Choosing a fasting regimen NO SINGLE FASTING regimen is correct. The key is to choose the one that works best for you. Some people do well with an extended fast whereas others have better results with shorter, more frequent, fasts. You may need to try a few different fasting regimens to find the one that is most effective for you.
In my Intensive Dietary Management program, we often start with a thirty-six-hour fasting period three times per week for type 2 diabetes.
During the eating periods, we prescribe a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet.
We provide strict medical supervision for patients, and frequent follow-up visits are essential.
After they begin, we adjust the fasting schedule for each patient according to how they respond.
Some people will do a classic water-only fast, others a modified-fat fast, and still others a bone broth fast.
It is important to drink fluids to stay hydrated and monitor yourself.
If you feel ill at any point, you should stop and seek professional advice.
Regardless of the regimen you choose, monitor your body weight, waist circumference, medications, and blood glucose.
If everything is moving in the right direction, continue with the regimen.
If your results stall or are getting worse, you must change the dietary regimen.
Talk with your doctor about other options.
Everybody reacts differently to fasting.
Some patients with long- standing diabetes completely reverse within several weeks.
Others see very slow progress even with intensive fasting.
Just because you are not getting the results you want does not necessarily mean you are doing it incorrectly or fasting isn’t going to work for you.
You may simply not have found the optimal regimen for you.
Intensifying the duration or frequency of your fasting regimen may improve the chances of getting results.
Undertake shorter fasts more often.
Extend a longer fast.
Often it is useful to do a longer fast on a regular basis, say every three to six months.
Or make your fast stricter, say, by shifting from a bone broth fast to a water-only fast.
If you find fasting difficult, it can be useful to closely monitor your diet and try to lower your dietary carbohydrates further.
What to expect when you start a fast: Dumping toxic load ADJUSTING TO A fast can take a bit of time. It’s not unusual to get hunger pains or headaches or even to experience muscle cramps or skin irritations. These side effects are often signs that the body is dumping its toxic sugar load. Often, they will lessen and go away over a few weeks, but be sure to discuss them with your doctor. Another sign that the body is getting rid of its excess sugar is the dawn phenomenon.
What to expect after a period of fasting: The dawn phenomenon AFTER A PERIOD of fasting, and especially in the morning, some people experience high blood glucose.
This dawn phenomenon (DP), or dawn effect, was first described about thirty years ago.
The DP is created by the circadian rhythm.
Just before awakening (around 4 am), the body secretes higher levels of adrenaline, growth hormone, glucagon, and cortisol to prepare for the upcoming day.
Adrenaline gives our body some energy.
Growth hormone helps repair and synthesize new protein.
Glucagon helps move glucose from storage into the blood so it’s ready to use as energy.
Cortisol, the stress hormone, gets us ready for activity.
After all, we are never quite so relaxed as in deep sleep.
This normal circadian hormonal surge tells the liver to start pushing out some glucose and generally activates the body.
It’s a good ol’ fashioned hormonal kick in the ass, so to speak.
These hormones are secreted in a pulsatile manner, peaking in the early morning hours then falling to low levels during the day.
In nondiabetic situations where there is no need to manage blood glucose artificially, the DP is a normal occurrence, but most people miss it because the magnitude of the rise is very small.
In about 75 percent of type 2 diabetics, however, it shows up as a noticeable spike in blood glucose levels early in the morning.
The severity varies widely and occurs whether patients are being treated with insulin or not because the huge fatty liver wants desperately to deflate itself.
As soon as it gets the signal, sugar comes whooshing out of the liver and into the blood.
Like the overinflated balloon, the liver puts forth prodigious amounts of sugar in order to relieve itself of this toxic sugar burden.
As an analogy, think about a time when you really, really needed to urinate.
You had drunk too much water and there was no bathroom nearby.
When the time finally came to pee, there was no stopping that large, fast flow.
That’s the dawn phenomenon.
The same phenomenon exists during extended fasts, which induce the same hormonal changes as shorter overnight fasts.
Insulin drops, so the liver releases some of its stored sugar and fat.
This is natural.
In type 2 diabetes, all that sugar pent up inside the fatty liver whooshes out too quickly and shows up, like an uninvited guest, as glucose in the blood.
Even if you have not eaten for a while, the body will still release its stored sugar.
Is this a bad thing?
No, not at all.
We are merely moving the sugar from storage in the liver, where we could not see it, into the blood where it becomes visible.
The dawn phenomenon, or higher blood glucose during fasting, does not mean you are doing anything wrong.
It’s a normal occurrence.
It just means that you have more work to do to burn off all the stored sugar in the body.
If your blood glucose rises during fasting, ask yourself where that glucose came from.
The only possibility is that it came from your own body.
You are simply moving some stored food energy out from the body and into the blood for you to use.
TOWARD A CURE: PREVENTION, TREATMENT, ERADICATION
IMAGINE A WORLD without obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.
No more diabetic kidney disease.
No more diabetic eye disease.
No more diabetic nerve damage.
No more diabetic foot ulcers.
No more diabetic infections.
Fewer heart attacks.
Fewer strokes.
Fewer cancers.
No more need for diabetic medications.
Can we really dare to dream?
Yes, we can.
With a new, deeper understanding of type 2 diabetes and its effective treatments, we can eradicate this disease.
We can reverse type 2 diabetes, completely naturally, completely without cost, completely without surgery, completely.
Equally important, we can also now forestall it.
The northern city of Da Qing in China’s Heilongjiang Province gained national prominence as the site of China’s most productive oil field and one of its richest cities.
But, as emphasis shifts to cleaner energy, Da Qing is becoming known globally for a completely separate reason: its prevention of type 2 diabetes.
In 1986, the World Health Organization funded the China Da Qing Diabetes Prevention Outcomes Study,17 a randomized, controlled trial of 577 Chinese adults with prediabetes.
The main dietary intervention was to increase intake of vegetables and reduce consumption of alcohol and sugar.
Counselors also encouraged lifestyle measures, including more physical activity.
Active intervention over six years reduced the incidence of diabetes by a stunning 43 percent, and this benefit was sustained over twenty
years.
The onset of type 2 diabetes was delayed by an average of 3.6 years.
The cardiovascular death rate fell from 20 percent to only 1 percent.
Professor Nicholas Wareham of University of Cambridge commented that the study was a “real breakthrough, showing that lifestyle intervention can reduce the risk of long-term cardiovascular consequences of diabetes.”18 Multiple studies of lifestyle interventions similar to ones in Da Qing have shown exactly the same benefit.
Although the dietary intervention varies depending upon the study, most focus upon weight loss.
In the United States, the Diabetes Prevention Program reduced the incidence of type 2 diabetes by 58 percent19 and sustained the benefits for ten years.20 The Indian Diabetes Prevention Programme reduced the incidence of type 2 diabetes by almost 30 percent.21 The Finnish Diabetes Prevention Study reported a 58 percent reduction.22 A Japanese trial reduced progression by 67 percent.23 All these successful trials shared one common factor of overriding importance.
They all used lifestyle interventions, not medications.
So type 2 diabetes is not only a treatable disease, but a preventable one.
REVERSING AND PREVENTING TYPE 2 DIABETES NATURALLY: A BRAVE NEW WORLD
OBESITY, FATTY LIVER, metabolic syndrome, and type 2 diabetes are the twenty-first-century equivalents of the Bubonic plague that killed an estimated fifty million people in Asia, Europe, and Africa during the fourteenth century.
Despite advances in computer technology, genetic engineering, and molecular biology, the problem only grows worse and has now engulfed the entire world, reaching across all genetic boundaries.
It’s time to stop pretending type 2 diabetes is a chronic and progressive disease, and it’s time to stop treating it that way.
Clearly type 2 diabetes is a dietary and lifestyle disease.
To pretend otherwise is pure self-deception.
But here’s what is important.
A dietary disease requires a dietary treatment.
And since weight gain clearly plays a prominent role in the development of type 2 diabetes, weight loss must similarly play a large role in its reversal.
We know that bariatric surgery, very low-carbohydrate diets, and fasting are well-known treatments for type 2 diabetes and they
are proven to cure. We also know that insulin, oral hypoglycemics, and low-fat diets can lower blood glucose but do nothing to cure type 2 diabetes. Figure 15.4. Dietary disease; dietary treatment