Some of you may be able to incorporate fasting to manage blood glucose sensitivity. This will differ from person to person, and if you are unused to fasting or have blood sugar issues, I suggest sticking to 3 good meals a day with only the overnight fast.
If you have good blood sugar regulation, see if you can manage a 12-14 hour fast.
To Fast or not to Fast?
Intermittent fasting is another hack to improve your “metabolic health” and “flexibility”. Intermittent fasting is a powerful method that has been seen to bring high blood sugar levels under control, lower insulin levels and improves insulin sensitivity.
Studies have shown that intermittent fasting can help decrease your risk of type 2 diabetes because it helps your body regulate your blood sugar.
For example, a recent meta-analysis on twelve different studies showed that various forms of intermittent fasting helped decrease fasting blood glucose levels while helping to increase insulin sensitivity.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6832593/
Metabolic flexibility means that your body’s metabolism is flexible and can use whatever fuel is available to it, whether that’s fuel from food or fuel already stored in your body. If you’ve eaten a snack or a meal recently, your body will metabolise that food and use glucose for energy production. But if it’s been a while since you last ate, your metabolism can switch over to burning fuel that’s already in your body, like fat and sugar stores. Scientists refer to these fuel-burning processes as fat oxidation and glucose oxidation.
In pre-industrial times, before we had restaurants and grocery stores, humans were metabolically flexible by necessity. Some days there was plenty of food, and other days there wasn’t enough to go around. Metabolic flexibility allowed people to go days without eating and feel fine. The same is true, to some degree, in our modern society, such as when we’re doing high-intensity exercise or have high levels of energy expenditure throughout the day, our bodies need to adapt and use the right amount of fuel, depending on the situation. The fuel we should prioritise for the body after breaking a fast is protein and fat.
Excess gluocse (sugar)can be stored as FAT, or in the liver as GLYCOGEN. Fat is a long term energy reserve. Glycogen is more easily used, and is the first place our body goes to for energy (by switching it back to glucose) when we have not eaten enough for a few hours.
This is where fasting can be useful since the liver stores glycogen for up to 16 hours and after that it is forced to use fat for fuel. However everyone is different and you may reach a fasting threshold before 16 hours.
If trying fasting for the first time start slowly and do a 10-12 hour break from foods.
But are you concerned what going so long without eating may do to your blood sugar levels?
There is always sugar in your blood and the amount of sugar can change based on the last time you eat and what was in that meal.
However, some people have chronically elevated blood sugar levels, or blood glucose levels, and that’s a problem. This is called hyperglycemia.
For those fasting, you also need to avoid hypoglycemia. Hypoglycemia can occur with ”malnutrition” and ”starvation” when you don’t get enough food, and the glycogen stores your body needs to create glucose are used up.
From milder, more common indicators to most severe, signs and symptoms of low blood glucose include:
· Feeling shaky.
· Being nervous or anxious.
· Sweating, chills and clamminess.
· Irritability or impatience.
· Confusion.
· Fast heartbeat.
· Feeling lightheaded or dizzy.
· Hunger.
Make sure you get protein with every meal and consider electrolytes in your water.
A veggie and egg quick breakfast or lunch “on the go”
Magical Microbiome Muffins
Makes 8 muffins
Keep sealed in the fridge Ingredients:
1⁄2 cup chopped kale
1⁄4 cup roughly chopped sundried tomato
1⁄2 cup grated carrot
1⁄2 cup grated courgette
8 medium eggs
1⁄4 cup spring onion, green part only, chopped
1 tsp dried thyme, 1 tsp dried rosemary, 1 tsp dried oregano, 1 tsp sea salt & 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp coconut oil
1⁄4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1⁄4 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
Instructions:
• Preheat oven to 190C (gas mark 5).
• Whisk the eggs in a bowl. Add all the other ingredients and mix thoroughly.
• Position 8 muffin cases on a muffin tray and distribute the mix evenly between them.
• Bake in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes.
• Leave to cool, and then keep sealed in the fridge.
