Potato diet and blood sugar experiment

[Serge]

I am Day 5 into my 3 week potato diet experiment.

I eat, caloriewise:
70-80% white potatoes (boiled, baked)
10-20% beets (boiled)
5-15% honey (with tea, coffee)
and around 5 grams of coconut or high oleic sunflower oil, to brush over baked potatoes.
Salt.

I started the thread to give myself another reason to stick to the diet, as my discipline is usually quite lame :)
So far so good.
Be back with results on how my blood glucose was affected after November 21.

 

[Dolomite]

I am interested in your progress. Good luck?

 

[DennisX]

I am interested in your progress. Good luck?

I’d stop taking the sunflower oil. sunflower oil is an industrial oil high processed.

 

[Serge]

I’d stop taking the sunflower oil. sunflower oil is an industrial oil high processed.

so is the coconut oil...
maybe lard might be an alternative...
In any case I'm taking tiny amounts, some days none at all.

 

[Milk Consumer]

How many kilos of potatoes do you eat each day?

 

[Serge]

How many kilos of potatoes do you eat each day?

2-3 kilos depending on how much beets I feel like eating.

 

[Lollipop2]

Use Olive oil extra Virgin and/or butter.

 

[akgrrrl]

Use Olive oil extra Virgin and/or butter.

I second this.

 

[tankasnowgod]

so is the coconut oil...

No, it's not.

Coconut oil is easily extracted from the meat of the plant. It's also regularly eaten by anyone who eats coconut. You can do it home with simple household appliances-


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h95fAV-SdDQ


Sunflower oil needs heavy machinery to be produced-


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icJPXuYLTyU


Now, coconut oil can also be produced with heavy machinery..... but so can butter and lard and tallow.

Regardless of all that, what is the point of your experiment? If it's to lower PUFA and/or MUFA, coconut oil or butter are both going to be better options than the sunflower oil, anyway. If it's fat loss or energy, same thing. It probably won't matter to much if you are using tiny amounts, but coconut oil and butter will still be superior to sunflower oil in every way.

 

[Serge]

Regardless of all that, what is the point of your experiment?

My blood sugar is usually around 10 (180). I want to try and make the body shift more towards glucose metabolism by almost excluding oil (Krebs cycle) and lowering protein. Protein won't raise blood sugar that much but it definitely contributes to keeping it relatively high, I've noticed that.
Guys, this is not an oil thread. I've read and listened to RP, I know which oils are good and bad. I agree butter is a better option. But that is why I said high oleic sunflower oil, made from seeds that contain predominantly Omega 9, just like olive.
Anyways, I promise to use butter from now on, in fact, I try to eat no oil on most occasions, not a gram :)

 

[Vanset]

My blood sugar is usually around 10 (180). I want to try and make the body shift more towards glucose metabolism by almost excluding oil (Krebs cycle) and lowering protein. Protein won't raise blood sugar that much but it definitely contributes to keeping it relatively high, I've noticed that.
Guys, this is not an oil thread. I've read and listened to RP, I know which oils are good and bad. I agree butter is a better option. But that is why I said high oleic sunflower oil, made from seeds that contain predominantly Omega 9, just like olive.
Anyways, I promise to use butter from now on, in fact, I try to eat no oil on most occasions, not a gram :)

Are you overweight? I assume you know about The Potato Diet. You basically eat only potatoes to satiate hunger and lose weight, because they are one of the most satiating foods and if eaten as the base of the diet and will ultimately put you in a caloric deficit. The key is of course not tracking calories, just eating to hunger. It's not going to work if you eat at maintenance by tracking calories on apps like Cronometer and forcing yourself to eat.

 

[Serge]

Are you overweight?

I'm 187cm, 95kg, so I guess I have excessive 10-15 kg. I definitely do not force mycelf to eat :) Weight loss is a side effect though, what I am really curious about is if this high high carb diet can improve how the body handles glucose. Weight loss can be a factor here too, of course.

 

[Vanset]

I'm 187cm, 95kg, so I guess I have excessive 10-15 kg. I definitely do not force mycelf to eat :) Weight loss is a side effect though, what I am really curious about is if this high high carb diet can improve how the body handles glucose. Weight loss can be a factor here too, of course.

People here recommend butter, but I have a pretty bad experience with it myself when it comes to weight gain. The only food I can think of that makes me put on weight is dairy fat. Skim dairy products don't do it. I don't know what it is, maybe the palmitic acid, which takes much more time to be burnt for energy compared to something like stearic or oleic acid. Maybe the steroid hormones. It's not the growth factors, because they accumulate in the water fraction of milk and dairy products so I'm not sure. Coconut oil, cocoa butter and olive oil, egg and beef fat don't make me gain weight, so you might want to experiment with different sources of fat. Just something to keep in mind. Good luck.

 

[tankasnowgod]

My blood sugar is usually around 10 (180). I want to try and make the body shift more towards glucose metabolism by almost excluding oil (Krebs cycle) and lowering protein. Protein won't raise blood sugar that much but it definitely contributes to keeping it relatively high, I've noticed that.
Guys, this is not an oil thread. I've read and listened to RP, I know which oils are good and bad. I agree butter is a better option. But that is why I said high oleic sunflower oil, made from seeds that contain predominantly Omega 9, just like olive.

I was just thinking along the lines of some of the things that Brad Marshall has been talking about, especially how high amounts of oleic acid can also be problematic in regards to weight/fat gain and glucose control.

 

[Serge]

I was just thinking along the lines of some of the things that Brad Marshall has been talking about, especially how high amounts of oleic acid can also be problematic in regards to weight/fat gain and glucose control.

The same should apply to olive oil then. In any case, even when I eat normally, I hardly consume a 500ml bottle of oil from vegetable sources (except coconut) in 2 months, no high amounts there.

 

[Dolomite]

I tried a no fat added mostly carbohydrate diet for about 1 month but didn't see any change in the after meal glucose spikes. I hope your experiment works.

 

[Serge]

I tried a no fat added mostly carbohydrate diet for about 1 month but didn't see any change in the after meal glucose spikes. I hope your experiment works.

I have also tried this before, but lasted only a about week that time. What I have noticed is that yes, the after meal spike was as bad as always, but BG was falling deeper to normal numbers 2-4 hours later, as well as in the morning.
Well, see what happens...

PS oh by the way I already see a benefit - I had a cut on my face sewed up, and somehow there was sort of a rash or infection around it, the size of a small coin. I tried lots of things with no avail, but it's almost compeletely cleared up now by itself. I blame gut bacteria for that.

 

[Serge]

It's quite amazing. My usual morning blood sugar was 9-11 even if I was on meat and fat for the whole previous day. I'w quite used to seeing double digit numbers (>10mmol/L, or >180 mg/dL) in the past couple of years. Here are my recent morning blood sugars during the potato experiment (started November 2):

Nov 8 - 9,4
Nov 9 - 7,2
Nov 10 - 6,3
Nov 11 - 6,3
Nov 12 - 6,7
Nov 13 - 5,9

Well very optimistically I was prepared to expect it around 7. But this morning...

Nov 14 - 4,7

Such a number I had only achieved 4 years ago after about 10 days of strictest keto.
My blood sugar after meals is still quite high, around 11. But sugar is cleared from the blood way faster, and I only believe my today's morning number because I see it with my own eyes.
I'm thinking about replacing (or mixing?) potatoes with something like beans now for the sake of the experiment - to see how a bigger amount of protein will affect the situation. Fats I will keep well under 10 grams a day.

 

[Dolomite]

That is a big change in fasting blood sugar. And it only took about 10 days. I hope the addition of beans helps and doesn't stop the progress.

 

[Vanset]

Now you can also try exprimenting with fat sources with various fatty acid saturation. For example how heavy monounsaturated fats like beef fat or olive oil affect your blood sugar and then more saturated ones like coconut oil or butter.