Week 2
Challenge Update: a tiny step back!
Time in range
This week, again, I suffered from a few overnight hyperglycaemic events which account for that yellow/red areas on top. Those account for the total time out of range (17% high + 5% very high). No problems at all during the day.
78% is still a pretty decent result, but we can do better in week 3, can’t we?
A small step back from week 1…just getting a running start! 😁
Food: calories and macros
Below, again, a sample meal from Cronometer.
On average, every day I ate 2500 kcal, which I will probably increase to 3000 kcal in the coming weeks.
The macro split was roughly:
350g carbohydrates
35g fats
100g proteins
Breaking it down. Some notes
Blood glucose: party overnight!
I was too optimistic with the dinner bolus at beginning of week. Excited by the results of week 1, I lowered it by a couple units, but although my dinners consisted in lentils and starchy vegetables for the most part, I had some high levels during the nights.
I was always taking a few more units of rapid insulin right before going to bed, I seemed unable to avoid the spikes that always occurred around 3 hours after the meal - when I was already asleep
I examined my meals looking for the possible causes, and I see two of them:
There was one fatty ingredient in my dinners: a vegan spicy-mayo kind of sauce. I didn’t had crazy amounts, but a couple of spoons were probably enough to produce the damage. Half-way through the week I removed it from my dinners, and I was back to smooth, in-range overnight blood glucose again!
I also indulged in some bread.
This is a difficult topic for me, and a struggle too. I love bread, but have no control over myself when eating it. I could literally eat entire loafs back to back without even feeling it. You can imagine the the severe hyperglycaemic effects (regularty shoots my glucose up to 500).
This has a lot to do with the quantities I eat for sure, but this week I had small amounts (50-100g at once, max), and the spikes still occurred. The vegan-mayo sauce from above just compounded its damage.
Food: a fruit feast!
…and so I moved away from bread and fatty dressings, back to real food. Fruits, Nature’s candies! I put no limits in terms of the amounts. I just ate plenty, whenever I felt like it.
The glycemic impact? Nearly non-existent, neither at the time of eating nor in the hours after the snack. In practical terms, I found myself eating my afternoon snack (2-3 apples and 2-3 bananas, around 200-250g of carbs, managed by 5 units of insulin) with a glycemic level of 130 at the time of eating, persisted through the hours after, without spikes.
Since fruit is easily digested, I had no troubles staying focused at work, had plenty of energy and no such things as a ‘food coma’ during my eating window.
Intermittent fasting: small window, big results!
Still averaging 19 hours long fasting windows.
No starving, no food cravings, stable and in-range blood glucose levels.
I still feel energetic during my 6am gym sessions, regardless of the type of workout (strength or cardio), and have no troubles waiting until 2pm to eat.
I can easily eat the calories and nutrients I need to fuel all my mental and physical activities, so I see no valid reason to interrupt this. I’ll keep intermittent fasting, and I’ll probably make this a sort of life choice.
Exercise: natural movement and functional training!
On top of my usual training schedule (strength training and Z2 cardio), I have introduced some Natural Movement practice to work on coordination, flexibility and joint health. A very funny, engaging and challenging way of moving.
Highly suggested to anyone seeking to introduce something new to their routines to shake things up a bit and enjoy working out again!
Non trivial psychological implications of unstable blood glucose
One last, important consideration is the psychological implications of an unpredictable blood glucose. I feel this is mostly underrated, but arguably plays the biggest role on the day-to-day.
Not knowing whether I would spike overnight, whether and when the bolus corrections would cause hypoglycaemias, made it difficult for me to plan ahead my days, to be efficient and to enjoy my workouts.
Going to bed knowing that I’d probably spike overnight, waking up to a high blood glucose level, being insecure about how it would evolve through the fasting hours, I was just constantly worrying and checking my CGM data.
For one, this partially stole my focus at work. It also kind of screwed my workouts. Injecting a few corrective units to bring down the hyperglycaemia introduced the concern that I could go too low during the workouts. As a consequence, I found myself rushing through them from time to time, not enjoying them as much as I could.
I will come back on this topic with a dedicated blog post in the future. It was so evident for me this week that I needed to share it with you already.
Food pics
As always, don’t use my pics to advocate for the aesthetics in vegan foods…it may turn counterproductive! If you want to persuade someone, cook or show them this.
Below, my New Year’s lunch with some great company📚, and a 1.3Kg banana bowl with berries, lemon and cinnamon!
Next steps
For next week (week 3), I plan the following:
get rid of sauces and salad dressings completely for a while. Replace them with fruits, legumes and other foods such as rice and potatoes, and observe what happens.
try out longer cardio sessions on a fasted state (1.5 hours cycling), and observe how blood glucose reacts.
Deep Dive
Since I mentioned how fun Movement Practice is, I suggest trying out this workout. You’ll feel 10 years younger!
