Kidney Disease, Lies and Prediabetes

As I mentioned on this blog before, I had some medical tests done and according to the non-doctor PCP I have, everything was ALL  bad and my life was over and I had to make arrangements for an animal shelter to take in my pet cats when I go. And then the paperwork from my medical tests finally arrived.

I found that my non-doctor had lied to me. She claimed that I now had stage four kidney disease. The tests clearly show that I am still at stage three. Perhaps she exaggerated to force me to go to a nephrologist? I’d go if they ever get around to making the appointment, so long as they don’t send me back to the incompetent nephrologist in the city of Iron Mountain they sent me to before. Iron Mountain is too far a trip to go to see someone who claims there is no way to improve CKD, you just have to wait until you are bad enough to go on dialysis. 

I still do have protein in the urine, which is why my non-doctor recommended that I cut the protein in my diet. I started using the Carb Manager app on my phone to track the protein. It’s hard. One chicken thigh, if it is one of the heavier ones in the pack, can send me over my protein allowance. It’s kind of hard to figure what protein allowance to set because the ones recommended in a kidney disease book I have are less than the amount of protein needed daily. I set a goal close to the needed amount since it IS cutting down. I need to do a lot of intermittent fasting (partial-day fasting) to keep in line. But worrying about my protein seems to make it easier to cut the carbs. I rarely reach anywhere near my net carb limit for the day. 

The good news on my medical tests is that according to my A1c, I am no longer diabetic but prediabetic. And if I can go down by another two-tenths of a percentage point, I won’t even be prediabetic any more. Victory! 

I’ve been stricter with my eating plan since hearing from my non-doctor about the test results. I’ve started using the Carb Manager, cut back on both carbs and protein, am experimenting with going lower sodium, and am doing more intermittent fasting. I did have 2 carb indulgences, but they were small, only put me slightly over my net carb limit, and didn’t kick me out of ketosis.

Here’s wishing you healthy eating,

Nissa Annakindt

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On Twitter? Follow my Keto/Lowcarb Twitter account: https://twitter.com/nissaamaskatoj

Diabetes Control in the Coronavirus Era

Watching a broadcast of the Laura Ingraham show, I heard some doctors who are actually treating patients with Wuhan coronavirus who said that most patients who had serious cases of the disease had T2 diabetes, prediabetes, or were clinically obese— BMI index above 30. 

I have T2 diabetes myself and at one point was on two different pills for it. But then I had a bad kidney test and one of my kidney doctors said I had to go off both pills. The only diabetes medicine she thought my body could handle was insulin injections. I do believe that she assumed I would be on insulin almost immediately, but handling that would be the job of my health-care-providing nurse. 

Well, I got strict with my Keto * Low-Carb eating plan and have not had to go on insulin. Actually I was surprised that controlling my blood sugars with just low-carb was pretty much the same as controlling it with 2 meds plus low-carb. I began to suspect it was my low-carb that was doing the heavy lifting.

If YOU have T2 diabetes, are prediabetic, or are obese, the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic should be your wake-up call to get these things under control with a low-carb eating plan. I know it can be tough. Especially now that some grocery stores are understocked and some normal low-carb eaters have resorted to emergency measures like rice or ramen noodles. And if you haven’t been on low-carb before this is sure a stressful time to start. Though I guess it’s less stressful than having a severe case of Wuhan coronavirus. Here are the steps towards getting started:

1. DOCTOR CONSULTATION

If you are on meds for diabetes and/or high blood pressure, you will have to cut the dose when you start Keto * Low-Carb because the eating plan has similar effects to the meds. And you need to have a doctor’s OK to cut your prescription meds, for good reasons. Probably you will have to consult a doctor by phone or online. If your doctor is reluctant to OK cutting your meds dose, perhaps you ask, that if your blood sugar/pressure gets below a certain level, you will be authorized to split your pills in half. In the long term, you will probably want to find a doctor or health-care-provider non-doctor that is experienced with low-carb.

2. INDUCTION

Induction is the first and strictest phase of the Atkins Keto * Low-Carb eating plan. Going on Induction or back on Induction can help you control those blood sugars. After you have done two weeks or more on Induction successfully, you can add back a bit of carbs as in the Atkins levels. Read more about doing Induction in books like Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution (1972) or Dr. Atkins New Diet Cookbook (1994.)

3. TRACK YOUR NUMBERS

If you have a blood sugar meter, take your blood sugar once or twice a day and write down the results. If you have high blood pressure, get a blood pressure meter and measure that, too. You don’t need to weigh yourself every day, but twice a week is good. I have an electronic scale which also calculates my BMI and body fat percentage, among other things. That BMI is an important number— it marks the difference between obese and merely overweight. (My BMI has been just under 30 usually, but this Sunday it was 30, so I am technically obese again. Must get stricter in my Keto!) 

It is VERY important to track your state of ketosis. Blood ketones are the best things to measure, but the test strips cost money. Breath ketones are the next best. I have an older Ketonix brand breath ketone analyzer. I test my breath ketones every morning. If it is moderate or high, that’s a good level of ketosis and so I put a big K in my  health records notebook, followed by a number— if it is the first day of being back in good ketosis after a low-or-no ketone day, that number will be a one, followed by a two and so on.

If you cannot get a blood ketone or breath ketone meter, you can fall back on ketosis urine strips. It’s not as good a measure, but better than nothing. You can probably buy either the urine strips or blood or breath ketone meters online right now, if you have internet access in your home.

4. DON’T DO LOW-CARB & LOW-FAT

Eating low-carb is restrictive enough, without a misguided attempt to do low-fat at the same time. Good fats are not only healthy for you, they help you to feel not-hungry. That’s why I can stick to a low-carb eating plan while I couldn’t do low-calorie/low-fat for one full day. 

Read Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes (2007) to get an account of how wrong science led to the ‘urban legend’ that eating foods with fat in them would clog your arteries and make you die of heart disease. Valid science does not support this, but supports the LCHF (low-carb, high-fat) eating plan. The book gives loads of references to actual scientific journal articles and so is useful for medical doctors and ‘health-care-providers’ who can look up and read the actual articles and evaluate them.

My very conventional ‘health-care-provider’ ordered me to begin taking fish oil supplements, which shows that even the conventional medical industry is starting to learn that all fat is not bad fat. 

5. DO KETO INTERMITTENT FASTING

Keto Intermittent Fasting is not the same as white-knuckle fasting which I picture as someone curled in a ball, moaning from hunger pangs, just waiting for the moment when he can eat some food again. I tried fasting that way once or twice, and didn’t get through more than a day.

Keto Intermittent Fasting happens once you get into ketosis. You are not hungry, you have more energy than you are used to, and you end up skipping a meal or two because you are too caught up in a project to eat a meal. 

Intentional fasting on Keto is a pleasure because it is easy. And it sure brings down the blood sugars. I used to never eat breakfast on Keto * Low-Carb, but after my health problems last year it’s mostly supper I can do without. 

The down side of fasting is that it can make you experience hunger again when Keto has made you unused to feeling hunger. Also, you tend to feel virtuous because you have fasted for hours or days. This can lead to a carb-binge that can spoil all the gains you have made.

Blood sugar control and ending your obesity are more important now than ever during the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic. The Keto * Low-Carb eating plan is your best ally in overcoming the insulin resistance which leads both to diabetes/prediabetes and to obesity/overweight. Sticking to this plan— in spite of the stress of current events— can be essential for your health and safety.

Hypertension/High Blood Pressure and Keto * Low-Carb

I was diagnosed with hypertension (high blood pressure) a long time ago— even before I started doing low-carb. But I was low-to-no income, and not yet on SSI disability and Medicaid, and so couldn’t keep up with doctor visits to be able to keep taking hypertension pills.

I think when I first started doing low-carb (in the 1990s) that it brought down my blood pressure. After all, doing Keto * Low=Carb is a reliable way to get your blood sugar down— so much so that doctors warn people to go to their own doctor to get their blood pressure and blood sugar pills’ doses cut down when they start Keto * Low-Carb. It’s a reliable effect.

But not enough of a reliable effect to overcome my years of carb-eating and vegetarianism. I developed Type 2 diabetes, and not too long after I began to have bad kidney tests. My blood pressure was high— not super-high or scary-high as long as I was doing low-carb most of the time, but still, high. My ‘PCP’ (the non-doctor who is my government-approved health care provider) threatened that I would be put in ‘a home’ because of my Asperger Syndrome if I refused to go to a nephrologist (kidney doctor) in the city of Iron Mountain, even though that’s more of a drive than I could handle. [My therapist at the time confirmed that they don’t put people with Asperger Syndrome and high IQs into ‘homes’ for disobeying a non-doctor.]

One nephrologist was from India, and though a conventional low-fat advocate who tried to push the ‘DASH diet’ on me, had some medical smarts and ordered tests to see if I had some underlying kidney problem. They fired her though, and the nephrologist I had to go to next was a woman from the Philippines who told me that my diet could not affect my kidney disease (I knew there was at least one peer-reviewed study to the contrary) and she also demanded that I take home a DVD about dialysis— even after I told her I had no working DVD player! Maybe I was supposed to sleep with the DVD under my pillow and the info would leak into my head that way? Anyway, I quit going back to her after that. My ‘PCP’ didn’t try to have me put in a home after all (and now denies she ever said it) but the bad thing was that I went off my hypertension pill.

When I had a small stroke in Feb. of 2019, I ended up on two hypertension pills, and my PCP recently increased the dose of one of them. I am now getting better blood pressure readings every morning. My Keto * Low-Carb lifestyle has not brought down my blood pressure by itself, nor has it healed my kidney disease. But I do believe it is helping heal my body. I just need pills as well now.

RESEARCH:

A 2011 study in the scientific journal PLOS One showed that a ketogenic diet reversed diabetic kidney damage in diabetic mice in two months.

A 2013 study of a small human trial published in The Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology showed improvement of kidney function in diabetics on a ketogenic diet for 12 weeks.

How I learned to Control my T2 Diabetic Blood Sugars

I learned that I was diabetic because my mother is thrifty. She was and is ‘addicted’ to constant doctor visits, and she does what she is told. When she had a bad cholesterol reading, she obediently went on a statin drug— and promptly got full-blown diabetes. 

She controlled her diabetes with pills, got bad low-fat-based nutritional advice, and learned to test her blood sugar every morning with a blood sugar meter. When her ‘health-care provider’s’ corporation moved the patients on to a different brand of blood sugar meter, she gave me her old one because, as someone who grew up during the Great Depression, she wasn’t going to take a thing that was worth money and throw it away.

I tested my blood sugar one day just for kicks— it was over 300. Scary! So I went to mom’s ‘health-care provider,’ a nurse-practitioner, and she put me on Metformin— one of the few diabetes pills that doesn’t make you gain weight.

I had already learned about low-carb living, since I’d bought copies of various Atkins diet book from St. Vincent de Paul thrift shops. I KNEW that my weight problem already showed that my body had a problem handling carbohydrates. 

As a child I had read a REALLY old home medical book my mother had, that had two or three whole chapters about diabetes, which was very keen on the discovery of insulin injections which was new when the writer was younger. I learned that diabetes was a disease where you had to ‘give up sugar forever.’ As I grew older and learned about Atkins and low-carb, I knew that carbs in general were the problem, not just sugar and not just ‘added sugar.’

The Metformin did bring my blood sugars down. I tested my blood sugars about 3 times a day when I was ‘being good.’ I was mostly eating less carbs, but my father had recently died and so I felt I had to go out to eat with my mom a lot. We do not have fancy restaurants where we live; going out to eat meant eating hamburgers, fried chicken or a fish fry. Carb city!

I got a second blood sugar pill added. In time I realized that the only way to get good blood sugar readings was to be on strict keto as well as taking the pills. Which I mostly did.

I had a bad kidney test, and was sent to a series of nephrologists (kidney specialists.) After a lot of angst, my most recent and least competent kidney doctor took me off all meds— she said that the Metformin probably damaged my kidneys. She also said that no diet change would help my kidneys, and that I needed to prepare to go on dialysis. 

I was scared to go off my meds, but I found that going off, while staying on strict low-carb/keto, made no difference. My blood sugar was controlled by my diet, not the presence or absence of pills. And my kidney tests improved when I was strict with my diet. My kidney doctor didn’t believe that result, though my ‘health-care provider’ (physician assistant) did notice that. So I let that particular kidney doctor go though I kept the ‘health-care provider’ (because I’m on Medicaid, I can only change ‘health-care providers’ once a year, and they won’t tell me when.)

I read “Dr. Atkins Diabetes Revolution” when it came out, and the two books by Dr. Richard Bernstein, “Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution” and “The Diabetes Diet.” Both were very helpful in getting me to get my diabetes under control through diet. I noticed, though, as I grew older the low-carb diet I had been doing for years took longer to take effect when I restarted after going off the diet. Carb binges did more damage, and had longer lasting effects. Just a part of getting older.

The final piece of the puzzle was when I read Dr. Jason Fung and Jimmy Moore’s “The Complete Guide to Fasting.” Fasting brought down bad blood sugar numbers quicker than keto alone. And when I started fasting, already being in ketosis, the fasting was easy. In fact, on a keto diet I often skipped mealtime without thinking about it, if I was already busy with something. 

If you have been diagnosed with T2 diabetes, I hope you will learn to control your blood sugar with your (low-carb, ketogenic) diet instead of with pills that only work for a few years for most people. (My mom, in spite of her carb-filled diet, still gets fairly good blood sugars because of her two diabetes drugs— and since she is 91, I’m hoping the drugs will continue to work for the rest of her life.)

If you are lucky enough, you can find a doctor or a nutritionist who regularly encourages patients to eat low-carb. Ask your current ‘health-care provider’ if they know of someone like this. If no luck, ask your friends if they know of anyone. There are even online lists of keto-oriented doctors and medical people. Look it up, there may be someone good you can get to.

I didn’t have such luck. All the doctors and medical people in my area are part of the same big medical corporation and they don’t seem to have or allow keto-oriented dissenters. So I had to work on learning all about keto for myself through books and podcasts. I did notice that once I lost weight and got better blood sugar numbers on a diet that doctors discouraged me from following, they encouraged me to stick with it.

Controlling T2 Diabetes with Fasting

I was a diabetic for a short while when my ‘health care provider’ said my kidney test was bad and I would have to go to a specialist. In fact, when she told me what not-so-close town the specialist was in (because of Medicaid), I tried to tell her how difficult it would be to get there, but she said if I didn’t go somehow I might be reported to adult protective services and they would put me in a home. [Which is absurd. They don’t have homes even for people who need it. A person like me with a Mensa level IQ and Asperger Syndrome would never be put in a home no matter who reported her. And one is allowed to refuse medical treatment in this country— it’s a right.]

Anyway, I went to a good kidney doctor, and when she got fired from the medical business in question I got a far worse kidney doctor. And the worse one said the meds I was on were bad for my kidneys so I had to quit them. The only medication I could take for my diabetes was insulin, and neither the kidney doctor nor my ‘health care provider’ was in any big hurry to get me on insulin.

I found that my keto diet, when I kept to it, controlled my diabetes as well as the drugs anyway. But either way, my blood sugars still weren’t great. I got readings like 150 and 175, which was better than what I got when I was not on keto or meds, but not what I wanted.

Then I learned about Dr. Jason Fung’s approach. He got started recommending fasting to his patients because some of them just wouldn’t understand what he meant when he told them about the keto diet. He’d say they can’t have bread, so they ate pita bread or flatbread. They showed him food diaries filled with pasta and regular pizzas. And so he had the idea to try fasting— which is zero carb, zero calorie and zero fat. 

Dr. Fung has his diabetic patients do 36 hour fasts, and sometimes starts severe diabetics on a 7 to 14 day fast. (Read more about it in the Complete Guide to Fasting by Jimmy Moore & Dr. Jason Fung.) I was too chicken to do fasts as long as that— even though I was already on keto and knew keto makes you less hungry so you can easily skip a meal. 

I started with the No-Breakfast Plan— skipping breakfast to extend my overnight fasting by a few hours. I’d known about this since I read the book ‘Fit for Life,’ though I did not think the author of that book was basing his recommendations on science. And after a while I was able to extend this into ’24-hour’ fasting.

Now, really ’24-hour’ fasting should be called 23.5 hour fasting, because you eat supper every day. So if you are on Metformin, you can still take it with a meal every day— though with fasting in your life, you and your doctor or ‘health care provider’ should reduce the dose of any meds you take. You don’t want to be getting too-low blood sugars every day and still have to take meds that will send them still lower!

After I could do 23.5 hour fasting I went on to 36 hour fasting, and then I did a 5 day fast. And then another 5 day fast. And it wasn’t scary! Day 2 was kind of hard, but since Dr Fung allows plain tea and black coffee and home-made bone broth as fasting fluids, I got through and the end of the fast was easier. In fact on my first 5 day fast I could have gone longer, except that I had bought some delicious smoked salmon at a distant grocery store and I wanted some. Which is OK. Fasting isn’t an endurance contest!

When I added some fasting to my life, my blood sugar numbers went under 100, and sometimes as low as 82. I was becoming like a non-diabetic! Of course, the longer I went without a full-day fast, the higher my numbers began to creep. Dr. Jason Fung recommends his patients fast 3 days a week, regular. This can be alternate day fasting, or you can do them all in a bunch. I’m thinking of doing mine all in a bunch on Monday through Wednesday, but when I’m ravenously hungry on Mondays, I don’t do fasting that day, except for the No-Breakfast Plan. 

My belief is that when you are feeling overly hungry, or ill, or stressed with unusual stresses like a visit from the mother-in-law, that’s not the best day to fast. You can always fast a different day. And you can always fast for several shorter periods instead of a long fast. 

How does fasting help? Type 2 diabetes happens because of insulin resistance. Your body overreacts to foods— particularly high-carbohydrate foods— by making more insulin than you need. You may get low-blood-sugar symptoms from this. In time your body starts ignoring some of the insulin. So your body makes even more extra insulin. In time you get higher than normal blood sugars, not because you lack insulin, like a Type 1 diabetic, but in spite of your high insulin levels. 

When you don’t eat, your body isn’t signaled to make insulin, so your insulin levels go down. Since you are not eating food, your blood sugars go down. Your body starts switching over to a state called ketosis, if you are not in ketosis because of a ketodiet. (Ketosis is not the same thing as ketoacidosis, a dangerous state that Type 1 diabetics can get that features high ketones and high blood sugars.) Fasting, in effect, makes your diabetic body act less diabetic. Ketodiet plus fasting can make some diabetics into recovering diabetics and ex-diabetics, though they have to keep on doing the keto and fasting!

What about weight loss? I was on a plateau on my Atkins/keto diet for some time when I developed diabetes, and frankly I no longer expected weight loss. I just wanted better blood sugars without going on insulin, which I knew would cause weight gain and make things worse. But fasting plus strict keto started the weight loss again and I am now probably twenty pounds less than my plateau weight, and down to 172 from my lifetime high of 255. I’ve purchased smaller jeans and discovered I need the next smaller size to fit well! Since losing weight of itself is supposed to help T2 diabetes, this is a good thing. 

The main thing I have to say to other Type 2 diabetics out there is don’t despair. Don’t feel you have no hope. Your diabetes can be improved, and you can do things yourself to improve it. 

Of course, if you are on meds, you will have to see your doctor to adjust them. If you aren’t on meds yet, and you are just going to start with ketodiet and with the No-Breakfast Plan and perhaps 23.5 hour fasting, your doctor will probably be OK with it. Once you get some results, he may be reconciled to it. Or you can possibly switch to a more keto-and-fasting friendly doctor. If you have a doctor that says no-no-no, ask for the scientific motivation behind his answer. If he has none, if he doesn’t know about Dr. Jason Fung’s book and won’t read it when you tell him, if he just says fasting is bad because if you keep it up forever you will die, that’s not the right doctor for you. If, however, he points out that you have some rare condition that he believes will not be helped by fasting, ask if just keto is OK, or just keto plus the No-Breakfast Plan. If you can’t do the whole 5 day or 7 day fasting thing, you can do it in increments.  

Controlling Type 2 Diabetes with Low-Carb, Keto Diet

I found out I had T2 diabetes when my mother gave me her old blood sugar meter. Her doctor had ordered up a new one in a different brand for her, and she didn’t like to waste stuff that was worth money. My mother had acquired T2 diabetes shortly after her doctor put her on a statin drug, which raises blood sugar.

I got some scary-high readings when I first tried the meter, so I made a doctor’s appointment. Since I have been low-income most of my life— I have an autism spectrum disorder— I hadn’t been to a doctor in years. The doc confirmed what my blood sugar meter told me, and I was put on Metformin.

Metformin helped at first, but then it didn’t and we added Actos to the mix. I had read one of the Dr. Bernstein diabetes diet books and he recommended Actos and Metformin for those who needed to take diabetes drugs. 

Before long, I discovered that I needed to stick to a low carb diet in order to have decent blood sugar readings. I regarded any blood sugar below 200 as a step in the right direction, and when my diet was right I was getting readings like 140 or 127. Not normal, but not as bad as a reading of 250 or 300.

Now, I was not strict enough when I was doing my low-carb. Since Atkins allows you 4 teaspoons of cream, I was allowing myself 2 or 3 or even 4 Tablespoons. I was not measuring portions when I should have been. And during 2003, I was eating a lot of sugar-free, low-carb candy, which was enough of a fad at the time that Walmart carried a good selection of the candy bars. But I was largely giving up real sugar, bread and pasta, and the kinds of chips I used to love.

I had some social issues for a while. My father died in November of 2004, and I had to spend a lot of time with my mother. My mother wanted to go out to eat, and the restaurants we used didn’t exactly have anything low-carb on the menu. And when I could get low-carb things— like eggs and bacon for breakfast— the waitress was always pushing bread or hash browns on me, and I could resist anything but temptation.

Later on, I had some complications of the diabetes, and as a result a specialist I was sent to insisted I stop my current meds. She said the only thing that was safe for me to take was insulin, but neither she nor my ‘health care provider’ (a physician’s assistant) made any move to get me started on insulin.

Stopping my diabetes drugs led to one shocking result. I continue to take my blood sugar every morning, and it did not go up as a result of stopping the drugs! I didn’t know it, but I had been controlling my blood sugar with my diet, and the pills had not been helping, really. 

After that I sometimes stuck to my low-carb very well and had better numbers, and sometimes I didn’t, or I cheated, and my numbers were worse. I found that if I ate my cheat foods at one time of day only, sometimes I had decent numbers the next day. That is, a cheat limited to one meal or snacktime wasn’t as harmful as if I had 2 cheat meals-or-snacks in one day. 

I still didn’t have the good numbers I wanted. Dr. Bernstein said you should go for normal blood sugar numbers, and mine weren’t that. I know, I had to stop the cheats, for one thing. But it took me a few more years to discover ways to improve my blood sugar numbers even more. In a future blog post, I will share what I did to help my blood sugar even more.

Disclaimer: I am not a medical person and do not give medical advise. If you have diabetes, consult your doctor about any changes. If you go on keto/lowcarb, your medications will have to be lowered. You need your doctor to help with that. 

Some Helpful Books:

Dr Atkins Diabetes Revolution

Dr Atkins Diet Revolution (the original Atkins,  YOU NEED THIS!)

The Diabetes Diet 

Dr Bernstein's Diabetes Solution

The above are affiliate links. I put them up because I am on disability with an autism spectrum disorder, and I want to get off it. Or at least have a little more money to fix things in my home like my broken stove and my antique electrical wiring and my malfunctioning plumbing.  If you buy through my links, bless you! And if you don't, well, that's OK too. Just reading my blog's a kindness.

My July results on Keto

It's the beginning of a new month, and time to consider what keto has done for me the past July. And I think it's pretty good!

July was days 10 to 40 of my renewed keto lifestyle. And it had some great results. My blood glucose was 170 and 156 on the first two days of July. It was 101 and 93 on the last two days, and today it is 88. Compare those results to when I was on 2 diabetes meds, and still had readings in the mid 200s unless I was on strict low-carb--- a diet at least 1 of my doctors actively discouraged. She wanted me on the dreadful DASH diet, and thought that telling me it was a government-approved diet would encourage me to like it. There was no way to make me like the constant hunger, non-weight-loss, and higher blood sugars on that diet, though.

Fasting: I had 8 fasting days during July, mostly individual days with one 5 day fast. Each time I fasted, my blood glucose became more normal, and since I was on keto the other days, it stayed more normal.

Weight: I weighed 196.8 pounds at the beginning of July, and 185.2 by the end. I had not weighed under 190 since college, maybe since high school! My BMI (body mass index) went from 32.0 to 30.1. My Ketonix says I was in high level ketosis for almost all the days of July.

Clothing size: I bought two pairs of jeans and a pair of shorts in a new, smaller size: XL. And they fit really loose on me. I really want to buy a new pair of jeans in 'L' just to see if it would fit!

There are bad sides to my new keto life, though. I've been feeling so much more energetic, I got a lot of things done, including starting on a major house cleaning. But with all that energy, I spent too much money. Since government disability doesn't PAY much, I have to be very, very careful in August. Which is too bad since I want to buy some new clothes. And I can't even afford a trip to the grocery store this week.

Also, my blood pressure has not improved any. I'm hoping another month will see some changes in that. Keto is supposed to be good for your blood pressure. If I don't see improvement, I will probably have to resort to blood pressure pills. If my 'health care provider' (not a doctor) is willing to prescribe a kind I am willing to take.

How gluconeogenesis can be a low-carber's problem

In the original Atkins diet book, unlimited amounts of meat were allowed. And for younger dieters this could be a help. Any time you were hungry you could eat something.

But lots of us have grown up since then. And found that Atkins doesn't work as well for us as it used to. Why? Gluconeogenesis.

Gluco
Neo
Genesis

What is that? It comes from the fact that when you aren't eating sugars any more, and are staying low-carb, your body can make its own sugar out of the protein you are consuming. So if you eat too much protein, that can give you all the problems that come with eating sugar. Because your body is turning it in to sugar.

Jimmy Moore says that a good keto diet is: high in (healthy) fats, moderate in protein, low in carbs. Protein isn't a health food! It is actually healthy fats such as grass-fed butters, coconut oils and olive oils that we should be eating more of. (And scientific research backs up this claim.)

But if you cut back on protein--- eat a smaller steak--- won't you be hungry? Well, you have to make sure you are getting enough fat. You can't do low fat and low carb at the same time, it's not healthy.

Fasting and intermittent fasting are one way to help with gluconeogenesis. I don't have much appetite in the morning anyway. So I do Intermittent Fasting and don't eat in the morning at all. If I don't eat anything for breakfast, my body can't turn the protein I didn't eat into sugar.

Morning is also when Type 2 diabetics like me have the highest blood sugars. So not eating at this time when I'm not hungry anyway helps get those morning numbers down.

And not eating in the morning means that I'm only getting the amount of protein from my lunch and/or dinner, and so that brings down my protein total naturally.

It's kind of sad, though. When I first tried Atkins I was attracted by the fact that I could eat something at any time that I was hungry. But now that I am older and diabetic, life is tougher. I have to say no to eating sometimes, and I have to say no to larger portions. But it's the only way I have found to keep my diabetes problems under control.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My stuff.
Weight: 197
I did my IF until noon. Ate a small helping of carb foods because I had to go to the store and couldn't resist temptation. At least I kept the cheat smaller than usual.

My keto diet experiences

My first experience with a keto diet was sometime in the 1990s when I picked up a copy of Dr. Atkins' first diet book in a Goodwill store in Iron Mountain, Michigan.

I read the book cover to cover and tried the diet. I was so surprised how easy it was to lose weight! The Atkins diet, at least in the Induction Phase, is ketogenic. Dr. Atkins recommended that you run out and buy ketone test strips and test your urine for ketones. That way you could tell if your body had shifted over into fat-burning mode.

After that point I started purchasing any diet book I could find that was low-carb or ketogenic in nature. I read all the info in the books, especially if they referenced scientific studies. And I tried low-carb recipes from a lot of different books.

I lost some weight on Atkins. But in time I stopped doing it. The reason was that it was just hard to find low-carb food you didn't have to cook from scratch. And I had to give up going out to restaurants. There were no restaurants in my area that had low-carb items. And my family members liked to take me out to eat.

I went back on Atkins at some point. I think I was on Atkins for a full year when my father died. But I had to go off the diet at that time because I was eating out with my mother, or eating at mom's house.

At some point, my mother gave me her old blood sugar meter when she got a new one from her doctor. I tried it and found out I had diabetes. My mom's nurse-practitioner put me on Metformin. Later another drug--- I think Actos--- was added.

I found that my blood sugar was only staying under control when I was ALSO doing low-carb. Since the nurse-practitioner didn't care what my diet was, that was working out. Except I wasn't losing weight much, since I was older, menopausal, and diabetic. I was more concerned with blood sugar numbers than weight at this point.

I got a bad number on a kidney test and so had to go to a kidney doctor. And then I had to apply for Medicaid and I had to get a new kidney doctor and new doctor-substitute. One of my kidney doctors took me off all my drugs saying they caused the problem. So I really had to go low-carb. A kidney doctor messed me up by demanding I go on a government approved diet (DASH diet) that did nothing to address my carbohydrate problems. But when I got worse blood sugar numbers she said I could do what worked for me.

I noticed that the more I stuck to my diet, the better my kidney tests were. My most recent kidney doctor told me that diet had no effect on kidney disease. Since I had recently read a medical journal article that said otherwise, and heard about others, she became my former kidney doctor.

I had been collecting cookbooks by Dana Carpender for some time by then. She came out with a new one with Jimmy Moore as co-author. That's how I learned about Jimmy Moore's health podcasts. And when he came out with The Complete Guide to Fasting with Dr. Jason Fung, a kidney doctor (nephrologist), I had to buy a copy.

I feel that I am getting very well read on the science behind ketogenic diets and behind fasting. But the follow-through is hard. I still live alone, don't have a dishwasher or running water in the kitchen sink, and have to drive to another state for a grocery store with good selection.

And so, this blog. I figure if I become a health blogger I will be more motivated to stick to my keto and fasting plan. And if I can help other people to become informed or inspired, that's a bonus. Since I am a Christian (Catholic flavor) I think helping others is cool. So, if I can help you--- maybe answer a question or something--- I will.

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My personal stuff.
On Sept 23, my weight was 199 pounds. (My all-time high was about 255 pounds.) My blood sugars, particularly in the morning, have been BAD. (Not saying how bad.) My blood sugar this morning was still BAD, but was significantly down from the 300+ blood sugars I have been getting in the morning. I have been doing Intermittent Fasting in the mornings, eating only after 11am. I'm trying to hold off until 12 noon every day, and stop eating after 6pm.

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Some books mentioned in this post.