Just to prove my point from my Saturday weigh-in post business trip – where I apparently put on 6.1lbs in just a few days – today I weighed in and have “lost” 6lbs!!
This just highlights the comment I made, that kind of rapid weight gain during an extended period of ketogenic dieting, exercise, and fasting is almost entirely water. You simply cannot put on body fat that quickly – just like you can’t lose it that quickly.
The only thing this blip cost me is time. And time is not of the essence as far as my weight loss goes. I know that taking my time to lose this weight rather than rushing is more likely to instil the good habits I need for long-term maintenance. I’m currently on track to hit my target around late August or early September – that will be about 67lbs lost since I started in December – no small feat! But even if that slips to October or November, or beyond – so what? If I get down to my ideal weight and am able to keep it there, then it’s a huge achievement, no matter how long it takes.
And as I also discussed in Saturday’s post, weight loss is no longer my primary focus. It’s all about reversing my type 2 diabetes, something I am well on my way to doing. And despite putting on 6.1lbs during my business trip, I know I actually did really well from that perspective – I stuck to my diet as well as I could in the circumstances, but eating out while travelling is almost always going to be problematic, and result in water weight gain. The key thing is I didn’t fall off the wagon, and succumb to the very tempting carb fest which is inherent in French food! Croissants! Pain au chocolat! Eclairs! Even French bread! I’m not actually a big bread-eater, but the only place I ever feel tempted to eat just bread is France! They make such good bread!!!
And I abstained. I stuck to my guns, and kept to my plan, and the results speak for themselves. A temporary blip that is gone in literally just three days! 😊
What was my protocol for getting back on track? Nothing majorly different from what I normally do. The only slight difference was on Saturday and Sunday, I fasted for 20 hours and 18 hours respectively, before breaking my fast.
Then on Sunday night I started my normal 36 hour fast, swam as usual on Monday night and that was it. That was all it took to drop 6lbs in water weight.
Now I have another week to take a few more steps forward. Next week is a big week. I have another three-day business trip to contend with, which happens to fall literally the day before my 3-month diabetic check-up on Friday, 27th March! That will include a new HbA1c blood test, which is the ultimate test of my progress towards diabetic reversal.
From my last test result in December, which was 79mmol/mol (9.4%), I am hoping to get down to at least 59mmol/mol (7.5%) – which is where I was in March last year. But secretly I’m hoping for a much better result – ideally 48mmol/mol (6.5%). 48mmol/mol is the point at which clinicians start to seriously use terms like “diabetic remission” or “diabetic reversal”.
Is it possible in just three months to make such a radical reversal? It’s an ambitious stretch goal, but I believe it is possible. The HbA1c test is a “snap shot” of blood sugar levels from the last three months (weighted 50% the previous month, 30-40% the month before, around 10-20% the month before that), and apart from a few very slight blips – mostly Christmas and New Year’s, so right at the beginning of my first month – I’ve been very strictly keeping to a low sugar/carb diet, combined with intermittent fasting and exercise. All of those things help manage and reduce blood sugar levels.
And the science genuinely backs this up. The DiRECT trial – probably the most cited piece of research on lifestyle-driven diabetes reversal – found that people who committed hard to dietary changes and weight loss were seeing HbA1c reductions of 15 to 25 mmol/mol in just three months. Ketogenic diets in particular have some of the best short-term data going, with some studies showing drops of 20 to 30 mmol/mol over a similar period. Weight loss is a huge part of the picture too – I’ve dropped 26lbs in three months, and every percentage point of body weight you lose carries its own independent benefit for blood sugar, on top of everything else.
There’s also the very real-world, objective sign that things are heading in the right direction. My blood pressure medication had become too strong for me. My GP was forced to halve my prescription and had me drop one of my three drugs completely. Doctors don’t reduce your medication because you’re “feeling a bit better”. They reduce it because your body’s numbers are genuinely improving. My cardiovascular system and lower weight had simply moved on without telling my prescription about it.
As you’ll know if you’ve been following my blog for a while, I do love a good challenge, and reversing type 2 diabetes in just 3 months would be right up my street. If I’m being completely honest with myself, getting all the way to 48 would be at the outer edge of what’s been recorded clinically – it would be a remarkable result by any measure. But the combination of things I’ve been doing – the keto eating, the extended fasting, the regular and progressive cardio sessions – is about as potent a toolkit as you can put together for driving blood sugar down. So if it’s achievable, I’m giving it the best possible shot.
But as always I’ll be pragmatic and philosophical about it. Getting from a reading of 79 to 59 would still be an incredible achievement – and whatever the number on the 27th, I’m still well on track to reversing my diabetes and reclaiming my health. I know from experience that as you get closer to your goals, it can take longer. Weight loss can be much more rapid when you are massively overweight, and so it is with diabetes. Simply giving your pancreas breathing space from the sugar overload is often enough to trigger significant reductions in HbA1c – but once you’ve lost the first chunk of weight and seen a solid reduction in HbA1c, then it’s about letting your body genuinely repair itself, which takes time.
The plan was never to reach a target and resume my old lifestyle; it was to make long-term, permanent changes that mean I won’t be back here fighting the same battle again. While I am confident I can meet my weight loss target within a year, it might take 18 months or longer to get my HbA1c down to 42 or under, which is the optimum for long-term health. Ongoing health is always a marathon and not a sprint. The sprint part – this aggressive program I’m on right now – was to limit the damage I was already seeing to my nervous system, and prevent other complications like diabetic retinopathy. It looks like I may have been just in time since my last diabetic eye screening revealed the early signs of retinopathy – but no damage yet! This kind of news completely justifies my approach and makes it all worthwhile.
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