Has anyone here seen Fat, Sick, and nearly Dead? Short premise; lose weight fasting on 80% vegetable / 20% fruit juicing. Short bio of me; T1.5 Pumper, middle age, over weight. The movie: I watched it last week and it got me thinking. I don't bolus for carbs from vegetables (Kale, spinach, lettuce, celery, etc..), but I do for fruits. I've gone through about 25 different juicing recipes from the website (www.rebootwithjoe.com) and figured out a calculation that I call an "Effective Carb" (not net carb). Effective carb is any carb from fruit (citrus, apples, etc...) and not counting vegetable carbs. Squashes, pumpkins, carrots,beets, etc..., get counted as a half carb. Adding the carbs up gives me my effective carb. I'm going to start experimenting this week, recording insulin, 1 hr and 2 hr BG readings from my Dexcom, and try to develop a baseline of insulin needed per serving for each recipe. Once I'm comfortable, I'm going to do a 5 day fast, recording BG's, intake, and weight. If all goes well during the 5 days, I will juice once or twice a day and eat a sensible lunch/dinner for 25 days, then fast another 5 days, and repeat, thereby slowing the weight loss. I figure I'll need 50g protein (1/2 USDA requirement for me). Watch the movie; it's extreme, but slowed down and modified, I think it will drop weight off diabetics... Hope I will still love kale and spinach... Stay tuned!
I don't understand why juice is supposed to be better than the real foods (to be fair I haven't watched the movie). One of the advantages of eating whole vegetables is that they make you feel full by staying in your stomach for a while. Furthermore, some juicers remove all the fiber which I think is a very bad idea - I hope you at least are going to use a juicer that just grinds the food up and doesn't segregate the fiber as waste from the juice.
BTW, as a T1 I need to consider carbs from all sources (including vegetables) as well as protein and fat when figuring out how much insulin to inject and when. Carbs from vegetables are slower, but they still impact my BG. Because you are a recent onset LADA, you may have enough insulin response remaining that you can deal with slow carbs (the reason you don't need to bolus for vegetables). Whole vegetables have a slower impact on your blood sugar than fruits because of the fiber and because the cells need to be broken down before all the carbs are released. I'm not sure that is true if you grind them up into juice, so if you try this experiment you may find that you need more insulin.
A five day fast is a long time especially if you are dependent on outside insulin. I know that there are Jewish organizations that have "classes" to help Jews with diabetes fast for 26 hours on Yom Kippur which is quite a bit shorter than 5 days. I would encourage you to talk to someone familiar with pumping and fasting to get some help modifying your basal regime to keep you safe on a five day fast.
Maurie
PS - I assume you'll be drinking water during the 5 day fast. Not doing so would be very dangerous.
A vegetable juice fast still provides nutrition. I wouldn't think of going 5 days without nutrition... :D Thanks
We shall see. Vegetables do impact my BG, just slowly and my basal covers it, keeping me from going over 140. Fruit on the other hand is like napalm to my BG. I use fruit juice as a rescue tool, so that's where I'm more concerned. I'm going to start slowly; just had my first 6 ounces of juice (kale, tomato, apple, lemon, lime, scallion) Like V-8 without the salt and preservatives...
I haven't seen this film, have only heard of it and didn't realize there was juice fasting discussed in it. A type 1 woman on youtube who was doing a raw & mostly fruit diet to try and stop insulin(not something you should do) had managed to get her carb ratio to 1 unit to 60g carbs on this diet. She stopped posting though so I don't know what happened. She was on a pump.
I would like to try a raw diet but it would be too high carb for me and since 30 g of juice usually raises me to the 200's I don't think there is any way I could ever try this. I was vegetarian and vegan for 2 years before diagnosis but had stopped it due to dry eye issues. I always wonder if that was a factor in D coming on for me because I think that diet stressed my body out.
I'm curious to know what your results are and I hope you will post them here.
I'll be interested to hear how it goes for you. My husband did a full 60-day reboot. He is not diabetic, however. He found the 1st week difficult (changing habits) and then really enjoyed the extra energy and weight loss. He still enjoys juicing on a regular basis. I didn't join him in the juice fast. I lost too much weight around my LADA diagnosis and am still trying to gain it back.
My biggest concerns for you would be figuring out accurate carb counts and perhaps trying to get some extra protein in your juice. I think there's a discussion on the website about using flax or chia or something, as they are still plant-based. You're taking out a lot of the fiber, so it would seem to me that the juice could spike you quickly. (Hubby & kids would talk about the rush of energy right after having one - don't know if that was the vitamins or sugars working!) The fact that you're going about it carefully and also have a Dexcom will be a big help in being successful. Good luck!
I have to say, I watched this movie and found it riddled with problems. A lot of the claims are what I would term "half baked." But everyone is different and this may work for you. What I would caution you is that as a diabetic, you need to understand that juicing can dramatically alter the effective carb count and glycemic index of foods. Juicing alters and removes fiber and makes the food more readily digestible. You will absorb more of the carbs (over the whole food) and they will be taken up faster. For this reason, I believe that juicing is actually a bad thing for people with diabetes. It is much better to eat whole foods, they are digested in a better and more controlled way. As roodgirl suggests, you probably won't be able to refer to standard carb counts for juiced foods.
ps. If the juicing doesn't work, I really like Intermittent Fasting for weight loss.