I’m always looking for collaborators for future experiments. If you’re interested in collaborating on scientifically rigorous self-experiments with low-carb foods, supplements, or other health interventions, please let me know in the comments or via the contact form on the right.
I posted the first phase of the vinegar study this week. Thanks /u/genetastic and /u/kabong for all the work you put in figuring out the protocol, running the experiments, and analyzing the data! We successfully replicated the literature, seeing a statistically significant ~20% reduction in peak blood glucose and larger slowing of BG rise. The protocol I used, though, was extremely unpleasant (soak the bread in 30g ACV), so the next step will be to see if a more practical protocol gives similar results.
Experiments this week focused on flour replacements. So far I’ve tested almond, lupin, carbquick, carbalose, okara, and hemp. I’ll post a quick preview of the data next week after I’ve worked it up.
Next week will focus on more vinegar experiments, continuing the flour tests, and possibly starting alternate dietary fibers.
Active & Planned Experiments
- Blood Glucose Impact of Low-Carb Foods & Ingredients
- Goal: Determine blood glucose impact of low-carb foods and ingredients
- Approach: Protocol
- Status:
- This week: 4 commenter requests (Two Good yogurt, Julian Bakery bread, and “control” tortillas & ice cream (non-low carb, for comparison)) and 3 chocolates.
- Reported:
- Up next:
- Flour replacements
- Vegetables
- Meats
- Low-carb fruits
- Miscellaneous low-carb prepared foods
- Dietary fibers
- Blood Glucose Impact of Supplements
- Goal: Determine blood glucose impact and mechanism of promising supplements
- Approach: tbd
- Status:
- This week: Initial replication
- Reported:
- Up next:
- Testing practical protocols
- Methods of Sleeping Longer
Let me know in the comments if there’s any other experiments you’d like to see.
– QD
Observations & Data
- Sleep
- Sleep stayed up this week, though HRV dropped.
- Pulse continued to drop, hopefully due to the added cardio exercise. Will keep monitoring.
- Blood Glucose
- Much better this week. Fasting BG and Avg. BG were back to normal.
- Coeff. of variation and TIR were still not great, mostly due to some lows on evenings where I did intensive cardio exercise. Need to dial back the insulin dose on those days.
- Other Blood
- Hemoglobin back to the average, so it looks like the occasional lows are either transient or measurement error. Still not sure what to do with this info, so I may stop measuring it after I run out of tests.
- Cholesterol continues to drop and is back near the previous baseline. We’ll see if it stops here.
- I’d really like to get my HDL up and LDL down. Will start looking into approaches to try.
- Blood pressure and pulse continued their downward trend (ignore the last point, which is this week and only one data point instead of a weekly average).
- Looking at the daily data, there’s a significant increase in blood pressure on days where I had insomnia the night before. That was probably a significant source of variation when I was taking weekly measurements.
- Body
- False alarm on restarting weight loss, looks like it was a temporary dip with a minimum that happened to coincide with the end of last week.
- At this point, my weight’s been stable for ~2 months. I’m not unhappy where I am, so I’m going to stop worrying about it for a while and focus on other health metrics.
- Out of curiosity, I’ve started taking daily measurements of weight and waist circumference. So far, I’m not getting any more value than the weekly measurements, but I’ll keep at it and see if I can tease anything out with more data.
Sleep
Blood Glucose
Other Blood
Body
Methods
- Sleep
- Metrics: total time, heart rate variability, pulse (sleeping vs. waking)
- Methods: Apple watch + Autosleep app
- Frequency: daily
- Blood Glucose
- Metrics: fasting BG, Avg. BG, coefficient of variation, time 70-140 mg/dL, time <60 mg/dL
- Methods: Dexcom G6 CGM
- Frequency: continuous
- Other Blood
- Metrics: weight, waist circumference, BMI, waist/height
- Methods: scale + Renpho tape measure
- Frequency: daily
- Body
- Metrics: hemoglobin, cholesterol, blood pressure, pulse
- Methods: Hemocue 801, Cardiocheck PA, Omron Evolve
- Frequency: daily for blood pressure & pulse, every 2 weeks for hemoglobin & cholesterol
