Data driven fasting

[Subtle_badger]

optimisingnutrition.com/dat...

Hunger Training is really interesting, and might be useful for beginning fasters and those who haven't been able to make it work for them. It's basically using a blood glucose (fingerprick) meter to learn when when are really hungry and gradually increase your fasting window.

So for three days you take your blood glucose before you eat when you are hungry, to establish your target BG. When you establish what your BG is when you are hungry, you set your trigger a little below that. You can only eat when you go below your trigger. As you get used to that, you can lower your trigger again and again.

The idea is that you a pushing yourself a little, but never to the point you go crazy and you don't binge, because you are just a little hungrier than you are when you normally eat.

This a ton more to read, and you can download a manual from the link above.

(Interestingly, I am monitoring my interstitial glucose and there is no relationship between hunger and glucose level; in fact, when I am hungry my glucose is a little higher if anything. I guess that's low carb for you.)

[S11m Volunteer 70lb IF20]

I thought that carbohydrate stimulated the release of insulin, which decreased blood glucose which made you hungry - so the short-term hunger you feel after eating carbohydrate is "real" in that it is caused by hypoglycaemia?

[Subtle_badger 16Kg IF 72hrs in reply to S11m]

When you eat a balance meal, your body release insulin (it starts even before you eat; the sight, smell, taste or even thought of food can trigger it). The insulin is matched with the quantity of food, so as the food is processed by the stomach and released to the blood stream, the insulin packs it away, directing protein to lean tissue repair and building, glucose to replace muscle and liver glycogen, and the excess to fat storage. The blood sugar should rise gently and fall gently again, and then glucagon and insulin dance together for the next few hours to make sure the muscles and brain have enough glucose, but not raise blood glucose very high. Eventually, the glucose will drop low enough that you need to eat again, and your hunger should trigger that.

At least, that's how it's supposed to work.

If you have a high carb meal, your blood sugar shoots up, and the pancreas goes into over drive to get it down again ("metabolic emergency"), when the blood glucose is at safe levels again, insulin is still high, so it keeps dropping, and you feel hungry again, and reach for another biscuit.

Rinse, wash, repeat.

So yeah, it's real hunger, you do need food or you will be in trouble. but the whole feedback loop is broken.

It's not the only cause of hunger. I was hungry today, despite my blood glucose being slightly elevated, but steady. I assume ghrelin was calling my name.

[S11m Volunteer 70lb IF20 in reply to Subtle_badger]

"Real hunger" it is - but, if you know it is short-term hunger, you can, hopefully, ignore it - without getting tooo hypoglycaemic.

[sandybrown]

Thank you.

Lot of excellent information.