Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not aware of any way to check insulin levels from home - how did you do that?
Walmart blood strip tester?
Which can test blood sugar and ketone levels - I've never heard of strips for insulin levels.
An Insulin Index of Foods (1994)
51–60 of 122 posts
Re: An Insulin Index of Foods (1994)
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry for the dumb question, but given the total calories are the same, does this mean that it is generally healthier to eat one big meal per day rather than 10 small ones? Given my current understanding from all the intermittent fasting hype lately, it is indeed better to eat big meals rarely rather than small meals frequently. For some reason, your post got me slightly confused because I lack the necessary knowledg…
The answer to your question is yes. I’m doing 18:6 or 20:4 protocols, I eat 2 meals per day usually and I like measurements. My blood ketones during my fasting are through the roof, over 1.5 mmol/L after 15 hours of fasting, which indicates deep nutritional ketosis and an indication that lypolisis is efficient. I can tell you this would not happen if I ate 6 small meals per day. And I know because I measured myself.…
> My blood ketones during my fasting are through the roof, over 1.5 mmol/L after 15 hours of fasting, which indicates deep nutritional ketosis and an indication that lypolisis is efficient.
The problem is that there isn't any real data, on an epidemiological level, that says this matters. I don't mean to be offensive, it's just a weird obsession with the Keto community I don't really understand. Same with insulin spikes. They just don't matter. It's averages over a long period of time that matter. If you're eating two large meals, you're still releasing a lot of insulin, you're still doing the same amount of fat storage, you're just timing it differently. If that works for you, great.
> I can tell you this would not happen if I ate 6 small meals per day. And I know because I measured myself. But it’s also how the body works ... ketosis happens after the liver’s glycogen stores are depleted, which takes 10-12 hours and the switch to burning fat isn’t very efficient and getting less so with age. Your body needs a break from food in order to mobilize the energy in your adipose tissue.
This is a semantic construction that is not supported by the science. You are correct that you would not measure nearly as high blood ketone levels, but you are incorrect in the idea that you wouldn't consume essentially the same amount of fat over the same amount of time given the same caloric inputs. Most people also go into ketosis while they are sleeping.
> With 6 small meals what actually happens is constant hunger because you’re interrupting lipolysis every time you eat.
This doesn't matter. Given the same energy requirements and the same energy inputs you're going to burn the same amount of fat over a 24 hour period regardless of when those inputs come. Anything else is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence.
> This happens even with the ketogenic diet, because even meat triggers a hormonal response, small but not insignificant.
Yes, keto is actually a low protein diet as much as a high fat diet. Most people ignore the first part.
> Also speaking from my own experience, I suffered from hunger at night, which made me binge. Switched to IF, hunger is now gone. Sounds like a paradox but it really isn’t.
This is great, and a very real reason for people to try IF/Keto/Other diets. But it does not suggest anything other than a compliance hack that is working well for you.
Re: An Insulin Index of Foods (1994)
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a Type 1 diabetic, it's certainly easier to control one's blood sugar eating multiple, smaller meals per day. Specifically, the rate at which the food and insulin are absorbed into the system can vary by a large amount. The smaller the meal (and insulin does needed for it), the less extrme a high/lower blood sugar spike is likely to be.
Yes, I want to point out that diabetics react differently and really do have to manage insulin, it's the idea that metabolically healthy people also have to that is a red herring. Obesity is not an insulin disorder just because insulin is involved. Diabetes is absolutely an insulin disorder.
But what causes an insulin disorder? I thought the argument for eating like a diabetic is so you don’t become one.
Re: An Insulin Index of Foods (1994)
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, I want to point out that diabetics react differently and really do have to manage insulin, it's the idea that metabolically healthy people also have to that is a red herring. Obesity is not an insulin disorder just because insulin is involved. Diabetes is absolutely an insulin disorder.
But what causes an insulin disorder? I thought the argument for eating like a diabetic is so you don’t become one.
You have to be more specific. T1 diabetes is almost entirely genetic, T2 diabetes is almost entirely behavioral. T2 diabetes is caused by eating too many calories. T2 diabetes is reversed by constraining calories, regardless of macronutrient composition.
Re: An Insulin Index of Foods (1994)
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The link between insulin and aging is super well understood. This is really overstated. The paper is a paper on round worms, which is really one step above basic cellular science (which is important but only a building block of the whole picture). We do not have large scale, epidemiological studies about sugar, and the ones that we do don't point to sugar behaving differently than other calories with regards to hea…
* Agreed on blood sugar vs. dietary sugar. * This paper launched a whole series of mouse studies.
If you have any that disambiguate between average and peak blood glucose levels I would be really interested in reading them! To my knowledge no one is really studying this because it is hard and if you are successful proving that knowledge we came up with in the 50s still holds isn't very attractive for most research institutes :(
Re: An Insulin Index of Foods (1994)
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
But what causes an insulin disorder? I thought the argument for eating like a diabetic is so you don’t become one.
You have to be more specific. T1 diabetes is almost entirely genetic, T2 diabetes is almost entirely behavioral. T2 diabetes is caused by eating too many calories. T2 diabetes is reversed by constraining calories, regardless of macronutrient composition.
What about the other fad diet boogeyman, inflammation? Is there any relevance between that and insulin responses? Or anything else?
Re: An Insulin Index of Foods (1994)
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
The answer to your question is yes. I’m doing 18:6 or 20:4 protocols, I eat 2 meals per day usually and I like measurements. My blood ketones during my fasting are through the roof, over 1.5 mmol/L after 15 hours of fasting, which indicates deep nutritional ketosis and an indication that lypolisis is efficient. I can tell you this would not happen if I ate 6 small meals per day. And I know because I measured myself.…
> My blood ketones during my fasting are through the roof, over 1.5 mmol/L after 15 hours of fasting, which indicates deep nutritional ketosis and an indication that lypolisis is efficient. The problem is that there isn't any real data, on an epidemiological level, that says this matters. I don't mean to be offensive, it's just a weird obsession with the Keto community I don't really understand. Same with insulin spi…
> If you're eating two large meals, you're still releasing a lot of insulin, you're still doing the same amount of fat storage, you're just timing it differently. If that works for you, great.
Yes, but your body won't be able to use it's stored fat in the presence of insulin. If you keep that up long enough, you can only burn calories coming in. If you eat a lot of meals AND a caloric deficit your body needs to decrease your metabolism, mostly heat, thus cold hands and feet.
> This is a semantic construction that is not supported by the science.
It is. See insulin vs glucagon.
> but you are incorrect in the idea that you wouldn't consume essentially the same amount of fat over the same amount of time given the same caloric inputs
It's about your metabolism not CICO.
> Most people also go into ketosis while they are sleeping.
Well it won't be a deep ketosis. The longer your fast, the lower the insulin, the more body fat will be used.
> This doesn't matter. Given the same energy requirements and the same energy inputs you're going to burn the same amount of fat over a 24 hour period regardless of when those inputs come. Anything else is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence.
It absolutely does matter, because your body does not burn a static amount of calories but adapts to the situation. Slowing metabolism is real. If you can't burn energy (low caloric input but frequent meals), your body will do what it needs to survive.
> Yes, keto is actually a low protein diet as much as a high fat diet. Most people ignore the first part.
Yes!
> This is great, and a very real reason for people to try IF/Keto/Other diets. But it does not suggest anything other than a compliance hack that is working well for you.
While it's anecdotal, there are good reasons for this effect.
You don't need to go low carb for a healthy diet, but cutting insulin raising foods for periods of time does have its merit. Take no more than 3 meals a day and leave 12+ hours food-free. Will do wonders for most people.
Re: An Insulin Index of Foods (1994)
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
As far as I know the human body absorbs pretty much all the nutrition from the food it consumes, so yes you can drink from the firehose and get it all. Our feces is just the waste we were never going to absorb anyway like fiber and lots of dead fungi and bacteria that grew along the way.
>As far as I know the human body absorbs pretty much all the nutrition from the food it consumes Not even close, especially when it comes to vitamins, nutrients and minerals. For example, take turmeric which is praised for its anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant benefits...we will usually not readily absorb the active ingredients unless taken together with black pepper. Black pepper will also improve nutrient availabi…
Is there any clinical research showing improved health outcomes for combining black pepper with turmeric?
Re: An Insulin Index of Foods (1994)
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Healthier is subjective. Diabetics are taught to eat multiple small meals a day to manage blood sugar levels better.
That of course assuming you're diabetic, otherwise you are totally capable of consuming food either way.
Capable, but it doesn't matter since your blood sugar level will spike higher and for longer with a single large meal even in a non-diabetic individual.
Re: An Insulin Index of Foods (1994)
#60While we're recommending food books, check this one out:
Why Calories Count by Marion Nestle and Malden Nesheim
https://www.amazon.com/Why-Calories-Count-Politics-Californi...