Hi all,

I have not followed this diet exactly, but I have lost over 18 kilos and my fasting blood sugar are now at normal levels.
However, as soon as I take some carbs it goes up as before. Will this take time and will I really need to train my mussles in order to get better results or is walking enough? My HBA1C shows normal values as well, 31. Many thanks for any tips!

It is great your fasting BG is normal but as you have seen, carbs are the problem with higher BG. You will have to stay low carb for the rest of your life if you dont want to go back to being T2. You can maybe relax a little with the occasional treat but not too often. Sorry if thats not what you want to hear. Carbs are the problem not lack of exercise. Exercise is good for burning up glucose but a short walk doesnt do it really.

Just as with any other course of treatment, this doesn’t work if you stop following it – just as the carbs stop making you ill when you stop eating them.

Although walking is great exercise, it would be a good idea to do something else as well. If high impact aerobics and gym workouts don’t appeal, try some gentle toning and strengthening exercises. Or swim, dance, play a sport, do HIIT. If you try something different each week you’ll find something to suit you – and get much fitter doing it.

As the other two have said, if you repeat what made you ill in the first place, you will be ill again. – The food industry is big business, and its in their interest to portray a high carb diet as normal, when it just is not what our bodies are designed to eat. – Stick to eating low carb and find ways of enjoying the freedom that brings.

I believe that there are two benefits from exercise. One is burning up the glucose stored in your muscles, the other is helping to create new muscles and denser bones. – When your insulin levels are high your body develops insulin resistance. Its logical to presume that as you keep insulin levels low and your body builds new muscle cells the percentage of your muscles which are insulin resistant will change over time.

Insulin blocks the growth hormone from functioning normally. That is the hormone that is responsible for maintenance of the quality of bone and muscle. – Putting your body under stress helps trigger those repairs. As you get older and are more at a risk of falls, the strength of your bones becomes important to quality of life.

Dr Bikman recommends resistance training, specifically weight training.

Hi cll9090
Wow, what a brilliant result. I’ve just read your first post and 18 kilos is a brilliant amount of weight to have lost. Your hba1c reading is also great. I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes 4 years ago and, using MMs BSD book, like you I got my hba1c readings back into the normal range quickly. But my hba1cs have always been at 35/36 so it’s smashing that you’ve got yours to 31. You must be thrilled with that.

As everyone has said, what you’ve experienced is how it works for most people I think. When I first started BSD I tested my bgls before and after every meal and too many carbs and my bgls would go up. That’s the same today. Since being diagnosed T2 in 2016 I’ve also been a weekly visitor to the diabetes.co.uk forum. Over that time, I have only heard two people with T2 say they can eat anything after doing a BSD style or low-carb diet. I remember the number because they stood out from the majority whose experience was the same as ours. What I do hear a bit more are people who say over the years they seem to be able to tolerate a few more carbs than they used to. But it’s still within the context of keeping to a generally lower carb diet. (Btw, the other thing I hear is that for some people the diet hasn’t had any impact at all – we really are the lucky ones.)

Like sunshine-girl says, I’m aware that might not be what you hoped to hear. My first few months on lower carb I struggled. I missed my favourite foods etc. But what happens is your favourite foods just change – you get new favourite foods. I can honestly say as an old chocoholic and crisp fiend I really love what I eat now – and the bonus is I feel fantastic!

While I agree about the benefits of exercise, resistance training etc at this point personally I’d say if you can build in additional exercise great, but if you can’t don’t worry too much about it – you’re doing brilliantly already. I’ve read of lots of people who manage to keep their T2 in remission with no exercise at all.

One thing on walking – I have heard quite a few people say a brisk 15/20 min walk after a meal helped lower their bgl reading a bit – I walk but generally early morning and not too briskly so have never bothered testing this – but might be useful to know.

Let us know how you get on. But really, great results.
Jennie xx

Hi,
I saw a small amount of a repeat program by DR MM on the BBC late last night. – It reminded me that there is research that HIIT training for just a few weeks can help reduce Insulin Resistance. If you want to get to to point where your bodies reaction to moderate levels of carbs returns to normal its Insulin Resistance that you need to address. – – Thats the state we are in for years and when the body can’t pump out enough Insulin to overcome the resistance that people are diagnosed as being T2.

Apparently the research suggests that brief periods of exercising hard to drain the muscles of glucose so that the cells can then react normally to insulin helps to improve the condition more than any other form of exercise.

I wonder if exercising at the end of a shortish fast would do the same thing?

I think its that the intensive exercise drains the muscle cells of stores, and then the cell has to respond to insulin to replace which gets the insulin sensitivity improvement.

Squidge, there does seem to be some evidence building up about the benefits of fasted exercise. I think mainly because when you end a fast you get a surge of growth hormone and if you have exercised just before breaking the fast your muscles get the benefit of that during recovery from exercise. It is not the exercise necessarily that builds muscle, but the recovery from exercise. As JGwen points out, exercise also drains glycogen from the muscles which then needs to get replaced. Fasting also depletes glycogen, but it is much slower. I know at the end of a 36-40 hour fast if I try climbing the stairs at work my legs will feel as though I’ve just finished an intense HIIT workout. So basically it is taking 36-40 hours fasting to get the same result as a 45min HIIT workout.
Jennie, I’m not diabetic, but reactive hypoglycemic. When I was wearing a continuous glucose monitor last year I noticed that if I ate lunch and then went for a walk it caused me to go hypo within about 90 min of returning from the walk, even with a lower carb lunch, so definitely lowering my bg, but too much in my case. I experimented and found that if I went for the walk first and then ate lunch, my bg was much more stable throughout the afternoon. Here I thought I was doing something healthy by walking after eating and it turns out to be what was driving my intense afternoon sugar cravings!

Thanks for the explanation. I only fast for 16 to 18 hours, so that’s probably not going to do it. I’ll try to build some HIIT into my routine.

Hi articfox
That’s interesting about your experience with walking and the continuous glucose monitor results.
When I first did BSD, while I measured my bgls before and after food (still do at times) I never bothered before and after walking. Although I’ve read a number of people saying about the benefits of walking after meals I never did that. I hadn’t walked in years so it was enough of an achievement for me to get out of the door and start walking at all.
But, I’ve just bought a CGM and so will be sure to monitor how different forms of exercise, and at different times of day, affect me.

hi cll9090 – hope things are still going well for you.
Jennie xx