Hi
Austin had helped me before with some advice about fatty liver and my slightly elevated IFG (with normal A1C). That thread is closed but I have some questions which I put in bold.
I am working on adding in conditioning to my training as well as changing my body composition in order to get my fasting glucose down to an average of 90 or less.
I am always working on getting stronger but my primary goal in the short, medium and long term is my health. I have a lot of people depending on me for their livelihood and well being!
I have a good diet, but as well as adding in conditioning I have cut my alcohol consumption down to zero.
I hope I can have a drink now and then at some point but it seems stupid to drink until I know I am reversing any potential liver damage does that make sense?
I purchased a glucometer, which as far as I can tell from my experiments is pretty accurate.
How long would you expect it to take to make a lasting change to my liver/glucose/insulin resistance?
I realize this can probably be confounded by other things so here is more information; Due to other health issues I have had an extremely comprehensive set of labs done and all my other markers from cancer markers to inflammation to lipids are very very good. I know people underestimate their body fat so I won’t try but I am currently 71 inches tall and weigh 197 lbs, my waist has gone down to 36 inches at the navel and I am wearing 33 waist pants. I am starting to see some vascularity and muscle separation and I actually look “fit”
which I haven’t in years. I can’t imagine I am over 20% but as I said I understand it is hard to guess and really doesn’t matter.
Is measuring my own fasting glucose a good way to track this?
I like to track and measure everything, isn’t that a shock! So 6 weeks ago I was getting an average reading of 125. I always do it first thing in the morning when I wake up which is at 545 am.
It is currently averaging around 114 after adding conditioning and cutting out alcohol completely.
If not good to measure then I guess you can forget these questions:
How often should I measure?
How long is “fasting”? The last thing I eat is usually around 10 pm so it is close to 8 hours, I don’t know if that is really long enough?
Anything else you would recommend to help me control this?
My one caveat is I am not going to take medication, I don’t like medication and don’t feel I am having problems that would warrant it.
Is there any way to target “visceral fat”?
I am not sure if you just lose fat generally or if you can target that belly/organ fat.
Is it really true that you “lose strength” if you are “not fat enough”?
I read way too many stupid articles and forums but I have heard all these stories of people who get their fat down and then suddenly they are weaklings, then again we have Charles the amazing charlatan Poliquin who has 1% body fat and can squat 875 kilos and if you can’t you just need to earn your damn carbs you weakling. Or there is a large subgroup of people who just say “GET BIG = GET STRONG”…you may have heard that somewhere :-). I of course have been indoctrinated enough to have thoughts of being an insectile girly man now that I dropped down under 200lbs! Please help me clarify this! **Is it okay if I am 187lbs and have good blood glucose? Can I still be strong? (**I don’t need to be super strong, just as strong as a healthy me can be.)
Thank you so much for everything you all do!
