Hi all,
So I spent the last 3 days doing a bit of an experiment, and making note of my readings across 3 different mornings, with 3 different breakfasts.
Before I carry on, I will say that I absolutely, 100%, agree with this diet, and I myself have seen good results thus far.
Over the 3 days I didn't exercise, or change my routine, so my fasting BG came out quite consistent over the 3 days.
The purpose of this is to look at whether having these shakes, as meal replacement, caused more, or less of a spike than comparative, 200 calorie alternatives.
On day 1, I had an Ultraslim vanilla shake from a powdered sachet, mixed into milk (as per instructions), and measured my BG every 15 minutes up to 1 hour, then every half hour (simply for conserving some of my strips - this was still enough to show the pattern) - in some instances I've done more than 1 reading every 30 mins, so it's not strictly every 30 mins, but it is a minimum of 1 reading every 30mins after 1 hour.
On day 2, I had an egg omelette, which consisted of 1 whole egg (incl yolk), and 2 egg whites (separated). I added into the omelette to bulk it out; 2 diced mushrooms, 1 diced tomato, 1 chopped red onion, 2 chopped spring onions, 12 chopped pimento green olives, a sprinkle of salt & pepper, and 4 large iceberg lettuce leaves chopped and served on the side. See below image for what it looked like:
From my calculations, using weighted measurements of each of the ingredients in the omelette, and referenced against online calorie/nutritional database (I've got the exact breakdown of how I calculated it at home and will supplement with that later), of approximately 180 cals for the full meal, including a smattering of oil I cooked it with (poured it onto the frying pan, and then tissue dabbed excess away. Protein in this was about 27g, and carbohydrates worked out at about 9g I'll cross reference this against my calculations later, and if any details are incorrect I'll update this.
On day 3, I had a whey protein shake for breakfast, which was made using measured 40g of impact whey from myprotein, which has a nutritional level of (from the website)
Per 25g:
Energy: 98.3Kcal
Energy: 414.0kJ
Protein (dry basis): 20.5g
Protein (as-is): 19.6g
Fat: 1.7g
Carbohydrates: 1.5g
Calcium: 125.0mg
Cholesterol: 0.5mg
So I calculated my shakes total as being:
Cals: 170~ incl the milk, of which carbs was 2.4g, and 31g of protein. This was yesterday morning, when I was at work, so I could only take roughly half hourly readings, but theres enough there to give the trend. I'll do this again with whey on this weekend and update if it's significantly different from that shown here.
So when compared with Ultraslim, which has 202 cals, of which 28g of carbs, of which 27g of sugar, the results below as shown by the graph seem quite predictable. I've marked hours 1, and 2 on the graph with the upward lines.
Obviously, this is based on me, and everyone elses response will be different. For me, I conclude from this that to follow the diet, as a diabetic, I myself, can no longer justify using the shakes due to my bodies response to the level of carbs/sugar.
I think it also shows, that by using 200~ calorie equivalent meals, made using real & fresh produce (veg etc), it is possible to stick to the diet.
All I'm trying to show here is that maybe the shakes aren't the be all and end all? For me, they were useful in prompting the change, and that's great, but I think for me, if you can put in the extra planning and effort to calculate and weight your food then it is possible to stick to this diet, without forgoing flavour, feeling full, and generally enjoying the diet too... At the end of the day, this feels much more sustainable for me.
Last night, I made a low carb noodle recipe, with stir fried chicken, and this was spicy, flavoursome, and caused an equivalent spike in my BG compared to the omelette breakfast.
The whey has served to replace the grab-and-go pre-made ultraslim shakes, and it causes a significantly lower spike in my BG, not to mention allowing my levels to return to normal quicker.
I appreciate that I should repeat these to get a more scientific version of this, and I will, but I feel confident enough in my results to say I believe this will be replicated when I try again this weekend (with a different 200 cal breakfast dish). Hopefully by then my fasting levels will also be lower.
Apologies for the length, but I hope this is useful to someone.
