesson learned!
Continuation on Tuesday with extremely steady level results with an average of 119, deviation of 37, and TiR of 91%. 9% of TiR was low between 55-60 because of a touch too big of a bolus to correct.
I will not go into food details anymore but that I try to eat extremely low glycemic, not to be hungry, still having a glass of wine. I struggled a bit with no rise after dinner with a reduced Bolus and a slight drop below 60. Lesson applied from what I learned the previous day about the nuts and spend all night between 91-94, no spikes, a complete flat line. It is now Wednesday morning, almost 10am, with a reduced Bolus around 7am and Coffee w/ heavy cream there are no changes. From midnight, and before, until now between 91-95.
Take away from the first 48 hours, actually 60 hours: extremely steady levels, no sharp spikes, really easy to control with some adjustments. Slight reduction in Insulin intake. The Basal seems to work just fine in the background.
Off to eat something, eggs and bacon, no bread, no Bolus. Letâs see how that works? 60 minutes later after 3 eggs and 2 slices of bacon = 108, an increase from 95, still sipping the last bit of coffee. Kind of disgusting by now with being 3 hours old. Another 60 minutes and it is creeping up to 122 now, doing an ever so light Bolus.
As a disclosure, the results from last year, which I was very proud off: 122 mg/dl Average Glucose (CGM), 48 mg/dl Standard deviation (CGM), Low Hypoglycemia risk, 85% TiR, 3% Low, 2% Very low, 10% high with settings between 60-180/24 hours.
So far, in the last 48 hours, I am beating those numbers by a good margin: 120, 33, n/a, 96% TiR, 4%low, n/a very low.
Many researchers believe that the percentage of meat in the diet of hunter-gatherer societies is quite low, and that carbs were actually much more significant. Here is an example of such studies:
