My experience confirmed that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to diabetes management.
If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, particularly for health reasons, you’ve likely come across articles and blog posts promoting the benefits of intermittent fasting.
It is also known as intermittent energy restriction in dietitians, nutritionists, and health trainers. Regardless of what term you use, intermittent fasting is a method of voluntarily alternating between fasting and non-fasting periods.
I started reading about it a few years ago because I heard it would be helpful for people with type 2 diabetes.
Reported benefits include weight loss and a lower risk of future diabetes complications such as organ damage. The thought process with this is that if you reduce your periods of high blood sugar, you will reduce the risk of the damage caused by long-term, untreated type 2 diabetes.
In a 2013 study published in the British Journal of Nutrition, overweight women who attempted intermittent fasting not only lost weight, but also improved insulin sensitivity after 3 months.
What really caught my eye were people who claimed to “reverse” their diabetes after following strict interval fasting programs. Many said they had lost weight and could stop taking diabetes medication.
I was skeptical as there is never a shortage of new weight loss programs and methods to be advertised. Of course, some work, but they often require so many hours of meal preparation, unique exercises, expensive supplements, and shakes that they are either out of reach or unsustainable.
My first question was: How do you actually do intermittent fasting? I was ready to try something new, but I wasn’t ready to spend hundreds of dollars a week on a scam.
I have come across several ways to incorporate intermittent fasting into your life. I decided to understand three of the most common methods to help me choose.
Before trying it out, one of my concerns was that I was going to get hypoglycemic, not just because of the measurement, but because it had been a personal challenge. When I was first diagnosed, I was struggling with both extreme highs and lows. The frequency with which I had blood sugar under 50 seemed even to baffle my doctors.
I chose not to try the fast diet because I like structure and routines. Having two days a week that were drastically different and at the same time balanced my family and my career sounded untenable.
I was determined to try something new and didn’t want to set myself up for failure, so I decided to try the Leangains Protocol.
Although it required 16 hours of fasting a day, in my opinion 8 of those hours didn’t count because it would be relaxation and sleep time if I hadn’t eaten anyway. So, I thought that it was the least likely to push myself towards extremely low blood sugar levels.
It wasn’t a good experience. I spent a lot of time checking the clock until I could eat again, and then, when I could, I tended to overeat to make up for the headache and hunger.
I had several blood sugar drops in the first week and had to save myself with glucose tablets or fruit. I started switching from 16 hours to 14 hours to 12 hours before finally getting too frustrated to continue with the plan.
At the end of the second week I stopped. I had also gained 6 pounds in the 2 weeks I tried the 16/8 method – the opposite of what I wanted.
After this experience, I concluded that intermittent fasting was not suitable for my diabetes and thought it was too risky due to hypoglycemia.
I believe I didn’t get into any dangerous situations because I increased my daily tests from three times a day to six times a day. While this worked for me, depending on how your insurance works or your financial situation, you may find the increased cost of testing prohibitive.
On the other hand, I learned something from it. As I tested frequently, I learned a lot about how my own body reacts to certain foods. Of course, we can all look up which foods have higher carbohydrate intake, but there are still personal nuances.
I’ve learned that my body reacts differently to different types of rice and potatoes. I also learned that my body reacts differently to different fruits.
While I stopped eating the Leangains Protocol, I kept that knowledge and incorporated new habits into my eating habits. The foods I learned made my blood sugar soar, I ate sparingly, if at all.
Fast forward to this year. Having settled down more than ever during the quarantine, I needed something to change my routine. I decided to try intermittent fasting again.
This time, however, I looked at a different model: the Warrior Diet. There isn’t a lot of research that specifically supports this intermittent fasting approach, but I thought that with a few modifications, it could work for me.
Encouraged by my previous experience and my knowledge of how I reacted to different foods and meals at different times of the day, I decided to change the plan for myself from the start.
Instead of having a large meal at night, I had my largest meal as a midday meal (this is the time when I naturally seem the most hungry). Instead of struggling against my own body rhythm, I decided to work with it so that the plan was more sustainable for me.
The other part that made it more workable for me was that I could chew small amounts of raw fruits and vegetables during the rest of the day.
I went back to my previous strategy of testing my blood sugar six times a day and with this method I never had a hypoglycemic event.
I started losing small amounts of weight, about half a pound to a pound a week. After 3 months on this plan, my A1C also decreased. Seeing the lower A1C felt like a huge win!
Now I’ve got to a point where I’m not following the plan down to the minute, but it has changed my general eating habits so that it is more natural for me to eat the Warrior Diet without thinking about it.
Since it feels natural and fits my own body rhythm, I don’t feel deprived at all and I’ve also noticed an increase in energy.
The most important thing anyone should know about intermittent fasting for type 2 diabetes is that there is no one single plan.
Every body reacts differently, and the risk of hypoglycemia is real and requires planning. (A conversation with your doctor and a nutritionist can be helpful here.)
I recommend anyone starting this plan should be willing to test their blood sugar frequently and tweak the plan based on their body’s response. This avoids extreme low and high blood sugar levels and creates a sustainable plan that doesn’t leave you feeling disadvantaged or having blood sugar fluctuations.
Reducing the long-term effects of diabetes on your health is a goal worth striving for.
If you can find a nutritional plan that will help you lose weight, lower your A1C, and cut down on medications you need while still feeling good, then intermittent fasting may be a great option for you.
Julie Pierce Onos has been published in Healthline, Temblor and Yoga Journal and provides in-house copy for financial companies. Julie is a graduate of Yale University and is passionate about organizational and personal improvement. She brings over 15 years of experience as a writer, lecturer and expert in organizational development in the Boston area.
