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Nice work to those who voted on Monday’s post, It’s Over! You guys are sharp cookies. The vast majority of you chose the correct answer on both of the polls. 

For starters, the meal that sent my glucose levels the highest was not the uber high-carb meal in which I ate all of it without fat or meat. It was, indeed, the meal which combined it all and also contained refined sugar and starch. Surprise, surprise. I can say with absolute certainty though, that going vegan for two weeks did throw off my glucose response, but apparently only for that first meal. Despite getting my glucose up to the 176 level by stuffing myself silly ? and boy was I more full than I normally would be on a similar macronutrient and calorie load, my glucose was back down to 98 by the 2-hour postprandial reading. Thank God.

Even more promising was my evening menu. This is where Aurora and I chose to go toe to toe on a meal that combined ample amounts of all the macronutrients. I swilled two pints of Guinness, a rare event for me (and it showed, ha), and we each had an entire half of a pizza. Although most would assume that Aurora’s postprandials would register much higher, that actually wasn’t the case. She spanked me in the 1-hour test. I hit 123 mg/dl on such fare. She barely topped 100. One potential explanation to make sense of this befuddling result is her inability to digest it properly. It may be a factor, it may not be, but she crapped all night while I lay sound asleep with a big grin above my satisfied lil? belly.

It also should be no surprise to most of you that I lost weight. One factor was that Aurora has been low-carb for quite some time. This diet was not a major shift. She lost no weight at all, although she did appear to be slightly more slender ? a sign of slight muscle gain. I, on the other hand dissolved. I lost 5.5 pounds, about 3% of my bodyweight, in just 14 days. My steady consumption of over 3,000 calories while relatively inactive physically could in no way override the loss. A vegan diet is incredibly catabolic, causing me to lose both muscle and fat ? although most of the muscle loss appeared to take place in the first few days.

Don’t be fooled by any of these results though. I was really just testing restricted diets and their respective abilities to ameliorate the urgent symptoms of type 2 diabetes. For the normal person, such extreme diets are not required to maintain and improve health. One need not go to such levels to stave off obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other conditions that often befall modern man.

My real question now is how to improve the glucose/insulin response while eating a nice satisfying meal that combines ample amounts of fat, meat, and carbohydrate foods. That is the ultimate 180 achievement ? to be able to feel good, look good, and have excellent overall mental and physical health while eating a satisfying, nourishing, unrestricted (amongst unrefined food selections), and sustainable diet.

Knowing that the metabolism is the key underlying factor, being aware of the fact that it can be raised by overfeeding, acknowledging that overfeeding has provided reliable reductions in insulin and leptin resistance, and having lots of great and promising testimonials from the HED (high-everything diet) fiasco this spring ? I’m confident that this will prove to be a completely unique and revolutionary discovery.

And so, over the coming months, my plan is to see if I can eat large mixed meals while slowly and steadily pushing my 1 and 2-hour postprandial glucose tests down towards the 110 and 90 levels respectively. I would love to keep my fasting levels below 90 as well. The best way to test overall will be the A1C (glycated hemoglobin) test, which tracks the average blood sugar level over a period of 2-3 months. The closer that number is to 4% the better. That may or may not be in the cards, but the sooner I can begin keeping track of this, the more validity my conclusions will have.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who took an interest in this truly intriguing experiment.

By the way Chloe, 180 did try 80-10-10 for a day, but after two weeks of Fuhrman it was more than I could bear. I’ll do it again sometime though. It did spike my blood sugar to a modest high of only 110 mg/dl ? this being quite amazing as it took an entire pineapple and two large bananas to do it. Interestingly, at the 2-hour mark my blood glucose was still elevated at 99 mg/dl (insignificantly higher, but higher nonetheless than my 2-hour reading after the Famous Famous Dave’s incident).

And an announcement:

I’ll be going to Santa Barbara until Wednesday and won’t be anywhere near a computer until then. You guys are on your own. Sorry, I bet there are a bunch of questions after a post like this. Upon return, the next eZine and podcast will be unleashed, as well as a blog post with pictures of Aurora’s genius Halloween costume idea that involves the two of us, lots of pink clothing, and wings. It’s looking good so far.