Intermittent fasting is an alternative to bariatric surgery

I've struggled with weight my whole sedentary adult life (currently at ~234) and when I hit the age of 50 I also became diabetic.  I've seen the ads for various types of bariatric surgery, some more invasive than others but they all basically attempt to reduce the volume of food that can go into your stomach before you start feeling full.

There is no magic. The key to weight loss and all the associated maladies such as painful knees, high cholesterol, raised blood glucose and diabetes, to name a few, is to burn more calories than is eaten.

Many overweight people don't want to sacrifice anything such as the ability to eat their favorite foods when-ever and where-ever but there can be no progress without some effort regardless of what needs to be achieved.

Intermittent fasting has come to my attention and the idea seems to make alot of sense for people with weight problems as well as people with Type 2 diabetes.

What is Intermittent Fasting?

Intermittent fasting is when you make an effort to confine any eating to a small number of hours during the day typically 12pm-7pm and as the body gets trained, reducing the eating window to 2pm-5 or 6pm.

The idea is simple. Feel like eating? Check the time. Are you in your eating window? No? have some water instead.

What are some advantages to Intermittent Fasting?

• burn fat
• deplete glycogen stores in the muscles and liver (fatty liver disease)
• reduce high morning glucose readings (Symogy effect)
• loose weight
• naturally shink the size of your stomach
• lowers A1C
• save time in the morning when you skip breakfast

My experience with Intermittent Fasting

After a week practicing intermittent fasting with greatly reduced carbohydrate intake I've lost about 1 pound a day likely in water weight. For most people, doing both low carb and fasting together might be a bit too much restriction/sacrifice but I've been gradually reducing my carbs and moving away from breads and sweets over the last few years.

In the last year, I found that taking metformin has made my body extremely sensitive to carbs to the point where eating some carbs will guarantee some weight gain. Despite lower A1C numbers with Metformin the morning glucose readings have always read 140-150. 

I observed lower morning glucose readings below 120 when I didn't have any carbs the previous night so I will keep an eye on the readings even though I've stopped taking my metformin this week.

Most days, I'm not super starving when lunch time rolls around but I've noticed that as soon as I'm half way through my lunch that I get a terrible headache that lasts until about dinner time. I've also noticed that quantities of food I normally ate is now too much and I'm stuffed if I forget to remind myself not to finish everything on my plate. Somehow, not snacking and skipping breakfast is causing my stomach to shrink which is the same end result as bariatric surgery!

Caveat: I don't have proven results that fasting will lower my A1C, but if that blood test is an average glucose reading over the last 3 months, it makes sense that reducing my eating window to fewer hours can only reduce my average glucose reading for any given day.

In addition, I have come to the realization that snacking throughout the day (my habit for eating salty snacks will need to stop) can only raise my average glucose reading. I understand that some people believe that eating more meals a day *might* keep their metabolism higher, but if eating anything raises glucose levels, it would seem to me that eating more frequently is a great opportunity to build fat stores rather than deplete them.

My tips

• avoid artificial sweetners - they only train your brain and tongue to crave sweets
• drink lots of water
• take multi-vitamin/multi mineral supplements
• avoid breads, breaded food (meatballs, fried chicken, onion rings, etc)
• avoid sweets 
• only water during the fast (black coffee and tea are ok)
• check your watch, ensure the eating window is followed

I thought I was helping myself by diluting my fountain drinks and sweet teas with seltzer or unsweet tea but eventually came to realize that adding any sugar/sweetness to a drink is bad news because your body will react to the carbs, even if you can't taste the sweetness. I mostly just order water or unsweet tea now. It was an adjustment, but now soda and sweet tea is unpleasantly sweet and that's a good thing.

-March 22 2018 update: down 8 pounds in 10 days (224.6)

-June 30 2018 update: down another 6 pounds (218.7)

-April 30 2019 update: down 9 pounds (209.7)

I seem to have been in the 219-222 range for months, but I've finally come to the realization that I can't do intermittent fasting with just a low carb diet, I must be Keto or my glucose readings will be too high due to a different kind of insulin resistance that arises when your body becomes adapted to burning fat. I was under the assumption that 50-100g of carbs was still low carb (relatively) but my glucose readings were higher across the board.

So what exactly is the difference between low carb and Keto? Strict adherence to carb avoidance. Do those meatballs have breadcrumbs in them? I can't have them.  I think I must follow a lazy keto, because I'm still eating meatballs and fried chicken, both items generally considered off limits on Keto.

Many Keto support folks will advise the protein macros are a minimum but the fat macros should be considered a maximum so if my goal of 120g of protein is hit, I can go ahead and go over that but should not try to get much over 20g of fat although this number is dependent on how much activity I do in a day. Less activity = less carbs, more activities = more carbs up to around 50-100g