My friend Shi No Ubi texted me a photo of his glucose monitor - and his fasting glucose that morning was 100, a goal he set in consultation with his doctor. This means he's retrained his metabolism to run on fat, by providing less sugar in the form of food. Over time, he built the necessary stores of enzymes to run on a fat based metabolism, while allowing his liver to provide needed glucose via gluconeogensis. The beauty of this system is that the liver will produce only the glucose that is needed. Most of us down so much sugar (either as sucrose, high fructose corn syrup, or high density carbohydrates like wheat) that our bodies become pre-occupied with preventing glucose catastrophe. We run on glucose continually (almost as a defense mechanism), and lose the ability to oxidize significant quantities of fat.
Fructose adds to the problem by taxing the liver in a way that increases insulin resistance, and by decreasing leptin sensitivity, which further disrupts appetite and insulin function. This shows up as metabolic risk and/or injury in many ways - high triglycerides, low HDL, high fasting glucose readings, and a high A1C (a measure of how glycated one's hemoglobin is). The A1c is becoming the go-to number for evaluating metabolic disorder.
I hope when my friend returns to the doctor for a fasting lipid profile, his A1c will reflect that his blood sugars are under control, not just in the morning but all day, every day. In the mean time, his martial arts friends are kidding him about how much weight he's lost!
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