Rolla, ND | Jdel - 5/11/2020 12:56
Hoping John Burns or others can chime in. Does anyone have any good resources for farmers trying to eat healthier? My problem is that some days I cut timber and split firewood. Since I'm a bigger guy 6'2" and weigh about 220 I think I'm burning well over 10k calories on these days. Then on days like today I probably haven't burned over 1000 calories. My doctor keeps telling me I have "borderline" high sugar. She has never said diabetes, just borderline high. She also doesn't consider work exercise. If I eat portions wife cooks I get what i think is low blood sugar and feel really week and tired and in extreme cases confused. I've cut out all cereal, most bread, most soda and pasta. I've been trying to get more protein through nuts, cheese, and more meat and lots of eggs. I eat a lot of fruit also. It just seems like I can't eat enough of that stuff when I'm logging, cutting firewood, fencing, or square baling hay.
Well first, your basal metabolism is well over 1000 calories a day.
Your situation is fairly somilar to athletes who do endurance type competitions. Standard for awhile was carbs, carbs and more carbs.
So you have about a spoonful of sugar in your blood and that stays constant so it’s not like you can burn it.
Then you turn to glycogen, basically starch only animal origen so we call it glycogen. If your stores are full you are maybe 400 calories in liver which can be used anywhere and some more in muscles usefull only in muscles.
Around 2000 calories total.
Now your blood sugar is elevated a little so we know you have elevated insulin, we just don’t know which pattern you fit but insulin will lock your fat so you cannot use it. So you eat carbs, your insulin goes high and then you use what simple carbs were inthe meal, turn to your liver’s glycogen and when that gets low, you bonk, give me a sandwich/muffin/cookie so you can keep going, which sends insulin up again and so it goes. Work all day and all you did was store more fat.
So in any case, you have two ways to deal with the work days, one is to stay on the carbs,need a gram a minute while working hard, maybe more. This is like the marathoners sucking down gells all race. They have it measured out so they just stay on carbs.
Your other choice is to become fat adapted so you can burn your fat. Well adapted atheletes from the beginning of the race use both carbs and fat because they have so unregulated their fat burning.
The upregulation of fat burning really means you have to drop your insulin levels which you will also see that elevated blood sugar come down to normal levels.
How do you do that? You quit raising it by eating simple carbs. A keto diet is one way. Fasting is the fastest way. Bariatric surgery would do it too.
As a carb dependant person, the transition can be a bit tough. And don’t make it worse by stopping carbs and then chopping wood all day the next day.
You can get keto flu, though most don’t, but drinking a couple cups of bullion each day the first week works pretty well. It’s because as your insulin goes down your kidneys will stop retaining salt. If you aren't yet on blood pressure medicine You don’t have to be so concerned with going too low.
If fasting the first couple days are rough then it gets easier.
Takes awhile to get the fat burning up regulated.
Combining the two, keto diet with an intermittent fast, like just skipping breakfast or going to one meal a day works well.
You might be thinking, that you can’t go like that without eating all the time, but you can, just not today.
I wouldn’t say you have to stay keto, but the sugar should be all gone, including fruit juice. A lot depends on your tolerance and just how sick you are.
Unfortunately, doctors never want to check insulin. So you always have to kind of guess.
Get a blood glucose meter.
See your fasting number, eat and check an hour later. Should never be over 140. When you go working, and you bonk, see where it is. When hungry, see where it is.
Since you are slightly elevated, maybe your doc would prescribe a Dexcom or a libre so you get continuous readings, it’s really helpful.
Since you are already slightly elevated you likely are close to breaking down because blood sugars don’t move much until big problems.
Basically what you want to do is have long periods where you aren’t raising insulin so you become sensitive to it again and so you can use your fat. |
Farmers diet question
