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Let's settle this! Coffee additives and "spiking insulin"

Who has glucose test strips? To answer the question about whether adding milk/cream/butter/unsweetened almond milk to our morning coffee breaks the fast and makes us dirty cheaters we need a bunch of people to participate in an experiment. Some should be insulin resistant, pre-diabetic/diabetic folks and some should be folks without that issue. Then, each person gets a bunch of insulin test strips and checks their insulin levels before and after drinking: 1) black coffee; 2) coffee with heavy cream; 3) coffee with milk, whole and skim; 4) coffee with alternative, sugar-free milks; 4) coffee with whatever other rando things people add.

Do this a few times for each coffee additive and then tell us what it does to your glucose. Then, the question becomes if adding “x” to my coffee “does/does not” spike insulin, does it break my fast? That’s a better question that can actually be answered depending on the definition of “fasting.”

Or, just do this for yourself and don’t share the results. This will give you personally tailored information about what adding different things to your coffee does to YOUR fast.

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Answer

Diabadass here.There is no such thing as insulin test😂 you can take a bloodglucose reading but other factors impact that too(time of day, hormoner, stress etc) .But basically anything that contains carbohydrates will impact and therefore give an insulin response.This may be bigger or smaller due to type of carb and fat slows down the process.

Answer

You can’t test your insulin level with test strips, only your blood glucose response.

Coffee spikes blood glucose because it spikes cortisol, which is associated with the release of stored glycogen into the bloodstream.

If you add carbs to your coffee then BG response will be higher.

If you are insulin resistant then BG response will be higher, if not insulin resistant then it will be lower.

Everyone on a high fat (low carb) diet is insulin resistant because. If you don’t want to be insulin resistant then you need to eat a low fat (ie high carb) diet.

Simple

Answer

Is there such a thing as insulin test strips? There are glucose test strips, and ketone test strips (for urine) but I’m not aware of insulin test strips.

Also, fast your fast. If you’re aiming for calorie reduction, that 50 calorie limit is a good rule of thumb, but it will probably cause your blood sugar (and thus insulin) to go up, albeit slightly.

At the end of the day, do what works for you. I want the insulin resistance to drop, so I do more clean fasts. (No calories).

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I think it would be an interesting idea, because everyone reacts differently to different foods.

However, my understanding is that insulin does not have to track 1:1 with glucose. Therefore, you can have an insulin spike without a glucose spike, which would affect anyone fasting for autophagy at least

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We don’t need to do this experiment because the real rule about “does it break my fast” is “does it have calories?” because if the answer is “yes” then…. yeah it breaks your fast. Specifically over 50 calories

If you’re fasting to keep calories low, then >50 calories worth of straight sugar in your coffee is breaking your fast, and will make it harder for you to continue that fast, but it isn’t very many calories out of your day… So…. I find it dishonest and lame to claim you’re “fasting” if you do that to your coffee, but like… the science on what is and isn’t fasting is pretty clear and has been for basically ever.

Answer

I didn’t even know that milk/cream etc. were even in discussion. It’s kind of a no-brainer to me that those would break your fast.

Artificial sweeteners seem to be more of in a grey area but I avoid them anyway.

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