Though annoyed that I had to go back on insulin after getting off it during my first extended fast, the 30 u TDD I wound up on was giving me better control than the 100 u TDD had been previously. My numbers were pretty much staying under 140 the vast majority of the time.
I was recording not only bG, but what I ate and how much insulin I took and each decrease in prednisone as I weaned.
The first week was when Pete was visiting me, so we ate out a lot; I can recreate what happened from my spreadsheet.
I know what restaurant we ate at on Sept 2; a local seafood/steak place. The bacon-wrapped scallops were amazing, but a bit of a mistake. The salad was actually ridiculously big, topped with a sliced ribeye and portabella mushrooms, but I couldn’t finish it after the scallops. Lesson learned, next time there I just got the salad.
We ate out again on Sept 4, a great local joint that had awesome reviews. The garlic wings were incredible! The burger salad wasn’t as big as the first place, but it got the job done.
On Sept 6, we ate at a Japanese hibachi/sushi bar. My dinner included a tiny salad and there was only one dressing choice and it tasted sweet. About 3 bites of salad raised my bG over 150. And skipping the rice and noodles meant that the meat and cooked veggies just weren’t enough; that restaurant cost me elevated bG and I left hungry.
Sept 7, Pete was gone, and Steve wanted to go out to eat. I tried to take him to the place we’d gone to on Sept 2, but it was closed, so we went to Chili’s. There, I got fajitas and piled the meat, cooked veg, pico de gallo, cheese, sour cream and guacamole on a Caesar salad. Yummy!
Though I was eager to fast again, having a house guest and eating out so often taught me about restaurants here and what worked and didn’t work for me; useful information for the future.
I was ready to do another extended fast once the social eating stuff was over with, and began on Sept 8. I then began weaning prednisone on Sept 11. By Sept 12, I was not feeling well, so decided to break that fast earlier than intended. Because I wasn’t organized for eating, I didn’t break it gently like my first extended fast. I did not retain the food, I had horrible cramps and painful diarrhea when I ate. I rapidly learned hot to avoid GI issues when breaking a fast.
By the 15th, I needed insulin again. I wasn’t quite at 200, but would be shortly if I didn’t take some. I noticed something that became very significant for me; after each fast it took about 4 days of eating before I needed insulin again. I was pleased that I could now “maintain” good bG on 20 u of insulin, as opposed to 30 after my first fast; I was still improving steadily. I wanted off insulin; that’s why I’d begun the metformin this month.
But I wondered… what would happen if I only ever ate 4 days in a row? What if I set up my week so that I fasted 3 days and ate 4 days? And just repeated that?
Note: This is not a prescription for anyone else; this is what I concluded from my data.
This became my new plan: fast 3 days, eat OMAD 4 days, usually the RBS.
My last insulin shot was Sept 22.
And just wait until you see what happened in October! But first, let’s see my weight loss chart.
