Having all your carbs at night meal is one of Asprey's Bulletproof Diet many rules. One reason for his advice that seems to be working for me is better sleep. I am following Fung's fasting protocol, but that plan also puts all carbs, inc. some starchy carbs, into the evening meal.

Jey, I am confused! Please help me out. You have read many many books on LC so know what I am asking about. The LC books I have read do not recommend eating carbs at the evening meal as it raises blood sugar. Now, here I find that you have benefited from a carby supper.

What is the physiological explanation for that?

I think it is going to depend on how each body works and lifestyle and the underlying cause of each, personal diabetes.

Once I understood LCHF eating and had my BG stabilized I tested eating/restricting carbs at various meals. (Testing included what happened to FBG the next morning.)

For me it is best to eat most of my carbs at lunch. My insulin resistance seems to be highest in the morning. And carbs eaten at lunch seem to burn away quickly. Dinner carbs, for me, tend to carry forward into FBG.

We really are all going to be different. I encourage you to run a few tests on yourself and find your best eating pattern. Then, chuckle,

I have done that and have seen little variation by time of day.

What I really wanted to know was: what is the basis for the recommendation to eat a high carb evening meal?

The comments above, like Jey's, seem to imply these are across the board recommendations and not individual recommendations based upon blood tests.

There is a second meal effect. When you eat carbohydrates in the morning, especially slow-acting ones, free fatty acids go down. If lunch comes while free fatty acids are still suppressed in the blood, there'll be less free fatty acids to compete with glucose for uptake, and then the same will happen at dinner, if free fatty acids are still down. David Jenkins did a study where 50 grams of glucose in water was sipped for three and a half hours, or drank as a single bolus. With the sipping, free fatty acids went down and the glucose load was handled with far less insulin than when gulped, and there was also a strong second meal effect, glucose sippers with their lower free fatty acids and lower insulin curve handled carbs in a standardized lunch better.

This used to be a free access study, but no more. Kindke blogged on it (I'm the Donny he mentions) here;

http://kindkehealthnotes.blogspot.c...se-jenkins.html

I have seen stuff showing carbs handled better at dinner than at breakfast. Caveat; most data is with people who ate breakfast, lunch, dinner. Through the day, as the body switches over to a carbohydrate-based metabolism, it handles carbs better. Free fatty acids are lower as the day progresses. Will this happen with low carbohydrate?

http://diabetes.diabetesjournals.or...3.full.pdf+html



Glucose tolerance tests given 11 hours after a standard meal. The test itself was given at either 7 am or 7pm. At 7 pm, free fatty acids were higher than at 7am. Which makes sense--active people need more energy than inactive, sleeping people do, so these people would be more glycogen depleted, more dependent on fat, and need more of that fat in the evening than in the morning. Also, if they ate at 8 am with the evening protocol, then that standard meal came after the usual 8 hour or so fast called sleep, making it likely that their glycogen levels were lower still--probably pushing them further into fatty acid metabolism. Maybe in a situation like this, glucose is spared for glycogen repletion--suppression of postprandial glucose oxidation facilitates this.

Anyways, under this protocol, they were more glucose tolerant in the morning than in the evening. I don't know how this translates to low carb--but I'd suspect that after a day of activity, opposed to a night of rest, metabolism will be elevated in a low carber, and free fatty acids will be higher to support this, glucose tolerance lower. If the second meal effect depends on suppression of free fatty acids, this seems likely.

There's a trade-off, though--glucose tolerance gets a little worse. But being more dependent on free fatty acids for our energy--isn't that what a lot of us are pushing for? My glucose tolerance is probably worse 24/7 than it would be if I moved to Kitiva and lived on sweet potato, cassava, fish, and a little coconut. I'm okay with that. It's normal. Most of my carbs come from heavy cream and spinach, broccoli, etc., so it's not an issue for me.

Benay, if you makes you feel better, I am confused too. Teaser's explained why this happens, so I'll just list Asprey's reasons for carbs in the evening. But he is a bio-hacker, not a doctor. I am currently following Dr. Fung's alternate day IF to bring down BG. The carb timing effect of these two plans just happens to end up the same.

1. Eating carbs for breakfast will set you up for an energy spike and crash along with food cravings throughout the entire day, and Asprey suggests testing this yourself with various macronutrient ratios to see how your body reacts. Of course BPC is recommended instead of breakfast.
2. Eating carbs for breakfast also takes you out of ketosis, and he favors a 16-18 hour IF for ketosis.
3. VLC all time creates other issues, so he recommends timing carbs to avoid them.
4. Also must avoid feeding "bad bacteria" throughout the day, if not, they will stop producing "fasting-induced adipose factor" (FIAF) [one of his "out-there" ideas...or maybe not?]
5. So the Bulletproof answer is 30g of approved carbs, plus vegetables, but only with your evening meal. The body uses starch and sugar to make serotonin, so it helps sleep. Carbs relax you and cause an energy drop, so only eat them at night. The extra carbs will help your brain and body do the work it needs to while sleeping, like making tears and mucus.
So net down, his claim is that proper timing of carbs allows you to have all the benefits of Low Carb without Long Term problems.

Does everyone even have LT problems? No. Will having carbs raise Blood Glucose in some people? Yes. Will his bio-hacked ideas work for me? Can only find out by trying, but since Fung's IF was working before, and they are basically the same thing, I mentioned his theories.

Teaser just one clarification, please, on your explanation. Ok, I get that the free fatty acids are what your body is using for fuel in lieu of glucose. Right? Correct me if I'm wrong.

Just where do these free fatty acids reside? I know fat is stored in the form of triglycerides and that triglycerides circulate in the bloodstream (and break down before they pass thru the walls of the fat cells). But where ARE these free fatty acids? In the gut? In the liver? I realize I'm missing a piece of the puzzle when trying to visualize your explanation.

JEY thanks for the great synopsis on the BPD.

Thanks, Benay, for recommending Protein Power. I'd always discounted it as High Protein. It's really very moderate. I got the book this week and had time to take measurements/ run numbers today (it's not as cumbersome as it first seems). It estimates I'm 33% fat (ugh), with lean mass of 93.8#, which is not far off from numbers I got at the gym about 2 years ago with one of their fat calculating scales. Going thru the numbers, based on my activity level I should probably eat between 65 grams (.7g per pound) and 75 grams (.8g per pound) of protein per day. It's pretty much what I've been doing for the last few months with good results. It's always reassuring to find a source that's a little more definitive. Thanks again.

Oh, and I've always wondered if my goal weight is realistic and/or a good one. PP recommends I weigh between 120 and 136 - somehow I intuited exactly where I should be (though of course I'd like to be lower than my stated goal).

The free fatty acids are carried in the albumin. So we're talking about free fatty acids being high in the blood itself--but it's easier for free fatty acids to get into cells than it is for triglycerides, the cells don't have to express lipoprotein lipase, no need for lipolysis. Triglycerides are that one step more away from oxidation, so they don't compete as strongly with glucose. That might be the problem with high fasting triglycerides. Blood triglycerides are an attempt to keep free fatty acids from competing with glucose after a carbohydrate load, insulin keeps muscle cells from expressing lipoprotein lipase, so that as long as free fatty acids aren't elevate, glucose is the only game in town--so it's more readily cleared from the blood. High triglycerides suggests a backup, there's often a failure to lower free fatty acids in response to a carbohydrate/insulin load.

Thanks, Teaser! I had to read that several times but I *think* I understand what you are saying. At least partially. If we don't have a lot of FFAs in our blood, glucose is readily cleared. So do those of us eating LC have more FFAs in our blood (where someone on a HC diet might have more glucose and/or trigs)? If LCHF does not raise FFAs, then what does?

Fasting and LCHF will both raise free fatty acids. But it depends on a person's metabolic state going in. A type II diabetic or very insulin resistant person will have high levels of free fatty acids, even when fed. In that case, it's a no-brainer--if you can't somehow lower free fatty acids, carbohydrates are a bad idea.

It's not that high free fatty acids are bad, it's a perfectly natural state to be in, as long as insulin and glucose aren't elevated at the same time as the free fatty acids. There are studies on gluco-lipotoxicity in beta cells. Elevated fatty acids are harmless, elevated glucose is harmless--the combination destroys the cells.

Great information....worth the price of admission (and potentially dumb questions).

The question should be how much more or less does a low carb diet change glucose level compared to a high carb diet.

I started strict low carb Dec 01 2014. My BS is always less than 6.1 two hours after a meal. I used to see readings over 20 while eating the SAD way. How could low carb be bad for a person?

Elevated glucose is harmless in context of low circulating fatty acids?

I never heard that.

Do you think this might explain why vegan website have numerous testimonials from people who improved their blood sugar level, despite the high carb intake of vegan diets (like McDougall)? Because they are low fat?