A few years ago, I had some blood work done and was going over the results with my doctor. I wanted a snapshot of my health profile to see how I'm doing. If my car just hit 500,000 miles I'd do the same thing with the oil. In both cases, analysis of the fluids can tell what's going on with that particular system.
He went down the list.
"Folic acid is fine, D3 is great, testosterone is a-ok, oxygen/co2 transfer is spot on, liver is healthy, but... your blood glucose levels seem a bit high. You need to cut out sugar and grains from your diet and avoid pizza at all costs because the glycemic index of the crust and cheese is a double whammy and will mess you up."
Talk about good news and bad news. He discussed dietary options and told me flat out that if his colleagues knew he let me out of his office without lots of drugs they'd put him through the ringer. He advised me to get one of those meters to test and monitor my b/g. My doctor knows me all too well. He knows how I feel about Big Pharma and if he gave me a prescription it would be a waste of effort. I left in full denial that his instruments must be off. I feel healthy as a horse.
At that time, my fasting blood glucose level was a consistent 187. I figured one of two things. My meter was off or 187 was MY normal b/g. My solution was going keto and that meant supplementing my diet with lots of kippered herring, eggs, bacon, salami, pepperoni, ham, red meat, cheese, and lots of butter. I'd protein load all day and couldn't figure out why my levels didn't go down. I cut the carbs. That should be enough, right? WRONG!
Although my food choices were fairly accurate, my timing was the culprit and THE major factor in developing type 2 diabetes. Endless research, trial and error, and a totally stubborn persistence gave me enough meager gains to celebrate with a large pepperoni pizza. Two hours later I tested my b/g at a staggering 367. Holy fuck! Now, THAT scared the bejesus out of me and forced me to realize pizza, my most beloved food of all time, was now my personal poison. That's when I got serious.
This is the food pyramid the USDA gave us a guideline for perfect health.
To me, this chart says pizza is the perfect food. Bread on the bottom, tomato sauce from veggies in the middle, topped with cheese and pepperoni with a greasy glaze. It's also the standard model McDonalds, Subway, Taco Bell, and every other fast food restaurant chain in the US uses as the foundation of a healthy eating lifestyle.
It's really not. Fast food is tasty, yummy and super delicious and we all know it's nowhere near healthy. But any burger, hotdog, or sub is an accurate representation of this USDA chart for good health. My government has been lying to me my whole life. Why should I believe them when it comes to food?
In my case, I always ate a lively combination of everything in abundance. Six meals a day with pepperoni and celery in between to keep me in the keto lifestyle, fit and healthy. Many times I'd stop at McDonalds and pick up a grocery bag of breakfast sandwiches for me and my workmates, as an early morning snack. We'd order pizza for lunch or maybe get a couple dozen bagels to nibble on throughout the day. Sometimes we'd get Chinese with a half dozen egg rolls to increase our veggie input to keep us on the fast track to vibrant good health. Dinner might consist of pizza or stromboli or leftover lasagna or all of the above. Physically, I was the picture of good health but internally something was amiss.
It wasn't the food choices that did me in. It was the constant state of processing all that crap for decades that made my liver insulin resistant, followed by a rather high blood glucose level that stubbornly refused to drop.
Insulin resistance is caused by a fatty liver. How do you get a fatty liver? How do you make foie gras? It's the same thing.
Keto with intermittent fasting works but I eventually reached a b/g plateau after a month. Fasting glucose levels refused to go lower than 127 no matter how few carbs I consumed.
It was Dr. Jason Fung that said curing type 2 diabetes is easy. Just stop eating. An eighteen hour fast followed by bacon and eggs and a salad for dinner four hours later is nothing more than skipping breakfast and won't let you stay in ketosis long enough to do more than a slow recovery with severe constipation as an added benefit.
In the world of ketosis, intermittent fasting is masturbation.
No more fuckin around. I've been carb free for a month and all I have to show for it is a 60 point drop and faster recovery. Time to get radical on this.
How do you cure a fatty liver? The same way you clear the stress from your life. You go on vacation and don't work for two weeks. I put my liver and pancreas on vacation while I did my first fast.
Cole, on Snake Diet, gave me the formula for his snake juice that is essential for a prolonged fast. It's basically a liter of water and a tablespoon each of Himalayan salt and potassium. This provides the electrolytes necessary to get you through the fast without feeling like crap. Plain water won't cut it. A plain water fast isn't just horrible, it's dangerous. You'll piss your nutrients away and you need potassium to keep your heart pumping. Not only that but the snake juice will make you feel great.
My 24 hour fast turned into a 48 hour fast and that turned into a 72. I went into ketosis within the first 12 hours and stayed there for the duration with more energy than I ever dreamed possible. By day two, I noticed those little aches and pains I learned to live with, weren't there anymore. My head was totally clear and I was physically stronger and multi-tasking was a breeze.
By day three I couldn't stop thinking of a Whopper with cheese. Taking that burger with both hands and tearing into the meat and cheese and lettuce and tomato and secret sauce and that wonderful poppyseed bun was occupying my every thought. I ended up breaking my fast with a King Bacon and fries. Definitely not keto but I needed a reward for my efforts. I washed it down with a cup of bone broth and apple cider vinegar. Disgusting, I know, but it's what my body craved.
Funny but this burger didn't taste like much. It needed salt so I dumped it on the two patties and bacon while Sue watched in total disbelief. A few more bites and a handful of fries and I still couldn't taste it. More salt on the bottom patty and a few more bites and that was it. I lost my appetite. I was full and lethargic. Back to normal. An hour later and I tested my b/g and it elevated to 110. Cool. I think I cracked the code.
It's not starvation. I have enough body fat to feed on for a couple weeks and that's what it's all about. Without the carbs for fuel, my body used the fat stores as a backup and some of that fat came from my over-worked liver and pancreas. The more fat the liver loses, the less insulin resistance, the more efficient your body processes nutrition.
During this time another process was taking effect.
Autophagy ramps up during a fast as a survival mechanism. In simple terms, old, damaged, or imperfect cells are deconstructed and recycled. Unneeded proteins are degraded and the amino acids recycled for the synthesis of proteins that are essential for survival. During this time, viruses and other nasty pathogens are targeted for destruction. In other words, autophagy puts your body in a state of hyper repair mode that goes right to problem cells and terminates them and recycles the bits left over. As a result, fasting can cure tuberculosis, as well as damn near any other disease.
Why don't MDs tell this to their patients? Why does the American Diabetic Association insist that those with type 2 diabetes eat six meals a day with a focus on high carbs and low proteins and fats, knowing full well that carbs are what causes the problem in the first place? Why does the whole allopathic community still focus on grains as a necessary component in a healthy diet with celiac disease and obesity reaching epic proportions?
I know, the idea that denying nutrition is better for us than feeding our food addiction is stretching the bounds of reality just a hair but there's tons of scientific evidence to back all of this up. Most religions include regulated fasts as part of their culture. The oldest human tribes on the planet deemed eating at specific times of the year as taboo. It's not a religious thing but a connection to our hunter-gatherer ancestors who accepted feast and famine as natural.
How does a lion eat? He hunts when he's hungry and in a state of autophagy ketosis from laying around for a week, he runs full tilt boogie after impalas and caribou until he brings one down and gorges on the meat so he can lay around for another week. That's the way with all life on Earth except for the humans with food in the pantry, a supermarket next door and a McDonalds on the way to work.
My conclusion: Veganism is more of a religion than healthy lifestyle, keto works but not well enough, paleo is the best of both worlds, and intermittent fasting is good for maintaining. For me, fasting two or three days a week and pigging out for two days with no restrictions is my idea of a perfect diet.
My reasoning is simple. I love pizza, lasagna, and calzone too much to give it up. Fasting gives me the opportunity to carbo-load every week and get in shape at the same time. The best part, alcohol won't knock you out of ketosis.
The best of both worlds, baby!
