Another fun n=1 experiment, looking at glucose, ketones, IF, & macros

[apod]

I received my Keto Mojo a couple weeks ago and have been looking for an excuse to use the thing.

I've been curious for a while now if a sustained, uninterrupted HFLC diet will gradually increase fasting glucose and worsen postprandial glucose disposal (as Mercola and previous experiments have hinted.) And, I've also been sort of curious to look at longer fasting periods, as well as exogenous ketones and amino acids in relation to serum ketones / glucose.

I'm thinking that I can gradually increase the time between carb-refeeds, measuring serum ketones in the afternoon, then do 1hr and 2hr glucose following my meals when I do carb it up. Right now, my eating window is around 4-6 hrs, but I'm thinking of tightening it closer to that 2-4hr spot, then just measuring before breakfast.

The consistency isn't that great here, although this accurately measures the real-life fluctuation in diet / activity. This stuff is notoriously difficult to quantify, but I'm hoping with a bit of data, I might have a better grasp on whether it makes more sense for me to aim for something like carbs every 2-3 days, or maybe every 2-3 weeks (or 100g net carbs vs 250g net carbs on those carbier days.) Or, whether it might make sense to stay down ~ 80g of protein, or if I can stretch that closer to 125g.

(Avg. Net Carb Intake: 78g/d with 2x days of total carbs > 200g with ~110g/d of protein):

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While I've heard that consuming carbs after protein and soon after exercise improves the blood glucose response, I'm curious if this logic might not apply as well to the low-carb trainee. My thoughts here being that I seem to see a higher blood serum level of glucose following resistance exercise and I'm particularly glucogenic in the fat-adapted state with elevated cortisol & catecholamines -- while insulin might normally suppress GNG, perhaps there's a delayed response here in this context, where moving the post-workout meal farther out and moving the protein to the latter end could work better. Just a theory.

[KatieS]

Apod, I've been disappointed how after fasting 17 hours and working out with weights & high heart rate aerobics, that my ketone level remains low (~0.3), but the glucose is 68-82. Maybe I need to fast longer than an hour after my workouts to test? I think you eat fruit as well, so it looks like you have to shun carbs to such a low level to achieve ketosis. You illustrate carb flexibility, which seems tolerable. Finally I've realized that I'm rarely 0.5-0.7, only thanks to the meter.

[apod]

In this short window, I've had my highest level of ketosis when I did a morning jog (Maffetone formula target HR of 180bpm - age) then tested several hours later and the following morning. Usually, I detect low levels of ketones soon after anything glycolytic / anaerobic, often with high-ish blood glucose. I was surprised to do 8g net carbs pre-workout via beetroot with a scoop of BCAAs and EAAs (with glutamine) and detect 1.5mmol/L of BHB a few hours afterwards. I'll be curious to try to look a little closer at this "Targeted Ketogenic Diet" approach as well -- I have heard mention of some carbohydrates actually "sparing ketones" that would otherwise be oxidized during exercise (eg. SuperStarch.)

You might test right before exercise or a couple hours afterwards. In one of Peter Attia's videos he had a nice graph showing serum ketones before exercise, followed by a dip after, then a nice rise afterwards continuing through the following morning.

I'm going to try increasing the HFLC days from 3 days up to something like 2wks, and see what decreasing protein closer to say 75-90g looks like. In the past when I stayed very high fat for months at a time, it took a good week of carbs to prevent spiking up over 180 mg/dL following a moderate intake of carbs (just say a couple bananas or a bit of oat bran), with fasting glucose that tended to run a little on the high side.

Right now, my main carby fruit is just berries -- occasionally, quite a lot of berries.

[apod]

Here's a bit more data, now up to 5 days between carbs (avg. net carb intake: ~80g/d.) So far, I'm not seeing an increase in fasting glucose or a drop in glucose disposal.

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From here on out, I might just log the macros and spare my fingertips / test strips by only testing around the carby days.

Interestingly, I find that I'm often hungry on the morning after a carby day, which seems to correlate with the lower (but still present) ketone levels and higher glucose, while on other days, I'm not hungry until sometime in the late afternoon and my energy is higher, even though glucose is lower.

I haven't been too impressed with the ketone salts (not a repeater for me), but I did see a few new esters on the market that claim to get you up into that 2-3mmol/L range (unnecessarily acidic / overkill?)

It seems like I can get away with a moderately high protein intake overall without raising average fasting glucose, but a high protein breakfast (particularly eggs) will lead to a blood sugar reading of ~90-100 mg/dL for the rest of the day. Around 4-5g of gelatin doesn't seem to impact the number, and a small amount of pre-workout carbs (~8g) doesn't seem to take me any more out of ketosis than anaerobic exercise itself. The trend shows that it takes me around 2-3 days after a carby meal to really get back to where I want to be (perhaps it would be quicker with a more modest ~80-120g net carb refeed than a 150-300g one.)