Newcastle Diet - Lets Go!!!

[Weekender]

Mrs Weekender made some 'low GI' oat flapjack things on Sunday. I was feeling pretty miserable on Monday with lethargy and brain fog. As it was raining heavily rather than go for a long walk (recommended) I thought I would do a high impact 'body pump' aerobic barbell workout (not recommended as this would lead to 'compensatory eating'). Predictably last night I had 2 flapjacks, a 2 bowls of bran flakes, 2oz of pecans. Dumb. I told myself thinking having lost 4kg the job was done. Wrong - blood sugar back up to 7.3 where I started.
Moral of the story

 

[JITR]

Thanks for posting that chart and explanation. Goes to show how sensitive/fickle FBG can be. Maybe a clue to my HbA1c going up from 32 to 39 in three months last summer, perhaps due over consumption of onions, berries, etc. - rather than flapjacks.

 

[CurlyWurly]

View attachment 33413
Mrs Weekender made some 'low GI' oat flapjack things on Sunday. I was feeling pretty miserable on Monday with lethargy and brain fog. As it was raining heavily rather than go for a long walk (recommended) I thought I would do a high impact 'body pump' aerobic barbell workout (not recommended as this would lead to 'compensatory eating'). Predictably last night I had 2 flapjacks, a 2 bowls of bran flakes, 2oz of pecans. Dumb. I told myself thinking having lost 4kg the job was done. Wrong - blood sugar back up to 7.3 where I started.
Moral of the story
View attachment 33414

Still very good readings though and shows how quickly they can get back to normal levels. I'm the same after a workout just munch through anything and everything. Do you find low GI things generally work with you or do they spike?

 

[Weekender]

Thanks for posting that chart and explanation. Goes to show how sensitive/fickle FBG can be. Maybe a clue to my HbA1c going up from 32 to 39 in three months last summer, perhaps due over consumption of onions, berries, etc. - rather than flapjacks.

I think onions and berries are okay

 

[Weekender]

Still very good readings though and shows how quickly they can get back to normal levels. I'm the same after a workout just munch through anything and everything. Do you find low GI things generally work with you or do they spike?

Hi, I've formed a different conclusion about 'return to normal'. My memory about the mechanics is a bit hazy, but I think it takes a few months the pancreas to recover from being fat clogged and produce insulin normally (See attached slides by Prof Roy Taylor). After this, some people are able to eat a more normal diet as the liver and pancreas are 'reset'.

My plan to do two weeks VLCD and "get back normal" has proved to be rubbish. Despite a few days of low fasting blood sugars, as soon as I ate 'regular' food I had a spike.

I think I was nicely in remission for a few years, but 2024 saw me return to the dietary and booze habits that caused the problem in the first place.

So 2025 and beyond needs a consistent and sustainable approach as @Leadinglights was saying 🙂

 

[JITR]

I think onions and berries are okay

So did I. Will have to spread the net a bit wider after my next HbA1c and DN review at the end of next week. It's possible my carbs tolerance level may be lower than I imagined.

 

[JITR]

View attachment 33413
Mrs Weekender made some 'low GI' oat flapjack things on Sunday. I was feeling pretty miserable on Monday with lethargy and brain fog. As it was raining heavily rather than go for a long walk (recommended) I thought I would do a high impact 'body pump' aerobic barbell workout (not recommended as this would lead to 'compensatory eating'). Predictably last night I had 2 flapjacks, a 2 bowls of bran flakes, 2oz of pecans. Dumb. I told myself thinking having lost 4kg the job was done. Wrong - blood sugar back up to 7.3 where I started.
Moral of the story
View attachment 33414

@Weekender

As you will know your chart shows everything going according to plan, until those flapjacks came along and produced a spike.

Referring back to my first reply in this topic, I suggested you might do the Newcastle diet for 2-4 weeks to get rid of 50% (in 2 weeks) - 75% (in 4 weeks) of the excess fat in your liver and then switch to a sustainable weight loss and maintenance diet. So I'd say job done, almost.

I am confident the three diets (aka ways of eating) I mentioned all have proven track records, i.e. numbers of successful dieters achieving Prof Taylor's weight loss targets for normal weight, overweight and obese people. No doubt the Freshwell app has the numbers for weight loss and maintenance too, but I have not seen them. In any case all are low carb and each of us has to find what works for us and stick with it as we go along.

 

[CurlyWurly]

Hi, I've formed a different conclusion about 'return to normal'. My memory about the mechanics is a bit hazy, but I think it takes a few months the pancreas to recover from being fat clogged and produce insulin normally (See attached slides by Prof Roy Taylor). After this, some people are able to eat a more normal diet as the liver and pancreas are 'reset'.

My plan to do two weeks VLCD and "get back normal" has proved to be rubbish. Despite a few days of low fasting blood sugars, as soon as I ate 'regular' food I had a spike.

I think I was nicely in remission for a few years, but 2024 saw me return to the dietary and booze habits that caused the problem in the first place.

So 2025 and beyond needs a consistent and sustainable approach as @Leadinglights was saying 🙂

View attachment 33418

Thanks for this, the slides don't download for me. Are they available anywhere else? I think this part is key, in his book he shows a picture of a pancreas that looks all squashed and said it can recover back to normal levels within 2 years but then never mentions it again and I haven't seen much other info on it. Would make sense that it takes some time to start functioning properly again after being damaged for a while. Were you able to eat more regular foods like bread, potatoes, pasta etc in smaller quantities without spikes then?

I found this but it talks more about liver fat and in the intro says within 12 months of remission your cells return to normal and stay that way for 24 months which ties in with when you originally did the diet I believe. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8247294/ has lots of technical detail and https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/archive/2019/03/donotputliveoutoftime/ has a summary. Seems you need to remain consistent over a year to really return to close to normal levels and hopefully then you'd be able to produce insulin at normal levels.

 

[JITR]

Thanks for this, the slides don't download for me. Are they available anywhere else? I think this part is key, in his book he shows a picture of a pancreas that looks all squashed and said it can recover back to normal levels within 2 years but then never mentions it again and I haven't seen much other info on it. Would make sense that it takes some time to start functioning properly again after being damaged for a while. Were you able to eat more regular foods like bread, potatoes, pasta etc in smaller quantities without spikes then?

I found this but it talks more about liver fat and in the intro says within 12 months of remission your cells return to normal and stay that way for 24 months which ties in with when you originally did the diet I believe. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8247294/ has lots of technical detail and https://www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articles/archive/2019/03/donotputliveoutoftime/ has a summary. Seems you need to remain consistent over a year to really return to close to normal levels and hopefully then you'd be able to produce insulin at normal levels.

@CurlyWurly
Have you seen these recent videos of Roy Taylor addressing GPs: this and this? I think they go a long way to answering your questions.

As I understand it, a summary is:
1. Lose sufficient weight [8-20+ kg] to put your diabetes into remission [ideally 'full' remission with HbA1c < 39/42 according American/UK standards]
2. Maintain your new low weight by eating 75% of what you used to eat [Roy Taylor's advice] or following a low calorie diet [David Unwin's diet and the others I mentioned as well as anecdotally numerous members of this forum]
3. If you achieve 2, you may well be able to avoid any recurrence of prediabetes or T2D year after year, but there are not yet any longitudinal lifetime studies to prove or disprove the point.

If you read all of Roy Taylor's papers you will find the one describing how the pancreas was observed to shrink just before the onset of T2D (ref not to hand).

Other than that I suggest you have a good look at the technical article you quoted:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8247294/

One of its conclusions, These data demonstrated that the profound pathophysiological changes underlying reversal of type 2 diabetes do not depend upon a continued hypocaloric state but rather are durable during normal eating.

The $64 question is what does normal eating mean for each of us. My own view is that a diet with plenty of pasta, potatoes and flapjacks is a high risk interpretation. Better to stick with low carb proteins and vegetables with occasional excursions into 'enemy territory' as Harbottle's posts in this and other threads describe.

I don't have a CGM but, if and when I do, I will use it to explore what foods to add to my menu. Meanwhile I plan to take advantage of Jonno Proudfoot's RMR Cookbook to improve my culinary repetoire.

 

[dannybgoode]

Lose sufficient weight [8-20+ kg] to put your diabetes into remission [ideally 'full' remission with HbA1c < 39/42 according American/UK standards]

I'm following this with interest as of course, if my T2 diagnosis is confirmed then I am open to trying to get it into remission however I don't have that much weight to lose so my diabetes, if T2, is seemingly not related to weight.

My weight was too high for an 8 month period or so in late 2020 however I've lost 25kg since then. It ballooned very quickly when I went on mertazipine and then I got it back under control over the next 36 months.

I'm now 88-89kg (187cm) and a marathon runner.

I'm assuming not every T2 can be put into remission regardless of weight, activity and or diet?

 

[CurlyWurly]

I'm following this with interest as of course, if my T2 diagnosis is confirmed then I am open to trying to get it into remission however I don't have that much weight to lose so my diabetes, if T2, is seemingly not related to weight.

My weight was too high for an 8 month period or so in late 2020 however I've lost 25kg since then. It ballooned very quickly when I went on mertazipine and then I got it back under control over the next 36 months.

I'm now 88-89kg (187cm) and a marathon runner.

I'm assuming not every T2 can be put into remission regardless of weight, activity and or diet?

Welcome, from the book Professor Taylor said it's now always about visible fat, think people can still have fat around the liver. He gives some examples of thin people who went on the diet and went into remission. It doesn't sound like you're overweight but you might have a low personal fat threshold. From my understanding being overweight is actually a symptom rather than a cause as you first get fat around your liver and develop insulin resistance which then causes you to bloat up as you stop processing carbs effectively which then turn into more fat. Fingers crossed your test comes back OK. Have you done any home tests?

 

[beating_my_betes]

Welcome, from the book Professor Taylor said it's now always about visible fat, think people can still have fat around the liver. He gives some examples of thin people who went on the diet and went into remission. It doesn't sound like you're overweight but you might have a low personal fat threshold. From my understanding being overweight is actually a symptom rather than a cause as you first get fat around your liver and develop insulin resistance which then causes you to bloat up as you stop processing carbs effectively which then turn into more fat. Fingers crossed your test comes back OK. Have you done any home tests?

It' not weight that i the determining factor, but fat. it's very possible (common, even) for people's body composition to favour fat while still being at 'goal' or even under-weight. And that fat being stored ectopically, in the liver, is the problem.
Weight and fat can correlate up to a point, but it takes any of a few different types of medical scan to determine the amount and concentration of fatty deposits in the liver.

 

[dannybgoode]

Have you done any home tests?

Which tests in particular?

 

[JITR]

Waist measurement is one if you are of normal weight. If it's more than it once was then you have fat to lose.

HbA1c is another indicator. If prediabetic with no complications then it"s highly likely you have excess fat in your liver.

 

[CurlyWurly]

Which tests in particular?

Blood glucose, it's worth getting a monitor and testing your fasting level first thing when you wake up. Then average it out each week and you can get a good understanding of whether you're diabetic or not but you'll need your HBA1C result to be certain.

 

[dannybgoode]

Blood glucose, it's worth getting a monitor and testing your fasting level first thing when you wake up. Then average it out each week and you can get a good understanding of whether you're diabetic or not but you'll need your HBA1C result to be certain.

Oh I'm diabetic - Hba1c was 121 on 3rd December. No symptoms though - a routine health check and associated bloods picked it up.

Currently on (and for the foreseeable future staying on) insulin. So yes, I have a BG meter etc.

At first the DSN and reg suspected T1 however the c-peptide test and antibody test suggest T2 but they can't quite explain that.

I do not, from my insulin use profile, appear to be insulin resistant rather appear not to want to use my own insulin for whatever reason.

Waist measurement is one if you are of normal weight. If it's more than it once was then you have fat to lose.

No, it's back to where it was. As I say I'm a long distance runner these days and am back to being fit, active and can fit in clothes I've not been able to for years.

That was the reason for my original question. Are you saying that every single person with T2D can put it into remission if they lose the fat? I'm happy to try anything sensible

 

[JITR]

No. Only the vast majority of those diagnosed as T2D or prediabetic for dietary reasons, excluding those who have actually been T2D for a number of years and whose beta cells have been damaged as a result. You appear to be one of those exceptions or a special case.

 

[dannybgoode]

No. Only the vast majority of those diagnosed as T2D or prediabetic for dietary reasons, excluding those who have actually been T2D for a number of years and whose beta cells have been damaged as a result. You appear to be one of those exceptions or a special case.

That makes sense. I'm seeing the DS consultant next week and have a bank of questions that surround diet, other factors that drive T2 etc.

I may still fall within the diet category for some reason or another so it's good to have all the information I can - thank you for responding 🙂

 

[JITR]

That makes sense. I'm seeing the DS consultant next week and have a bank of questions that surround diet, other factors that drive T2 etc.

I may still fall within the diet category for some reason or another so it's good to have all the information I can - thank you for responding 🙂

Yes, exactly. Define the problem first if you can.

 

[dannybgoode]

Yes, exactly. Define the problem first if you can,

Yep, luckily the diabetes team in Sheffield have been brilliant so I am confident I can work with them and that they want the best outcome for me.