Fauve, most of the fiber I am adding is from more veggies, like those tasty and easy baby carrots I missed. Having more fiber in your foods is to modulate the insulin or BG response is an important part of the eating days. Might you have problems with fasting because you don't have enough of the fibery foods when you do eat? I'm not adding fiber supplements, except one occasional PGX cap (when the dose is supposed to be four!! before each meal) but have consciously added fiber foods. So vinegar is just add it whenever, but 1T before dinner now seems to be my limit for now. Plus dressings.

In Jimmy Moore's interview on Keto, the book recommends testing BG every 30 minutes for 2 hours PP, looking for never over 140 and back to base line by the fourth test. Doing that establishes what foods do or not fit within your own carb tolerance levels. Realized it would have been interesting to do this more often after I ate lentils and more veg. Without a home insulin test, the protein or dairy (actually have eliminated almost all dairy and whey powder) impact is just a guess.

How are the BG readings you take yourself?

Liz, I'm not committed enough yet to do that. Of course I'm not where you are in your journey either. I've got 83 pounds to lose.

I feel good with the alternate day fasting. Today is my second day, Thursday being my first day. Since Thursday, I've lost an even 4 pounds and feel really good. I even threw in a glug of apple cider vinegar into a glass of water and chugged it down. I can't help but remember a book my mom had back in the 1960's about doing that. All the old remedies had one do that and Jim has ascribed to it for years. That's why we had some in the house.

I also think of the days when people didn't eat all the time to "maintain their metabolisms" and how much thinner the population was. People didn't eat all the time, even "healthy" snacks. I know I didn't!

They vary. Fasting glucose anywhere from 70s (77 today) to just over a hundred in the morning (only if I've gone off plan and had a dessert the night before - it's a tangible sign I should not do that!). Whereas a year ago it was always in the 70s or 80s, now it is more likely in the 80s or low 90s. I don't like seeing that creep.

PP is almost under 140, usually 110-120 if I eat a good low carb meal of 12-16 grams of carbs. Occasionally it will go higher -150s or 160s - again, it I eat off plan. Sometimes a combo of turnips and onions or similarly higher carb veggies (but still induction-approved) will spike me into the 140s or 150s . I never bother with pp readings after breakfast because my ~6 g carbs breakfast keeps me right at 100 or so.

But what is troublesome is that a year ago I would come back down to fasting levels 2 hours after eating. Now, it seems to take much longer. I might hover between 100 and 120 for 3-4 hours. Basically, I'm seeing a change and I don't like it. Sometimes I'll be fine for the first 2 hours and out of curiosity I'll take a reading at 3 hours and find I'm higher then than I was at 1 or 2 hours. What's up with that?

I have noticed generally that I am improving a bit under Dr Fung's plan, and I think it is probably the lack of snacking that is helping. That is the key to everything for me: eat a somewhat larger meal at lunch and dinner, with absolutely no snacks in between meals. Skipping breakfast a few days a week is easy and seems to expedite things as well.

That's funny, I used to take ACV back in the 70s as well. I don't really remember why, was it an Adelle Davis thing? I also remember washing my face with soap in a basin of water to "catch" the natural oils and return them to the skin, followed up with a rinse of diluted ACV.

Now, I'm likely to add a wedge of lemon to glass of tap water - is it the same thing essentially as the ACV?

Just listened to one of the Keto Clarity diet experts.
http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/
(See also post on these experts in Research forum)

At about 15 minutes, Dr. Mobbs talked about a way of getting the benefits of a Ketogenic Diet (the therapeutic one, Very High Fat 4:1) by Alternate Day Fasting. Ok, it was a mouse study, but if he had cancer, it would likely be what he would use if he couldn't tolerate Keto. Also said you should be producing ketones similar to a Keto diet, even if over 2 days you did not reduce calories.
Umm, tempting, I am fasting today and have one ketone strip left. maybe why fasting has become easier, less hunger overall? Up to now,with more carbs, assumed I wasn't even in ketosis. Interesting. More to ponder.

4pm. EDIT ADD: Ketones were 1.4 after a 23 hour fast!
Blood Glucose 88

When I have tracked eating days, it was around 70 carbs, with 20 g fiber, so 50g net carbs (more salad, veg, lentils, flaxseed MIM, carrots, hummus, etc). Somewhat amazed by those ketones! Has anyone heard Dr. Fung mention ketosis? Actually found 3 more strips, so I can test this again after some time or maybe on an eating day?

Maybe the 2 day average of carbs are still low enough? I truly did not expect to be in ketosis at all, and 1.4 is solidly there. And it feels like ketosis this past week, no hunger, energy, etc. A whole new wrinkle to this experiment.

Inconclusive review of studies on the question:
"Is Dairy Fattening?” Hormonal Obesity XXIV
http://intensivedietarymanagement.c...airy-fattening/

Thank you JEY100. I just read "Is Dairy Fattening" and almost want to pull my hair out, it's so back and forth, I hope in his next post he manages to pull some kind of conclusion out of the hat. Meanwhile do we eat fish or not ? LOL

I'm have a bit of a head spin myself. I've been doing the 24-hour fast on alternate days following Fung's guidelines and have lost 5 pounds since I began last Thursday.

But then there is the Duke Diet with Dr. Westman. His guidelines limit cream to no more than 2 tablespoons a day. Well holy cats, I can't do that AND fast. I have a 16 oz. mug of coffee with 2 tablespoons of cream in the morning, one at midday and possibly one at night. The evening one I can forego, but not the two daily ones. Not while fasting.

So now I'm wondering if the cream at midday is defeating the purpose of the fast. I guess I could wean myself down to black coffee during the day. Lord, help me.

You are overthinking this Blue (something I'd never do ) Eating 70 g carbs I'm obviously not following both plans for these two months. Maybe I'll change my profile.
Do whatever you need to get into the fasting groove first. However, the issue of Dairy being Insulinogenic has come up so many times here and elsewhere, I don't use cream much myself anymore. More almond milk and coconut cream in coffee. But if that is what satisifes you, cream or half/half is only one carb, stick with it.

Don't care what he wrote, I'm having shrimp tonight

Wha......? Me? Overthink? Yeah, I know. The one who doesn't want to be consumed by what she consumes. I have Dr. Westman's little booklet and re-read that last night. It was a little unsettling. Thank you for permission to keep my cream......for now. Whew!

Blue, I endorse the decision to use cream as well - till you get evidence that it may be slowing you. I think Dr Fung is on an equal with Dr Westman - he's a deep thinker with a clinical practice. He tries his ideas of his patients and sees the results. It may be that the practice of fasting gives you some latitude in other areas - like cream. I'd give his plan a chance before you second guess and modify it.

I too read the latest post last night and I'm hoping he's setting it up like a mystery - where any person (or dietary factor) could be the villain. I hope he's working on his ending because it's making me tense as well!

The other thing I considered, though I've not followed all the links to all the studies yet - what sort of studies are they? Do people who drink more milk routinely pay more attention to their health in general? Or were these intervention studies where former non milk drinkers were instructed to start drinking milk and found their insulin resistance improved? Or, like he mentioned with whey protein on the positive post, does milk simultaneous raise insulin and provide satiety that keeps you from eating as much later. This is sounding familiar….doesn't Guyenet talk about he satiating quality of insulin release? Are they looking at the same studies?

As for me, no fasting since last Wednesday and none in sight till this Wednesday. I look forward to a routine couple of weeks and getting back to it.

The first study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19825820:



What does validated mean in this context? I thought these questionnaire studies were by recall. Dumpster diving?

"A Food Frequency Questionnaire (FFQ) is a limited checklist of foods and beverages with a frequency
response section for subjects to report how often each item was consumed over a specified period of
time. ... Retrospective method that relies upon the respondent’s memory...http://cctsi.ucdenver.edu/Research-Resources/CTRCs/NutritionCore/Documents/Food_Frequency_Questionnaires.pdf."



This would seem to argue for more of a balanced approach than very low carb. The book Dr. Fung mentioned in one of this lectures, for instance, The Blood Sugar Solution is plant and carb heavy ("slow carb, not low carb") in its recommendations for what to eat. I have it from the library and he's pretty big on quinoa, beans, lentils, tofu, rice, veggies, fruit.

The next study http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19625683:



Again with the "validated food-frequency questionnaire". If there is a correlation with fish as protein (insulinogenic presumably) then what about just fish oil? They're talking about people who "consumed fish". I take fish oil for both depression and arthritis.

The dairy studies were interesting, though as a life long dairy consuming fat diabetic I feel something like a poster child for the opposite point! Perhaps it was the lack of high fiber. I've always thought it was important, just difficult to achive in the absence of cereals and lots of vegetables. That's something I really want to work on though, increasing both fiber and resistant starch.

I wonder if Dr. Fung will address resistant starch at some point. I've read some convincing stories of people using RS effectively to lower blood sugars overall as well as enabling them to eat a greater variety of foods without blood sugar spikes. Decreased food intolerances, as well. Even exercise. http://www.diabetes-warrior.net/tag/resistant-starch/



I'm reassured that Dr. Fung doesn't claim to have all the answers. Even the "high quality" studies seem a bit shaky to me in their methodology, not to mention trying to reduce the complexity and individuation of many human bodies to quantifiable data.

Having been in a 16 week diet study at UNC, I can tell you validated food frequency questionnaires are a joke, even when you have a short time frame and keep daily paper food trackers! Just recalling foods over years is impossible. The food categories are confusing, the number of times you ate x amount of x per week over the past 8 weeks (we completed the standard FF 3 times) was hard even with diaries. It is so long after about page 3 I was bubbling in a WAG. Discount the strength of any study involving them.

I dropped another 1.2 pounds. Yesterday was a fast day and it went much easier than the first two. I didn't have that gnawing, sick feeling at midday. I've also been keeping carbs at 20g. and I kept the cream. I'm happy with how this is working for me. As the doldrums hit we'll see how it goes but I plan on continuing.