How important is glucose flattening?

Just to add my own data point here, I’ve lost 45 lbs so far since June and its not just my activity level that increased, but my actual interest in doing more active things has come back. My house has never been cleaner and projects that have been sitting around for years are getting done (or at least started). :slight_smile:

There are many potential virtuous cycles at play!

For me the weightlifting thread early on inspired me to up my exercise game. That inspires me to be more mindful of my nutrition habits. Together those have me losing fat mass while getting stronger and more fit cardiorespiratorily. Exercise also helps my mood. I have no insulin resistance and no glucose spikes involved that I know of but virtuous cycles still help!

Strangely enough, doing additional exercise, and burning extra calories, doesn’t help me lose weight, although you’d think it would. Perhaps the extra exercise signals my body that hard times are coming and to conserve fat versus burn it. Or maybe the extra exercise is building muscle, which adds weight, not subtracts it, at least in the short term. When I ease up on the extra exercise, my weight stays where it is or drops a little, depending on my overall energy balance.

Right now I have an approximately -500 daily calorie deficit, which should translate to losing about one pound a week, but actually keeps me right where I am, which is fine with me since I am currently in maintenance mode. Of course that could all change in the future.

Not strange, pretty well established. The body is a machine but not a simple one. Processes are dynamic.

Among the complications is simply that “weight” is an insufficient metric. You may still be losing fat mass but building some fat free mass. But yes what you describe also occurs. So maybe not.

That’s why your virtuous cycles matter. And why health is the better goal than what the scale says.

This is awesome! I salute you, sir!

For that reason, I’d suggest getting a sewing tape measure. Recording measurements of your waist, hips, thighs, chest, calves, and arms can provide a better track of progress than simply looking at the scale. Photographs are also useful to track orogress.

If the act of measuring glucose somehow caused you to eat better and exercise more, clearly it has had a virtuous effect even if this was not fully intended. Nicely done.

Don’t bury the lead! :grinning:

What “did you do wrong” and “how did you fix it?”

Sorry for the delayed response. I was out of town for a few days.

What I did wrong was “lose too much too fast” and didn’t give my body a chance to adjust to the lost weight. She said instead of losing 22% at one time, I should have only lost 10% at a time and should have allowed 4-6 weeks for my body to adjust to the 10% loss before continuing on with my diet.

My dietician wasn’t surprised I had strong hunger pangs and cravings, and that my Basal Metabolic Rate had plummeted. At that point, it seemed no matter what I did, short of going back to my clean Keto diet, I continued to gain weight at half the rate I had lost it at. She then explained homeostasis, set point, and yo-yo dieting, all of which worked against me.

As far as what to do to fix it, she suggested I up my calories to between 1800-2100, up my carbs into the moderate range of 35%, and ease off my exercise giving my body a chance to adjust to the weight I had already lost. Within a few days my weight stabilized and it hasn’t gone back up since, even though I’m eating three times as many calories and carbs as I did during my clean Keto period. Go figure.

Bumping to add this meta analysis.

despite observed improvements in mean glucose and dietary behaviors, our meta-analysis did not find significant reductions in BMI.

It seems like it can be a tool to help motivate healthier choices as part of a structured program. But as a weight loss tool, in general not effective. And healthier is not defined by glucose excursion degree.

My concern from when this thread was new remains, Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

Since the heyday of this thread, anyone without prediabetes or diabetes using these for weight loss or presumed general health purposes?

I’ve learned a lot since I posted this question, and glucose flattening, unless you are a prediabetic or diabetic, doesn’t really matter for a normally healthy person. T

Three years ago I was enamored by the Carbohydrate Insulin Model (CIM) because it was simple and made sense to someone who knew nothing about dieting and weight management. I now know that the Energy Balance Model (EBM) is a much better model for losing weight and keeping it off, and I’ve managed to maintain a healthy weight, as measured by BMI, for well over two years without worrying about carbs or my blood sugar. I still occasionally check my blood sugar to see where it is after a meal or first thing in the morning, but except for walking after eating I don’t really do anything else to flatten my glucose. My HgA1C is where it needs to be and my fasting glucose is still higher than I would like, but I know it’s because of my attenuated Dawn Phenomena and nothing more.

In the beginning of my weight loss journey I was focused on blood glucose and insulin because I was fixated by the CIM model. Those days are gone and I believe I am now healthier for it. Currently, I eat a whole food, plant-based, moderate carbohydrate, high protein and fiber diet. I’ve kept my 17/7 Time Restricted Eating because it keeps me from eating when I am bored or tired. Life is good.

Thank you for the update. And congratulations on your good health!