Acute Onset Insulin Resistance?

[TaeTae]

First of all, hi! I've been lurking for a couple of week and finally decided to create an account.

I've been following a semi-strict CR protocol since the first week of August:

• 1400-1800 cal/day, usually OMAD in the evenings and with the occasional Friday cheat day.
• Regular exercise (until last week) once a day.

I'm not diabetic but I've been tracking my blood sugar religiously (with the thought that a low AGE diet and blood-sugar that rarely goes above 85 will reduce AGE formation/accumulation). For the first few weeks of doing this my blood sugar looked awesome, usually around 80 in the AM, and would stay +/- 5 from there all day. After eating I'd spike to 90-120, then drop back down to 70-80 within 2 hours (sometimes as low as 60).

Last week for some reason my blood sugar started getting wonky. Thursday's for example it was 95-104 in the AM, hovered there all day. After eating it shot to 130, then dropped to 80 within two hours.I'd thought this might be due to some keto or CR adapted insulin resistance, so I've been eating regularly at or above maintenance since Friday of last week, but the results are still off. Today I woke up with a 104 reading, Had a cup of blueberries and some whey protein, and stayed at 104 at 45min and 2 hours post meal, I basically had no blood-sugar reaction. 

So I have a million questions:

Does anyone have any idea what would be causing this? If it were caused by either CR or OMAD induced insulin resistance, how long does it take to adapt out of it? Is it possible to stay below 85 for most of the day on a CR diet?

 

As an aside, I'm 32, 6'2 and at 205 lbs, at around 18% BF, so I doubt I'm suddenly becoming diabetic (at least I hope not)

 

Thanks!

[mccoy]

Welcome to the forum Tae Tae.

One instance of relatively high fasting BG could be increased blood cortisol due to many causes, one of the most frequent being stress which alters its overnight release.

The so called Dawn phenomenon is related to overnight release of hormones, usually in diabetic people, but sometimes it is invoked in healthy people as well

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/diabetes/expert-answers/dawn-effect/faq-20057937

Maybe some members on a longtime CR regime may chime in with useful thoughts.

 

[Dean Pomerleau]

Hi Tae Tae - welcome to the CR forums.

7 hours ago, TaeTae said:

1400-1800 cal/day, usually OMAD in the evenings and with the occasional Friday cheat day.

Eating one big meal per day in the evening may not be optimal for glucose control and even more so if you don't exercise afterwards.

As I've suggested elsewhere recently, if you are going to eat one meal per day (which I personally practice and advocate), better to do it in the morning. From the full text of [1]:

Together, with the evidence presented above, it appears that consuming more energy in the morning, as opposed to later in the day, is beneficial for glycaemic control. 

Given your size and activity level, 1400-1800 calories per day sounds a bit too extreme to me, leading to rapid weight loss which may also be suboptimal. Given your very low calorie intake, your body may be deciding it doesn't need to release as much insulin, leading to elevated blood glucose.

You are young. There is no hurry. Better to gradually introduce CR, giving your body time to adjust.

Hope this helps.

--Dean

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[1] Nutrients. 2017 Mar 2;9(3). pii: E222. doi: 10.3390/nu9030222.

Matching Meals to Body Clocks-Impact on Weight and Glucose Metabolism.

Hutchison AT(1)(2), Wittert GA(3)(4), Heilbronn LK(5)(6)(7).

The prevalence of type 2 diabetes continues to rise worldwide and is reaching

pandemic proportions. The notion that this is due to obesity, resulting from
excessive energy consumption and reduced physical activity, is overly simplistic.
Circadian de-synchrony, which occurs when physiological processes are at odds
with timing imposed by internal clocks, also promotes obesity and impairs glucose
tolerance in mouse models, and is a feature of modern human lifestyles. The
purpose of this review is to highlight what is known about glucose metabolism in 
animal and human models of circadian de-synchrony and examine the evidence as to 
whether shifts in meal timing contribute to impairments in glucose metabolism,
gut hormone secretion and the risk of type 2 diabetes. Lastly, we examine whether
restricting food intake to discrete time periods, will prevent or reverse
abnormalities in glucose metabolism with the view to improving metabolic health
in shift workers and in those more generally at risk of chronic diseases such as 
type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

DOI: 10.3390/nu9030222 
PMCID: PMC5372885
PMID: 28257081  [Indexed for MEDLINE]