Hello My Fellow Fasters!
Backstory:
Wanted to start off by saying this community has been awesome and I am very thankful for you all! As you can see in the title, I am a Type 1 Diabetic. I have recently been intermittently fasting and have seen some truly awesome results. Friday will be the end of week 3. Right now I am eating within a 4 hour window, pretty much 4pm to 8pm (if i can get dinner earlier I do, so sometimes its a 3 hr window). My blood sugars have been CRAZY stable over the last few weeks. My average glucose level over the last 14 days is 101 mg/dL and the standard deviation is 16 mg/dL. I am on an insulin pump, and as long as I bolus (meal time / fast acting insulin) for dinner correctly, the night and next day is smooooth sailing. Its honestly made life very easy and makes my diabetes/management an after thought. So that I am SUPER thankful for. I have also been losing weight for the first time in nearly a year. So over all things are going great!
My Situation:
Previously before intermittent fasting, I would work out early in the mornings (getting to the gym around 4:30/5 am. Due to the T1 diagnosis, I usually have some sort of carbs /protein before going to work out to ensure my blood sugar (BS) does not go low. Typically I am eating a protein bar with 9 grams of carbs, and half of a mini gatorade (lets call it 11 carbs) Ive found that this give me a small upward trend in my BS, usually raised my levels \~ 40 points. So if I start my work out at 100 mg/dL, ill get up to 140 mg/dL then slowly start to come back down as i go thru my workout.
As I am going thru this IF journey, I am trying to keep that window I eat in as small as I can. The smaller the window, the better control the rest of the day I have with my BS level. Because I am trying to keep this window small, I have started working out at 4PM so that I can have the pre-workout snack to get my BS levels up some. I really liked working out in the mornings and getting my day going that way.
My Question:
If I were to start going back to the gym in the morning, and have my protein bar & half a mini gatorade, do you think I would be losing out on many benefits due to having smaller IF windows? The new schedule would probably look like the pre-workout snack at 4:30 AM then workout/fast until roughly 6 or 7 pm and have dinner. So i would still get in a 12+ hour fast. After going to the gym, my BS levels normally come down and stay flat. So I think if I kept from eating the rest of the day until dinner, I would still see and benefit from increased control / steady BS levels.
Things are just going so well right now from the standpoint of losing weight and BS level control. I am curious if any of your have seen drastic changes in results due to going from a 20ish hour fast and cutting it into a \~12 hour one (pre-workout meal to dinner) and then a roughly 10ish hour (dinner to pre-workout meal).
Any and all advise or previous experience is much appreciated!! Thank you all for the help. I hope I can return the favor down the road! And if there are any T1Ds in the group, I would love to connect!
GREAT that you are doing so well!
I feel you should perhaps ask this in a diabetes group instead, as it is a special case, to say the least. Or at least take anything said here with fistfuls of salt.
I do not know anything about T1 diabetes, but if I was a diabetic, I would certainly be eager to carefully research what a ketogenic diet could do for me. (Since at least in theory, it gives body energy from a pathway that is not affected by inability to produce insulin.)
Again, do not take it from me though, as I know absolutely nothing about what is safe and not safe for a T1 diabetic.