Pre-diabetes

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Pre-diabetes! After only two full days of drinking ten Cokes a day, this morning’s measurement of my fasting blood sugar level showed that I had crossed the line into pre-diabetes! So exciting! 104mg/dL! For a week before, my fasting blood sugar measured consistently at 97mg/dL. So, that’s insulin resistance. Pre-diabetes is insulin resistance, and doctors consider full-blown Type II Diabetes to begin at 125mg/dL. Actually T2D also has to do with when the pancreas can’t produce enough insulin to handle the massive amounts of blood sugar now needed by your cells, so you end up with a lot of extra glucose floating around, and that’s rough on the old bod.

What else? Weight was 172 this morning. That’s four or five pounds of gain in two days. Water weight? Time will tell. Blood pressure further elevated at 142 over 91, but my pressure is usually a bit higher in the a.m., so that’s just something to watch.

In other news, I’ve discovered something that 7-Eleven and McDonald’s have known for years: Coke goes down easier with ice. The Coke drinking is pretty hassle-free now; I just keep an iced glass of Coke by my side like a best friend and keep the refills a-coming. (Like a best friend who’s an enabler, an evil best friend, a frenemy.)

Had to make a grocery store run this morning because I woke to find I was out of Coke. Bought nine twelve packs of Coke, and mixed in a Vanilla Coke and two Cherry Cokes. I’m going to have fun on the way down, damnit. I also took some pictures of the soft drink and juice drink aisles – so colorful and happy and attractive… and HUGE! My kid loved it. He had never been down those aisles before. It was like taking him to a beautiful enchanted forest of bright colored drinks, like Candyland in bottles. See attached beauty pix. And now that I’m drinking the Koolaid, I’m tempted by all the wonderful sugary drinks to try! How wonderful! A new world!

A few new followers have been commenting that drinking ten Cokes is different than drinking fruit juice. It’s true. Juice may have some vitamins that Coke doesn’t have, Coke may have some phosphoric acid that orange juice doesn’t have… but what we are concerned about here is how much it affects your insulin level: The Glycemic Load. Glycemic Load is the glycemic Index of a food combined with the amount we’re ingesting. The short answer is that orange juice has nearly the glycemic index that Coke has, and they both have high glycemic indices. Fruit juice of any type raises your insulin level and worsens insulin resistance. But, what’s worse is that while people generally know that Coke is bad for you, fruit juice and all the fruit drinks that say “healthy,” “organic,” and “natural,” fool people into thinking they’re not as bad, and we therefore drink more of them.

It doesn’t matter to your insulin and blood sugar if the sugar is natural or refined, fruit sugar or corn syrup, natural or added. It will give you insulin resistance. Juice and fruity flavored drinks and Gatorade are just as bd or worse than Coke.

You know when you give blood and the doctor then gives you a glass of orange juice? It’s not for the vitamin C. It’s because nothing gives your blood sugar a quick boost like a glass of juice. Or a Coke.

Did You Know

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Did you know that I’m not the first genius to think of drinking 10 Cokes a day? As far as I and the Internet know, I’m the second; the first was Jude Law, who reports that he drank 10 Cokes a day to gain weight for his role as Dom Hemingway.

Well, this is only the second day in, and as I reported on Facebook, I’m not enjoying the fun of slamming all this Coke as much as yesterday, but, also, it’s not like it’s actually hard. It’s not like having a job or something, so don’t cry for me, Argentina. Also, not much physical change to report. Scale said 2 pounds heavier this morning, I forgot to measure my fasting glucose, and my blood pressure is a bit higher, at 136/81. Nothing to get upset about.

Like my buddy Jude, I expect to gain weight, and here’s a question: Would I gain the same amount of weight if I added 1400 calories of meat to my diet?

No, I wouldn’t, and further, I could potentially gain more weight this month than just the addition of 1400 daily calories would add up to. The reason is insulin. Your fat tissue stores fatty acids and lipids based on the presence of insulin. A high insulin level – like I’m producing by drinking sugared drinks all day – tells the fat cells to store fat. A low insulin level, like when I’m just eating meat, fat, and green veggies all day, tells the fat cells not to store fat. So, my fat cells are now storing as much as they can get their sweaty little hands on – from ALL the food I eat, not just the sugared sodas. All the Cokes are doing is raising my insulin level. The additional calories are not the main problem.

What if I was adding 1400 calories of pure fat every day? Sucking lardcicles and drinking coconut oil straight from the jar? Same thing. Fat doesn’t cause insulin spikes like sugars and starches do, so my insulin would remain low, the fat cells wouldn’t be cued to store fat, and the coconut oil would go straight through me, like a penny through a toddler.

In fact, one of the most pervasive, and false, theories of weight loss is “calories in, calories out:” the idea that you have to burn all your calories or else they’ll be stored as fat. Wrong. Poo has calories. 1000’s of calories. Ask that pudgy, know-it-all gym instructor to explain that the next time he’s telling you to jump on the elliptical machine and burn off that burger you had for lunch. Wrong, wrong, dangerously wrong. That burger (minus the bread) was probably the healthiest thing you ate all day.

Don’t worry about calories. Worry about insulin levels, and what foods you’re eating that can cause high insulin. Grains and sugars cause your insulin level to rise and you get fat. Meats and fats don’t spike your insulin, so they help you to lose weight.

That said, I’m having another Coke.

Four Cokes In

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Four cokes in and it’s 11:30. I need to pick up the pace. I want to stop drinking Cokes by 4 pm., so I can eventually sleep, which means I’ve got six more (six and half; I’m not done with this one) to drink in the next four hours. And I have to drink lunch.

So far, I’m a bit jittery from the caffeine, but not much worse than when I drink espresso all day. Oh, and I did have some espresso, too. I forgot. This morning, after two cokes, I was groggy and dispirited, feeling the weight of all those Cokes ahead of me, and I slammed two espressos just for the warmth and comfort.

But, basically, I’m still feeling like, yeah, I can do this.

There. I just finished number four.

Getting ready to start

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I’m getting ready to start drinking ten Cokes a day – probably by Friday. What do I mean getting ready? I got a complete physical yesterday, for example, and I’ll post those results when they’re ready. I also have weighed myself (167), measured my bodyfat (10%), my blood pressure (122/77) and started measuring my fasting blood sugar level every morning when I get up.

And I have to find a place that has Coke on sale.

I’m going to do another little experiment…

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I’m going to drink 10 Diet Cokes a day for 30 days and see how it affects my health. After I drank 10 Cokes a day for 30 days and gained 23 pounds, many people have been asking how the experiment would work with Diet Cokes.

Would I still gain weight? Would it affect my health in other ways? Seemed worth an experiment, and I’d much prefer a month of drinking diet sodas than a month of sugared sodas, so it’s a win-win situation. Kind of. Still a lot of Diet Coke.