This experiment started out as a simple track your blood glucose levels for 30 days and sustains a level of 80 one hour postprandial (after eating); it sounded easy enough to me when I decided to do it, I thought I’m an athlete I eat Paleo, my blood glucose levels (bgl) would be low and I might just have to cut out some fruit, agave and wine to reach 80. Wow, I couldn’t have been more wrong! This has been an eye opening health adventure and I recommend for everyone to set a goal for improved insulin sensitivity; because the glucometer is the window to your health (Dr. William Davis).

About me:
32 year old female; 5’5” - 133#s @ 17.6% body fat. (The picture above is from my first figure competition.....I get to that later).

I am extremely active: my activities include Olympic lifting, parkour, gymnastics and playing. I eat a Paleo diet/lifestyle.

I have learned several things on my quest for the perfect blood glucose level which is 80 in ALL mammals (My Paleo love led me to study evolution...I know I’m such a nerd.) The first thing I learned is a fasting glucose level is garbage. Your fasting glucose level is the last to deteriorate and when your fasting blood glucose level has reached the diabetic range you already have organ damage. If you take nothing more away from this it should prevention is a whole hell of a lot easier than trying to live with a disease or recover from it.

Here are the basics, 80-120 blood glucose levels are considered “normal” but unless you are completely dense you should already know that diagnostic criteria pushes the envelope on “normal”.

So with this knowledge I had to wonder why the American Diabetic Association (ADA) is pushing out these numbers. Well this was a slippery slope that led to politics, speculation and ultimately the big conspiracy theory. We all know that pharmaceutical companies, the grocery and agriculture industries are multi-billion dollar operations. And with money is power. I’ll leave it at that, because I want this experiment to be based on facts more so than speculation that the drug companies are out to make us all dependent on one drug or another to keep them rich and I fell prey to that assumption (although I’ll admit I do think there is a direct link).

But regardless, the fact is the ADA is a powerful institution. But a majority of their data is 32 years out of date and they are internationally ignored.

Basics: Your pancreas has beta-cells that make insulin. Basal Insulin Release is the fancy name for the releasing of insulin.

We have two responses to mopping the sugar (glucose) from our blood from the food we eat. The first is the initial response. The amount of insulin released in this initial response is based directly on what our last meal was. If levels aren’t back under 100 our body utilizes the second phase insulin response. So it is easy to see how your beta-cells can be worked overtime if you are eating foods that cause too much sugar (glucose) to be dumped into your blood stream. It also sets up the explanation for my residual postprandial (fancy word for after eating) buildup I talk about later.

The real problem starts when these precious beta-cells start to die from overuse. When 63% of beta-cells die you are diabetic. You cannot test beta-cells in a living human. A biopsy will cause the pancreas to leak digestive enzymes – and digestive enzymes will do what they do best: digest, even if it is pancreas tissue. An MRI cannot be used because of the location of the pancreas. They are doing research now on beta-cell regeneration and there are projects in the work that show adult pancreas’ will convert alpha-cells’ function to beta-cell function to replace the dead beta-cells. But it’s a long way off; AND the diabetic would have to make drastic dietary change – not just medicinal treatment.

The best test for diabetes, pre-diabetic and insulin resistant related diseases is a Glucose Tolerance Test (GTT) which up until 2007 the ADA claimed a GTT was unreliable; later they said GTT was expensive and time consuming that is why the institute did not recommend GTT. The Fasting Glucose Tolerance Test is the ADA recommended test; which fasting glucose levels are the last level to deteriorate and NOT a good indicator of how things are working.
Usually by the time your fasting glucose levels have deteriorated you already have organ damage related to blood sugar levels. Your beta-cells have all night in a resting body to restore insulin storage – but as soon as you eat you are back on the Russian roulette game of balancing glucose and insulin if you aren’t eating the foods you are meant to eat.

Busy doctors refer to tables and graphs not studies; that is why they refer to the ADAs standard and use the fasting glucose level test vice the GTT. This is an actual study. Sad thing is like I said this info is 32 years old (National Diabetes Data Group. Classification and Diagnosis of Diabetes Mellitus and Other Categories of Glucose Intolerance. Diabetes, Vol 23,(10),1979. P.1039-1057.)

OK so now I had to determine what foods would spike my bgl, and I admit in my smug Paleo mind I was going to ace this blood glucose thing and I could brag about how cool my blood suagr levels are, but low and behold even on a Paleo lifestyle I was struggling the first few days to get my levels low! If I ate 3 eggs and ham and drank coffee I was looking at 116; same meal no coffee the next day 90. Anything with tomatoes would spike me into the 100’s – spaghetti sauce (all natural, no added fructose) 115; salsa (again all natural, no added fructose) 106. Apples, grapes and strawberries even with a walk, cinnamon and nuts (I’ll talk about later) would be 115.
So I was desperate to figure out why such good food items like tomatoes and apples would spike my blood sugar and what was the role of black coffee in raising my levels. I thought perhaps I am pre-pre-diabetic, if there is such a thing. I am an athlete for crying out loud, I am lean, I work out, there is no reason I should have this high of readings unless I am genetically predisposed (which I am a skeptic on genetics – I see it more as learned behavior; poor eating habit parents = poor eating habit kids.)

I went to a strict diet of meat, eggs, nuts and veggies and I was able to balance my blood sugar levels in the 80’s. I started doing some more evolution digging and came up with my own theory that fruit (and even veggies) are seasonal items. Nowadays we can have fruit year round – but our ancestors pancreas got a (depending on climate) six month break from the insulin spiker, fruit.

I also learned that walking, after you eat, adding cinnamon, green tea and fish oil all helped lower my blood sugar levels.

So I kind of had a handle on how to obtain levels in the 80s, so I wanted to expand my experiment and do some real experimenting, like what really spikes it and how bad.
I made my husband play along and we ate ¾ cup ice cream and shared a 12oz can of Pepsi – giving each of us 6 oz. I took our blood sugar and it was 80 flat for me and 82 for him! Impossible! How the hell did that happen? I was super confused, we were both bloated and really didn’t feel good from the sugar rush. I took my dogs for a walk to help burn off the excessive sugar and clear my head. I really was at a loss. This was around noonish, a few hours later I had a Paleo dinner of burger and broccoli, this same meal two days prior gave me a bsl of 80; this meal post the sugar rush = 100!! This brought me to my conclusion on residual and postprandial buildup. What was more interesting was that the next morning my fasting bsl was 100, and my normal 3 eggs and hams had my bsl at 97, 11 POINTS higher than average. I needed to get these levels lowered STAT – so I came up with a plan to fast. I did an six hour fast midday and was able to pull my bsl to 76. I worked out at the end of the six hours and ate post workout steak, broccoli and some cashew butter, my bsl was 90. Slight spike from the cashew butter (one of my weaknesses!) but all was well again.

So intermittent fasting seems to help lower bsl. Hmmm, this is a pretty useful tool. And surprisingly easy – I loved the fact that I didn’t have to drag a lunch box with me to work. My lunch box, although designer in nature, has become a ball and chain of sorts. A constant worry, is the temperature right, did I pack enough snacks for the day , I don’t feel like packing tonight for tomorrow I’m too tired, only to run around like a mad woman packing a lunch and snacks early the next am. It was a great freedom not to do this – I was only going to be away from the house for 6 hours, surely I will not wilt away and I can demonstrate enough discipline to not buy a meal/snack at work. I should mention I have a phobia of eating out – there are only a few places I trust to eat at (so much hidden sugar and wheat!) and eating Paleo out is ‘spensive!

Again, this led me to another phenomenon….the “graze”. Everyone boasts to eat small meals every 2-3 hours. I know I have even given that advice to people struggling with their weight. “Your metabolism is slow, you need to eat more frequently and speed it up.” This is actually horrible advice!! But I also see why it came about. If you live mainly on a diet of junk, and I consider junk anything other than meat, veggies, eggs, nuts, and fruits in that order, a common trait is to eat a pastry or cereal for breakfast , skip lunch and binge on dinner to “make up for the lost calories” or maybe you aren’t in the thought process of making up lost calories, perhaps it’s more, “I didn’t eat lunch so I can have a big dinner” or your bsl spiked and then fell from the sugary breakfast and now your brain is screaming for more glucose, because that is what your brain does best, scream for glucose. There could be a thought process to the dinner binge or survival instinct, regardless the theory of eating small meals every 2-3 hours to give one control and discipline over hunger was introduced.

Grazing for me caused a residual postprandial bsl. My body wasn’t fully recovered from my last meal and I was throwing down more calories to be processed – and the scary part about that is most people aren’t Paleo – so their diet is full of foods that spike bsl way into the 100 range without them even being aware (why a glucometer for ANYONE is a great health investment).

My youngest daughter is Celiac. When she was first diagnosed we played the replace gluten with gluten-free items game. She didn’t like the cookies, the pizza, the brownies, or the bread. I was repulsed by them too I could suffer through the brownies and cookies although I am convinced if you put chocolate on drywall I’d eat it. So the whole family went Paleo, the most challenging meal was breakfast. Eggs everyday got to be really old for the kids (ages: 9 and 11) at about month four. I looked for gluten-free cereals and bought Fruity Pebbles and Coco Pebbles and we used unsweetened almond milk to break the egg-monotony. The kids were ecstatic to have cereal again – I am not sure what is in cereal, maybe crack….oh wait no it’s something more addictive…sugar, that makes kids go crazy for the stuff. My kids and husband thought I was a little crazy when I first started this experiment but soon enough they were having me prick their fingers to test their bsll. This gave me even greater insight and frightening data. Fruity Pebbles and unsweetened almond milk spiked my 11 year olds bsl to 138 one-hours postprandial; my 9 year old to 118. It’s important to note that they both measured ¾ cup serving sizes of the cereal but my 11 year old finished hers and the 9 year old didn’t. They both drank water and usually they have orange juice with their eggs. I would be terrified to see what their bsl would have been if they would have had the OJ as well. Needless to say they are going back to eggs – or no breakfast.

Yes, no breakfast. That isn’t a mis-type. Whether you break the fast or not you and your kids will make it through the morning. Eating breakfast is a modern day economic prosperity; the cereal companies have led us to believe that it is a nutritional requirement. Don’t assume Associations and Institutes have our best interests at mind when they report scientific data. Scientific data can be manipulated to purport whatever findings you want. Politics play a large role in the grant money and studies they claim. This brings me back to the fasting. This absolutely amazed me and I wanted more information because I lift weights, and I love my muscle mass – and I need calories to work out and play and sustain muscle mass and if I am really lucky put more on. How would fasting affect that?

A little more background on me….I used to do fitness competitions. My first competition I went from 132#s to 118#s & 12%. I hardly had any muscle to display, I looked a little anorexic. The advice I got from the judges was to bulk. This was a frightening concept to me. Put on a bunch of weight – inevitably some of it would be fat and some muscle – then diet back down and see where I was. But for the love of the sport I decided to give it a try and my one and only attempt at a bulk went like this:

No cardio; I did a Dogg Crap style lifting routine; pre-workout I drank NOXplode; mid-workout I would eat some sweet tarts and a protein gel shot; post-workout a protein drink. I got stronger on my lifts, I put on some noticeable size, (144#, 12# gain) none of my clothes fit and I couldn’t do a flight of stairs without being winded. My legs were hamhocks, my shoulders had nice caps, my face was round, my triceps puffy and did I mention my clothes didn’t fit? And to top it all off I kept getting injured. These are relative changes – depends on who views them as to if they were good or bad. I viewed them as “things you learn as you get older in the gym” and I will never do any of this $hit again.

All the supplements started to tear up my stomach. To drink any of the powdered mixes, whether it was the NOXplode or the protein powders (if you aren’t familiar w/ NOXplode it has a ton of caffeine, sucralose, aspirin and a bunch of other chemicals – the protein powders had a bunch of vitamins and minerals and artificial sweeteners) I added as little water as possible to gag them down. I would rub my belly like a Buddha trying to get it to stop reeling. I started to get pimples on my back and routinely on my face. And I became chronically constipated with intermittent periods of blasting diarrhea. Did I mention my clothes didn’t fit? In addition to all the supplements (and supments are ‘spensive!) I drank diet pepsi, put splenda on/in everything, ate sugar free jello, sugar free chocolates, and invented a sugar free pumpkin pie - but it was OK because the only other thing I ate was grilled chicken and green beans, I wouldn’t eat steak to prevent high cholesterol and excessive weight gain (ha ha ha ha). I was always hungry and had nicknamed my hunger “my inner fat girl”. Which is kind of ironic because I was becoming fat on the outside; I watched my body fat crawl into the 20% and over range and cringed….but I was bulking I kept telling myself.

I finally came to my senses and was done tormenting my digestive system and I made the great change to my current activities of keeping the Olympic lifts, but adding in Parkour, gymnastics, sprints and playing. I also decided to go Paleo after finding a great website link on about Paleo on one of the many Crossfit links I perused surfing the internet daily. I read everything I could on Paleo and then drifted to Evolution.

So I did one of my cool functional fitness workouts on a 6 hour fast. The workout was 3x3 Push Jerks – threw up 120#s (a PR for me), then did 100 explosive push-ups (the up was two 25# plates stacked on each other) and the rest from the push-ups was a sprint on a 10% incline/8.2 pace for 30 seconds. I went the distance; didn’t quit and didn’t feel like I had any less energy than if I would have eaten.

I mentioned all the turmoil I put my gut through and my daughter’s Celiac – so let’s talk gut: your gut plays the lead role in your body for health and disease. Your gut is the barrier or gate keeper of your body, its function is to keep foreign material out of the body. If the intestinal barrier becomes permeable then you develop Leaky Gut Syndrome. What exactly is Leaky Gut Syndrome? It is when the intestines become inflamed from foods (I use that term loosely) and tiny tears happen, large protein molecules escape into the blood stream, as you can imagine these molecules don’t belong directly in the blood stream and they set off your immune system. Your immune system responds and attacks. These attacks play a distinct role in the development of autoimmune disorders (Hashimoto, Type I diabetes, Celiac, Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Autism, Depression, Inflammatory Bowel, Metabolic Syndrome). The scary part is you don’t have to have gut symptoms to have Leaky Gut Syndrome and the negative effects. What foods cause Leaky Gut Syndrome? Wheat, gluten products, antibiotics, birth control, NSAIDS, processed foods (anything containing fructose), wheat and seed oils are evil.

I don’t have an autoimmune disorder (that I know of) but all these items are linked to non-autoimmune disorders like asthma, allergies, skin conditions (eczema, acne) obesity, heart failure, depression, brain fog and digestive problems (IBS, gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation).

This was a really long post to come to the conclusion (with two weeks of data vice the intended 30-days) that if you want to know how foods are affecting you and if they are truly nourishing your body or causing it problems buy a glucometer and do some of your own tests. Test yourself before the meal and within a window of 60-90 minutes postprandial. Your bgl should be the same as it was pre-meal. You should also try to attain bgl under 100.

Try a fast! I am not suggesting you starve yourself for a day or even three! But skipping a meal will not nutritionally hurt you nor will it dampen your workouts. You may lean out a bit more, but just remember muscle size isn’t a good indicator of muscle strength.

Walk post meal – this is so simple and has an amazing impact on your bgl. A ten-minute walk at a brisk pace. (Take your sneakers to work – no one should be sitting at a desk for more than an hour at a time anyways! You aren’t that important, trust me)

Cinnamon, fish oil and green tea help lower your bgl. Replacing coffee is hard, I recognize that, but when I saw how it spiked my bgl it was easy to give it up and replace it with green tea. Besides when my bgl doesn’t jump up and down I don’t get tired or foggy brained – and taking a brisk walk when I do get tired at my desk instantly cures fatigue better than coffee.

Be leery of gluten-free products – they spike bgl too. You have to find out what having treats in moderation means for your body; the only way to do that is to buy a glucometer and figure out what YOU can tolerate. Experimenting on my husband and comparing it to myself prove to me that his moderation is more lenient than what I need to practice.

Sleep!! Everyone recommends it, everyone loves it, and few do it. Lack of sleep, like coffee, raises cortisol levels which impacts your bgl in a negative way. Enough said.

If anyone is interested in my actual bgl readings shoot me an email and I’ll share.

Outside of my own finger pricking blood glucose measure testing and comparing and years of touching the proverbial hot stove with my own diet.....I got myinformation from the following:

Dr. William Davis’ website: http://www.trackyourplaque.com/blog/ which was recommended to me by Talk to me Johnnie’s blog: http://talktomejohnnie.com/

I also found my fasting information from Mike O’Donnell on Facebook and at http://www.theiflife.com/ although some great info I don’t agree with everything Mike has to say about fasting – and his end game is to sell his program.

I have been figuring out how to lift weights, eat and stay healthy for 17 years. I have been training others with the information I test on myself for nine years; I have a normal full-time job so I am selective about the clients I train in my home – if you don’t want to work, I don’t want to train you – which is why I need the regular full-time job to pay the bills. My website is http://www.the-gym-cellar.com/.