Fast Diabetes Reset
Get your Type 2 Diabetes under control

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  • The suspense is killing me!

    Ken

    ·

    I just had an email notification from MonitorMyHealth, where I sent my blood on Monday for a new HbA1c test – they have confirmed receipt of my sample, which now means it’s just a matter of time before I get my results!

    Hopefully by tomorrow I will know for sure how successful I’ve been in reaching remission for my type 2 diabetes.

    A huge deal for me, it’s what I’ve been working so hard for for the last 14 weeks, and I’m really excited to see just how far I’ve come.

    I’m very confident I’ll make it into the 50s (mmol/mol), and really think I’ve done enough to get towards the low 50s.

    Anything under 55 mmol/mol would be a spectacular result from my last test in late December at 79mmol/mol.

    But secretly in my heart of hearts I’m hoping for a truly earth-shattering result – 48 mmol/mol or less! That is right at the very edge of what is conceivable based on everything I know about how lifestyle changes can affect your blood sugar.

    As you’ve seen in my blog, I took very drastic steps, not only changing my diet completely to a ketogenic and dash friendly diet, cutting out all bread, all pasta, all potatoes, all rice, not only cutting out obvious sugars but even restricting fruit intake to berries which are among the lowest sugar options.

    And on top of that I have fasted regularly for 36 hours three times a week, not quite every week, I had a few gaps, but most weeks. Intermittent fasting has been proven to be one of the most effective treatments for type 2 diabetes, and alternate day fasting with 36 hour fasts is a highly aggressive and effective protocol, giving your body plenty of time to burn out all the glucose stored.

    And obviously while you’re fasting your blood sugar is completely stable with no spikes whatsoever giving your system a chance to fully recover.

    And finally to top that off I’ve been exercising 4 to 5 days a week, alternating swimming (1km-1.5km) with running (only walk run intervals, but still, given my body weight this is still huge).

    Exercise of course will also help clear out any glucose and ensure I’m quickly switching to fat burning mode.

    At the same time I’ve lost just shy of 30lbs (13.8kg), which is precisely the figure quoted by the most reputable studies of diabetics at which diabetic remission is typically seen.

    Diabetic remission is generally measured in the UK as reaching 48 mmol/mol and maintaining that reading or lower for at least 6 months without medication.

    As you also know I have never taken medication for my diabetes, only some for my hypertension, And as you’ve also seen, I’ve changed my body so much in the last 14 weeks that just a month ago I had to halve my meds.

    All of this tells me that if anyone can possibly achieve a full remission in 14 weeks, then it should be me! 🫣

    Of course, I am hoping for the best, but preparing for the worst, I know that major body changes take time, I know that even making such radical changes to habits can take a while to register.

    In my mind the worst case is anything over 60 mmol/mol. But that certainly won’t deter me from continuing what I’m doing, it will just tell me that this is going to take 6 months rather than the 3 months I’d originally anticipated.

    It took me over 9 months of bad habits to get from 59 mmol/mol to 79 mmol/mol, so reversing that in 6 months would still be no small achievement.

    And that’s not forget, they’re even once I get to my target – and my ultimate target is 42 mmol/mol which is classed as “normal” or healthy – I will still have to maintain some elements of my lifestyle changes for the rest of my life.

    Being type 2 diabetic means I have genuine insulin sensitivity issues, and those will not go away just because I get back to normal. I have demonstrated that I have a susceptibility to diabetes, and it’s something I’ll have to always be aware of.

    Switching from aggressive protocols to reach my target to more moderate approaches for maintenance will be a whole new journey for me.

    But unlike previous occasions when I have lost significant amounts of weight – ranging from 50 to 70 lbs – this time I have a much stronger motivation to not let myself slip back into old habits.

    What started this journey was my first symptoms of diabetic neuropathy, and I have since been diagnosed with early stage diabetic retinopathy.

    I am not about to risk my nerves getting any worse by letting sugar get the better of me again.

    I’ve heard so many horror stories of people being literally crippled by their diabetes and that is not going to be me.

    Anyway, just a little rant to while away the time while I wait for my results!! 😊

  • The sweet smell of success!

    Ken

    ·

    Or not so sweet, I guess it depends on your point of view!

    What am I talking about? The smell of ketosis! When you fast and / or follow a ketogenic diet, your body switches from burning glucose as its main fuel source to burning fat.

    The Fat-Bank Audit

    Think of your body like a high-interest savings account. When you eat carbs, you’re making constant deposits into your Fat Storage Bank. But when you fast or go keto, you stop the deposits and start making massive ATM withdrawals from your waistline.

    Chemical money laundering

    To make those withdrawals usable, your liver has to “launder” that stored fat into a currency called ketones. One specific byproduct of this transaction is acetone – basically the chemical “receipt” of your fat-burning success.

    Since your body can’t spend the acetone, it tosses the receipts out through your breath and urine. So, if things start smelling a bit like nail polish remover, don’t worry – it’s just the scent of your “bank balance” finally going down!

    Fortunately, I haven’t really suffered with ketosis breath, or at least not that anyone has pointed out to me! 😬

    Eau de Adipose

    So, the smell of ketosis could more aptly be called the “fragrance of fat loss”, or perhaps the French might call it “eau de adipose”! 😜

    But ultimately, for me, it’s the sweet smell of success. It tells me that I am doing the right things, and keeping my blood sugar as low as possible.

    When my pee stops smelling I know that I’ve somehow snuck in too much sugar and I’m now making glucose deposits rather than fat withdrawals.

    Taking the piss

    This has become a bit of a light hearted mantra for me – every time I pee I discreetly sniff just to see that I’m on track. When I get that telltale scent I smile to myself and think “ah! The sweet smell of success!” 👃🏼😁

    Just a word of caution: it may be wise to avoid sharing this particular bathroom ritual with your friends or coworkers if you value their continued company and respect!

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  • Getting along swimmingly!

    Ken

    ·

    After yesterday’s fiasco, where I got to the swimming pool only to find I’d left my swim bag at home, I was back to the pool this evening, making sure not to forget anything this time!

    This was my first swim since last Monday night, just over a week, so I had fully intended to just stick to a nice leisurely 1km – 4 x 250m – which is my usual routine when I’ve taken a break.

    But the pool was very crowded this evening with a bunch of (much!) younger people all swimming faster than me. They were all doing sprint intervals – 1 or 2 lengths at a time, followed by long rests. They were often not leaving much room to stop at the end of the lap, so once I got going, I just felt like I didn’t want to stop and stretched my first set to 500m.

    The first half of the 500m I treated as a warm-up, and the second half I sped up considerably, buoyed along by the sprinters around me. I was pleased to see that I had plenty of energy to keep going and even pick up the pace.

    The second 500m was also a bit faster than my norm as well.

    On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the lane swimming sessions at my pool run for a full hour rather than the 45 minute sessions on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday so I knew I had plenty of time. Since I felt like I’d missed out on my swim yesterday, and I was feeling strong, I decided to do two more sets of 250m to make it a full 1.5km!

    So that’s my first mile swim since starting back into swimming last year after a break! Yay me!

    Between my fab weigh-in results earlier breaking through the 230lb barrier into the 220’s this has actually been a really good day!

    Even though I have redundancy looming over me – as I said previously – controlling the things I can control definitely makes everything seem better!

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  • After a mild plateau – I finally broke through – under 230lbs!

    Ken

    ·

    Persistence pays off.

    I’m currently somewhat stressed about my recent “job restructuring” – as an example of how it’s affecting me I packed my swim stuff last night, went to the swimming pool for my regular Monday evening swim, and realised once I arrived that I’d left my swim bag at home! 😂 Easily done, especially when you’re over 20 hours into a 36 hour fast, but add in anxiety about your job and forgetting things due to distraction is perfectly understandable.

    Lane swimming at my pool is strictly a 45 min session on Monday, and I generally don’t allow myself much extra time to get changed, since I wear my swim gear and just have to peel everything off and put it in a locker. So by the time I got home and picked up my bag it would have been pointless heading back for what would have amounted to just a 20 or 25 minute swim.

    As I’ve said before, life gets in the way sometimes, and you just need to learn to roll with it. I’m definitely not going to beat myself up right now when life seems to be doing that quite handily all by itself! 😂

    But there are often silver linings to the darkest clouds, and this morning’s weigh-in was one of them. I was expecting to correct the 2.7lbs I put on while on business in Barcelona last week, but was delighted to see I’d done far more than that.

    My weight today – 16 St 4.4 lb (228.4 lb / 103.8 kg). That’s a loss since my last weigh-in of 5.1lbs! Even if you take out the 2.7lb I put on in Barcelona, that’s still a respectable 2.4lb lost this week.

    Progress Update • Week 14 – March 31, 2026 (from December 20th)

    16st 4.4lbs
    228.4 lbs | 103.8 kg
    Total Loss: 2st 1.5lbs (29.5 lbs / 13.8 kg)

    Exercise status: Nothing since last week!

    Fasting Status: First weekly 36-hour fast completed.

    Target: 12st 12lbs (180lbs) | Remaining: 48.4 lbs

    This takes me through the 230lb barrier into the 220’s, and I’m getting very close now to another really big milestone – a few more weeks like this, and I’ll be under 100kg!!!

    I’m now just shy of losing 30lbs in total since I started this program in December – actually 29.5 lb (13.4kg) to be exact.

    That also brings my average weight loss since December back to around 2.04 lb – still slightly behind my target of 2.56 lb per week but a very respectable average when you consider the business trips, birthdays, periods of illness, and other events that have gotten in the way. And remember this week’s weight loss when you account for the Barcelona trip was actually 2.4lb – very close to my 2.56 lb target.

    And if we look at my progress since diagnosis, that’s a grand total of 37.1lb (16.8kg). So I’ve now lost almost 14% of my body weight from diagnosis – and 10-15% is the target given by diabetic clinicians as the target weight loss required to reach type 2 diabetes remission!

    The landmark DiRECT study (Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial) showed that:

    • Loss of 10–15kg resulted in remission for 57% of participants.
    • Loss of 15kg+ resulted in remission for 86% of participants.

    Since I’ve now lost 16.8kg since diagnosis (37.1 lb), statistically, I am now in the “86% success” bracket for remission. I’m therefore now all the more excited to see the results of my self-administered HbA1c test from yesterday. While I posted it yesterday afternoon, it likely will take 48 hours at least to see the results back, but given my weight loss and my overall consistency with keto, fasting and exercise, I’m still confident that this will be somewhere under 60mmol/mol.

    I was speaking to a fellow type 2 diabetic yesterday, and they told me their HbA1c is currently at 52mmol/mol – they were very proud of themselves since they had cut out bread, pasta, potatoes, sugar etc, but went on to talk about still eating chocolates and desserts occasionally, as well as eating lots of fruit! They didn’t seem to be aware that many fruits – like bananas – are very high in sugar. For him 52mmol/mol was a blip, as he had been around 48 mmol/mol for his last two tests, and I can’t argue with him as long as he has no other symptoms. For me I will not be satisfied until I’m safely under 42 mmol/mol. I might allow myself to get over 42 on special occasions, with careful planning, but I will immediately be aiming to return to that sub 42 mmol/mol mark.

    Given my strict adherence to a much lower-sugar approach, combined with the fasting and exercise, which effectively burns out any glucose rapidly, I think getting into the low 50’s or even as low as high 40’s might well be achievable. Watch this space!

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  • Life gets in the way…with a baseball bat sometimes (at least it feels that way!)

    Ken

    ·

    I often half-joke about how life gets in the way of your best intentions, whether it’s sabotaging your diet or making it challenging to fast or exercise.

    In a recent blog, I also joked about how weight loss is like banking. When you are flush, you make deposits in your savings account (store fat), and when times are tough, you withdraw from your savings (burn fat and lose weight). I used the analogy of tough times, maybe when you’re unemployed.

    Last week, the universe decided it would be funny to test me by making me the target of a recent widescale “restructuring” effort at work. I was told last Monday that I’m being considered for redundancy. As I’m a director, this usually involves a “consulting” process, but they made me a conditional “enhanced offer” of a payout if I just left immediately, rather than making them go through the motions. So yes, unemployment beckons.

    I’m not counting myself out yet – there is a job available in an adjacent team which would seem like an ideal use of my skills and expertise, but I’m still waiting to hear back about that. And I’m not sitting around moping about it either. I also mentioned that I was due to go to a conference in Barcelona last week – I had joked about that being my “final boss” battle before a diabetic check-up I had scheduled for last Friday. That conference was an industry event that included most of my company’s competitors, and so I took the opportunity to put feelers out for potential job opportunities.

    I also managed to stick very closely to my eating plan, as well as fitting in a treadmill run at the hotel’s gym.

    The result was I only put on 2.7lbs (1.22kg) while away. Consider that on my last business trip to Paris just two weeks prior, I put on 6.1lbs (2.76kg). So this trip was far less damaging, despite my being extremely stressed due to my redundancy news. I’ll take that as a major win to be honest! As we’ve talked about before, this kind of short-term weight gain is not body fat, it’s just water and glucose and very much temporary. Regardless – consider that final boss’s butt well and truly kicked!

    The universe wasn’t quite finished throwing me under the bus. On Thursday last week, I got a message from my GP surgery telling me that my diabetic check-up had to be postponed until 5th May, which was also not ideal. I had been building up to this for many weeks now, as this was my 3-month check-in, and I was really excited to see how far I’d gone in putting my type 2 diabetes into remission.

    Again, rather than simply mope about that, I sent away for a home blood test kit, which arrived over the weekend. I’ll be taking my blood today and sending it back so I should get my results by the end of this week. I’ve used “Monitor My Health” blood tests before as they partner with the NHS and use their laboratories for the testing, thereby ensuring accurate results.

    I’m back to fasting today, and will be swimming later. I fully intend to stick to my routine as far as possible, despite the shadow of potential unemployment looming over me. Life does sometimes get in the way, and sometimes it can feel harsh. You can’t control everything that happens in life. But controlling the things that you can control is a great way to feel less a victim of the vicissitudes of life, and more like the author of your own story.

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  • What got you here won’t get you there

    Ken

    ·

    An important lesson I’ve learnt in life, that applies most especially to weight loss, is “what got you here won’t necessarily get you there”.

    This week my weight loss stalled for the first time since I began. I have seen my weight go up on occasions, like last week’s business trip to Paris where I put on 6.1lbs – but this was just water weight, and getting back on track reversed this immediately. I lost that 6 lbs in just three days with my very next 36hr fast.

    But since then I’ve had two 36 hour fasts, while maintaining my diet and exercise, and lost no further weight this week. It would be easy to get disheartened and feel like all your hard work is for nothing, but it’s important to be pragmatic about these things.

    The changes I initially made to my diet, exercise and fasting habits were great. From where I was at the beginning – 18 St 3.3 lbs (255.3 lbs / 116kg), these were very aggressive steps for combating type 2 diabetes and losing weight fast. And they worked. They were enough to see me lose over 26lbs (12kg) in 11 weeks.

    But as you’ve seen if you read my glossary of dieting terms and concepts page, the primary determinant of losing weight is a calorie deficit. Despite what many proponents of fasting, keto diets and exercise will tell you, there is no real magic to any of them. They only work because they bring you into a calorie deficit.

    Your calorie requirements are defined by your base metabolic rate or BMR, and by consuming fewer calories per week than you need to maintain your current weight, you cannot help but lose weight. Your body simply consumes the stored body fat to make up the deficit.

    Think of it like a bank. You make deposits in your savings account when you are flush with cash (storing body fat) and then maybe you are out of work for a week, so you withdraw your cash to survive (burning body fat).

    While a calorie deficit is the ‘withdrawal,’ keeping my insulin low through my keto diet and fasting is what keeps the ‘bank vault’ unlocked so I can actually access those fat stores easily.

    You can increase your deficit through exercise to an extent, since exercise raises your BMR, but there is only so much you can do. It’s a sad but true fact that exercise makes you hungry. Your body craves protein, vitamins and minerals to repair the damage done by progressive exercise. So it’s a balancing act – maintaining sufficient nutrition to support your body’s needs, while keeping the calories to a minimum.

    By losing weight, I’ve naturally reduced my BMR. It takes less energy for me to walk, stand, even sleep, with a body that weighs 16 St 7.8 lbs (231.8 lbs / 105.4 kg) than it did when I was 26lbs / 12kg heavier.

    Even though I’ve increased my activity somewhat, this is offset to a large extent by the additional efficiency of my cardiovascular system. So effectively, because of my BMR reduction, I now need 200-300 calories fewer per day than I did at the beginning.

    By continuing to eat the same meals week in and week out, I have naturally seen a gradual slowing of my weight loss.

    The only way to kick start this and keep my weight loss up is by reducing my calorie intake again. So over the next week or so, I’m going to be looking at ways to cut calories. There are some easy and quick wins for me. My breakfast omelette was often a 3 or 4 egg omelette, served up with 2 heck 97% pork sausages and 2 rashers of Finne Brogue Naked bacon (no nitrates). This always leaves me very full – maybe too full – so I’m going to be dropping this to 2 eggs and 1 slice of bacon/1 sausage. I also usually have mushrooms, red onions, spinach and a whole avocado with my omelette, as well as some cheese. I’m going to be reducing all of these as well.

    I also would have a smoothie on my eating days – 0% fat greek yogurt, frozen berries, a scoop of whey protein powder, flax and chia seeds, and another whole avocado! I’d also often add a spoonful of cashew butter and some dark chocolate. Most of this is fine, but my plan is to split my whole avocado – having half with my omelette and half in my smoothie (it makes for a really creamy texture!). I’ll also remove the cashew butter and dark chocolate. I generally have my smoothie with some keto hana granola, which is very healthy, but I’d often add a handful of mixed nuts – very healthy but very calorie-dense. So I’ll be reducing the nuts considerably.

    My dinners are probably the one thing that doesn’t need to change – typically an air fried chicken breast with veggies lightly fried in some Worcestershire sauce or soy sauce (remembering to keep Worcestershire to a light splash as it does contain some sugar).

    But I was getting to a point where my snack habit was a problem – I have been buying double-fried pork crackling, which is super keto-friendly, but also very calorie-dense. For texture, I’d also have a few slices of vintage cheddar cheese. I’m going to have to start reducing these, and I’ve recently bought some new Keto Hana granola bars, so these may replace my more caloric snacks entirely on some days.

    Just a few tweaks like these should result in a significant reduction in my weekly calorie intake, which in turn gives me a greater calorie deficit and should keep my weight loss moving at the same rate.

    I know I’m already fasting 3 x 36hrs a week, which is a lot – and these are the biggest contributors to my calorie deficit – but there’s no point in maintaining so much fasting if I then undo all that work by over-eating on my non-fasting days.

    So I just need to remind myself – what got me here won’t necessarily get me where I need to be – and adjust accordingly. As you’ve seen if you’ve been following my blog this is the first time I’ve considered reducing my intake in 3 months so it’s not something you need to do too often – but as you start to lose weight and get past 20-30lbs lost you should definitely keep track of your weekly weight loss and make sure you are still losing at the rate you want to.

    And the important thing is – it’s not about depriving yourself! You aren’t cutting calories to make you suffer! You are cutting calories because you’ve EARNED a new lighter body, which naturally needs less food to maintain its current weight, and therefore needs less food if you want to continue losing as rapidly as you have been. That is your BMR in action, and it’s what you want/need to meet your goals.

    It’s perfectly natural for weight loss to slow as you get nearer your target, but by keeping an eye on your new BMR, you can prevent this from becoming a frustrating weight loss plateau.

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  • The ups and downs of the long haul

    Ken

    ·

    Two days ago, I posted about my blood pressure vacillating. I’d seen some odd ups and downs – nothing to panic about necessarily, but still not great.

    Yesterday my BP was up again – my average reading was 144/93 with a 63bpm heart rate. Still concerning, but again not “panic stations”.

    Today, it’s back down again – 128/82 with 60bpm heart rate. My standing blood pressure was 119/82 85bpm – representing only a small dip in my systolic pressure. For someone with my history of crisis-level hypertension prior to medication, this is a super healthy reading, given I’ve recently halved my medication. Earlier in the week I saw a drop of 30 points from seated to standing so today is looking much better!

    There are so many factors that can impact your blood pressure, stress, activity/exercise, sleep (or lack thereof), diet and so on, and this is precisely why my GP tells me not to take my BP every day. I am only doing this currently because of the unexpected high readings this week, so seeing things return to a normal, healthy level is always encouraging.

    I’ll keep a track of things over the next few days until I see more stability – but these are useful data points to share with my GP when I have my quarterly diabetic check-up next Friday. The fact that it’s vacillating isn’t too surprising as my body adapts to its new weight and new medication dose, and I’m hopeful that my GP will agree that my current dosage is perfectly adequate.

    Since I’m continuing to stay on track with my diet, exercise, and fasting, my body should continue to adjust and get better at maintaining a healthy blood pressure.

    So that’s today’s good news – but as you’ve seen from today’s blog post title, there are ups and downs.

    The “bad” news isn’t that bad. I weighed in this morning and – no change. Of course, it’s not really bad news – I haven’t put any weight on – but it’s disappointing given that I’ve stuck to my usual routine: 3 x 36 hour fasts, my three swims (2 x 1.25km, 1 x 1km recovery swim), and two runs (2 min run / 1 min walk), while eating within my keto/DASH diet on my re-feeding days.

    Obviously, it’s always disheartening when you don’t see the scale move, but it’s not all about body weight. As we’ve discussed previously, body weight fluctuates for all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with body fat. I saw a 6.1lb weight gain over a few days during a business trip to Paris last week, which then disappeared just as quickly when I got back on track this week.

    An aggressive plan like mine will put all kinds of stresses on my body and sometimes you just need to give it time to see the results. This is a marathon, not a sprint, and consistency is key. Especially now as I approach that diabetic checkup next week.

    That will be the real test – in many ways, that is far more important than losing a few pounds. I’ve already lost almost 34lbs (15kgs) since my diagnosis, which is approaching 13% of my starting body weight, the point at which “type 2 diabetes remission” is often seen, and crucially, I’ve stuck to my keto / DASH diet.

    Keeping my blood sugar low – through diet, exercise and fasting is my triple-whammy, gold-standard approach for getting to my type 2 diabetes remission, and I’m expecting to see a huge drop in my HbA1c, which was at 79 in December. Getting this down to under 59 mmol/mol will be a huge turnaround, although I’m secretly hoping to see a reading under 55 mmol/mol. By all measures, getting to under 55 mmol/mol in 3 months would be a massive clinical success.

    It’s definitely at the edge of what is achievable / has been seen in clinical studies, but it’s feasible that I could even see a drop to 48 mmol/mol, which is considered “pre-diabetes”, but is also the target given to type 2 diabetics looking to reduce their blood sugar before sesrious harm is done.

    Seeing readings 6 months apart of 48 mmol/mol without the support of diabetes medication is classed as “diabetic remission” for type 2 diabetics. To be fair, achieving a reading of 48 after just 3 months would be at the “staggeringly successful” end of the scale, but given how strict I’ve been with myself, I don’t want to rule it out.

    Anyway, no point getting too excited – I’ve got a big week ahead of me, I’m away this weekend seeing my partner up in Newcastle, and then I have a second business trip, this time to Barcelona. I really need to bring my “A” game for this final boss challenge, as my diabetic checkup is the day after I return from Spain. Fortunately, Spain is more famous for it’s savoury tapas than sugar-laden treats like those tempting French pastries, so hopefully it shouldn’t be too difficult to stay on track.

    Either way, I’m quietly confident that the results of my upcoming HbA1c blood test will be a huge vindication of everything I’ve done so far.

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  • Blood pressure blues – but only temporary

    Ken

    ·

    The last two days I’ve had some weird and slightly worrying blood pressure readings.

    Tuesday:

    • 140/92 69bpm
    • 144/91 70bpm
    • 147/93 64bpm

    Wednesday:

    • 151/97 66bpm
    • 151/99 65bpm
    • 157/99 65bpm

    This is in contrast to my last readings, taken after my BP seemed to stabilise after I adjusted my medication.

    Two weeks ago:

    • 133/89 58bpm
    • 132/87 55bpm
    • 133/86 58bpm

    A jump of 10 points on systolic pressure isn’t awful in and of itself, but a reading that is either above 140 systolic or above 90 diastolic puts you into stage 2 hypertension. Given that both my systolic and diastolic readings were in stage 2, that’s a clear indicator. However, it’s still nowhere near the worst case I saw when I was first diagnosed with hypertension – I had readings like 201/128, 203/114 etc which are “hypertensive crisis” readings.

    So a jump of nearly 20 points to yesterday’s figures is definitely slightly concerning, but not an automatic panic. Given the upward trend I decided to wait it out and see how things looked today, ready to call my GP if there were still high readings. It occurred to me that when we corrected my medication dose – effectively reducing my dosage by more than half by removing one medication entirely and halving the dose of the other – we may have over-corrected, leaving my vascular system lacking sufficient support to keep my blood pressure down.

    That definitely wasn’t something I wanted to hear, but you have to listen to your body! If that’s what I needed, then so be it.

    I was mid-36-hour-fast when I took my BP yesterday which is of course a stress on the body, and I was due for my mid-week swim yesterday evening. I often treat my Wednesday swim as a recovery swim, lowering my distance to 1km, and reducing my sets from 500m to 250m with a good rest in between sets, so I felt quite comfortable about continuing this routine.

    I also contemplated breaking my fast early, but since I had no other symptoms – no light-headedness, no headache, no feeling of weakness etc – decided I’d just give it one more day.

    Anyway, I woke up this morning and took my BP again and was very relieved to see a complete return to normal!

    • 129/84 65bpm
    • 122/83 67bpm
    • 120/82 67bpm

    It’s quite likely that the last two days represent my body still adjusting and adapting to my reduced medication, combined with the “stress” of my recent Paris trip – which almost certainly saw an increase in salt intake, as well as a blip in my carbs from hidden sugars – the result of which was a 6.1lb (2.7kg) weight increase. This was clearly just “water weight,” which I then shed literally within days of getting back on track.

    Gaining and losing 6lbs of water weight is still a physiological stress – especially when you use aggressive ketogenic dieting, 36 hour fasts, and are increasing your exercise the way I have. So it’s quite likely my recent blood pressure spike was just a sign of my body adjusting to all this stress.

    The fact that it’s settled back to a normal range today is definitely a very good sign. My GP told me way back that I shouldn’t necessarily take my BP every day as it’s perfectly normal to see ups and downs – the important thing is the overall trend. But I will of course, track it over the next few days just to see that today isn’t the blip in an otherwise increasing BP trend.

    The human body is a complex thing, and it can adjust to almost anything – but it sometimes takes time. By being as consistent as I can be, I’m giving my body the best possible chance to adapt to my new lifestyle – regular exercise, consistent fasting, and a healthy eating pattern.

    If you’re on a similar journey, I would always advise being both patient with yourself and reasonably vigilant. Don’t be panicked by what appear to be sudden and extreme changes – e.g., in body weight or blood pressure. But let yourself be guided by the data. If you are seeing long-term spikes in blood pressure, especially, it’s vital that you report them to your GP, who can take an objective view and, if need be, adjust your medication.

    But also remember that consistency doesn’t mean forcing yourself and pushing yourself to the breaking point! Note that I’m listening to my body and considering my options, backing off a little where it makes sense in order not to take silly risks with my health.

    Ultimately, this journey is about improving health – not about seeing numbers drop off the scale. As you have hopefully seen through my journey, weight is very fickle; it can bounce around by as much as 6lbs in a few days just due to fluctuations in salt and water levels.

    I’m specifically watching my salt intake today to ensure I keep it below the DASH recommendation – which is around 3.75g of salt per day. It does seem like my vascular system is particularly sensitive at the moment so keeping an eye on this while also watching my electrolytes which I support through electrolyte tablets as well as diet – e.g. today I’m planning to have two avocadoes, one with my breakfast and then another will go into a smoothie which I’ll split, having half at lunch time and the rest after dinner as a dessert to satisfy my swett tooth.

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  • Blipped back! Business trip banished!

    Ken

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    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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  • Easy come, easy go – business trip blips, and how to reframe a 6lb weight gain as a success!

    Ken

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    So, after my last post in which I saw my biggest weekly weight loss since starting this program in December, I had a business trip to Paris which I also mentioned.

    I came back from the trip feeling really positive about myself. I had avoided all of the obvious temptations completely. Not a single slip, despite the fantastic food on offer, the urge to partake in croissants and other pastries, etc.

    But while I avoided the “obvious” temptations, it’s always much harder to avoid the hidden pitfalls when eating on the road and where you are not in complete control of everything you consume. Also, while on this trip, I did not fast, nor did I maintain my usual regular exercise schedule. This is not a trivial change.

    The result of all this was I weighed in this morning to find I’ve regained 6.1lbs! On the surface it would be easy to feel like I’ve just wiped away all of the weight loss I was so proud of last week in one fell swoop! But we’ll address that.

    It would be easy to get disheartened, but as I’m sure you’ve seen if you are a regular reader of my blog, these kinds of rapid gains (and losses) are invariably just water weight, and to do with flushing and reloading water and glycogen stores rather than actual fat loss/gain. Glycogen is particularly tricky – it acts almost like a sponge. Every gram of carbohydrate stored as glycogen carries about 3 to 4 grams of water with it.

    It’s also worth noting that just prior to leaving for Paris, I completed a 36 hour fast, during which I also included a 1.4km swim, and also a walk/run – in which I had increased my usual running schedule so instead of 2 mins run, 1 min walk, I did 2.5 mins run, 1 min walk.

    What this effectively did was empty out all of my glycogen stores, completely draining those sponges, priming them to soak up any hidden carbs while I was away.

    And the most important thing for me to remember is that losing weight is only part of the picture. An important part, sure, but is it actually the most important? Not for me! Being type 2 diabetic, having early stage diabetic neuropathy and retinopathy – the single most important thing for me is controlling my blood sugar. And this is the reason that I can come back from a business trip like this, find that I’ve put on 6.1lbs, and still feel pretty good about myself. I did NOT fall off the wagon in terms of my food choices. I stuck to the best possible options at every stage. Yes, there were some hidden carbs that I missed, but these would have been very minor in the big scheme of things.

    I love French food and especially French pastries, and so this was a massive test of my resolve, and I passed with flying colours. Some day, when I’ve got my blood sugar back down to a normal, healthy level, and am in full diabetic remission I will be able to eat those things again, precisely because I’ve now developed the tools and awareness necessary to manaage my blood sugar effectively.

    So, now back to it! I just completed a 22 hr fast straight after coming home last night (Friday), and have been swimming this afternoon (Saturday). Tomorrow (Sunday) I’ll aim for at least another 18-20hr fast, and also get another run in, and then I’ll be back to my usual 3 x 36hr fasting protocol as of tomorrow (Sunday) night.

    I imagine it won’t take me more than 3-4 days to get my weight back to where it was pre-trip and get back on track.

    When you understand the physiology of exercise, fasting, and your diet it becomes much easier to avoid getting disheartened by these “blips”. You just need to accept that “life will get in the way” of your plans sometimes, and that’s fine. Just make sure to get back on track when you are able, and the results will continue to follow.

    While it sometimes feels like I’m taking “two steps forwards, one step back”, the net result is still one whole step forwards each time! And that’s how we get to where we’re going, one step at a time!

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