10 days of high-fat processed food. Damages and lessons
10 days ago I knew I would have a couple of occasions where I would probably eat more processed foods than usual. Meals with colleagues, celebrations of various kinds and other early spring meals in company where I would not be the one cooking.
Although I usually make sure I have a plan by bringing some meal options that are healthier, this time I decided to do some self-sabotage “for the science” and just eat whatever came my way (as long as it was plant based). In hindsight that was not a great idea, since some ongoing life situations that are generating stress made leaning towards junk food much easier, and I am one who is prone to indulge in food.
Nonetheless, I set out these 10 days to see what could be the real consequences of a bad diet on me…sometimes you’ve got to experience pain to know how it feels! So, this week’s menu exceptionally included things like
vegan lasagnas,
vegan tiramisu,
vegan chocolate cake,
vegan cookies with cashew cream and/or coconut milk-based cream,
oily pastas,
hummus and Lebanese bread,
salads eaten at the restaurant (which means salads drenched in oil)
Sounds tasty right?
It surely was highly palatable stuff, that’s the thing with highly processed, fatty and sugary foods: they stimulate dopamine production, causing us to eat more and more, raising the bar at each bite.
For how binge-eatable and palatable and gratifying all that junk food was, however, it also screwed up my insulin sensitivity and blood glucose levels BIG TIME. And this had several interesting repercussions on my body and overall status.
Here’s an account of what happened, and a good reminder of why I chose to avoid processed and fatty junk in favor of whole foods.
Quick refresher about insulin resistance
I will directly quote from a Mastering Diabetes article written by Cyrus Chambatta, P.h.D, which perfectly provides the overview we need:
“Insulin resistance results from the accumulation of excess dietary fat in cells that are not meant to store large quantities of fat, which inhibits the action of insulin.
When cells become insulin resistant, glucose builds up in your bloodstream, because cells are trying to burn the excess fat. As a result, beta cells in your pancreas secrete more insulin to force cells to uptake glucose in your blood.
The immediate results are high blood glucose, and an increase in your body’s insulin production.
Over the long term, insulin resistance that is left untreated can lead to:
Consistently high blood glucose levels (consistent with prediabetes and type 2 diabetes
And other chronic conditions
Left untreated for too long, your pancreas becomes unable to produce the high insulin levels needed, and may require exogenous insulin.
[…]
Insulin resistance often presents as a collection of symptoms including:
High fasting and post-meal blood glucose
High fasting and post-meal insulin concentrations
Weight gain (or an inability to lose weight)
Low energy
Impaired digestion
Inability to think clearly
A high A1c value (greater than 5.7%)”
Now that the concept of insulin resistance has been clarified, the account of my experience will be much clearer too. As I was editing this article, I was astounded by the fact that I experienced every single one of the symptoms listed above. Every single one! Let me explain…read along!
What happened during the 10 “junk food” days
Slowly developing insulin resistance
It all started with some vegan cookies I made with white flour, sunflower oil and sugar (even just listing these ingredients makes me itch a bit). These cookies were part of the Vegan Tiramisu I would assemble later on.
I was coming from a good place, my time in range up to that point had been around 85-90%, so my insulin resistance was rather low. The first “cheat day” did not cause any notable spike, although my blood glucose became more unstable during the day, forcing me to tame it with a few extra small insulin shots here and there.
Then came the second day: more cookies in the oven (and a few stolen bites “just to check they are good”), and the first tray of tiramisu. The tiramisu needs a layer of cookies and a layer of cream, which I made with cashews, oil, soy milk and coconut milk - yet another great combination of healthy ingredients!
Once again, the temptation to taste the cream was just too big not to scoop the mixing bowl. Before I knew it, preparing the tiramisu turned into a series of small quality assurance bites that introduced more and more processed fats and sugars in my body.
Insulin resistance at its best: diabetes out of control
At this point, things started to happen. While my blood glucose was relatively in range during the day, the nights became just impossible to manage: after the second day, each morning I woke up to a blood glucose higher than 250.
Not only! Knowing that the processed foods could cause overnight spikes, I would inject extra units right before bed to try contain the rise - something I typically NEVER need to do. And guess what? these extra units were completely useless, and things went absolutely wild.
In a typical day I inject around 30 units of insulin for around 500 grams of (whole, plant based) carbohydrates. Around day 4, I injected around 69 units of rapid insulin during the day, 19 of which right before bed time (19!!! Almost 2/3 of the total I need in a normal day). I had no control of my blood glucose during the day, which was evident since every hour or so I had to inject a few units just to keep blood glucose under control, even outside meal time.
Et Voilà! Your typical insulin-resistant week!
Meals over the following days certainly didn’t help. The vegan lasagna, the hummus with white bread, the oily salads were only compounding the damage on a body which was completely unable to make use of insulin and to break down carbohydrates. For a diabetic, this is particularly evident thanks to blood glucose monitors. But for any person, diabetic or not, there are other real and bad consequences induced by these poor eating habits.
Consequences of being insulin resistant
High blood glucose and insulin doses were not all. Here is the additional damage I experienced:
my digestion became much worse. My gut is not used to such crappy food, and it surely was not happy to be fed with it all of a sudden. I’ll spare you the details, but it was not pleasant.
even a salad would send my blood glucose to 300. One evening I decided to only eat vegetables to balance the junk eaten during the day. Despite injecting twice the amount of insulin I usually get for a carbohydrates rich meal, the morning after I woke up to a 350 on my blood glucose monitor.
my sleep quality decreased significantly. High blood glucose kept me half-awaken overnight, made me extremely thirsty and caused me to wake up to go to the toiled several times. In short, my sleep was continuously interrupted. I constantly woke up to a feeling of grogginess, headaches and other symptoms of a body that is not rested.
recovery from workout was MUCH worse. This was perhaps the most evident consequence. For the first time in years, I felt my joints aching and my muscles constantly sore. Each workout (strength or running) shoot my heart rate to the stars. For instance, a typical recovery run I handle within 140 BPM (Zone 2) suddenly made my heart race at 155-160 BPM (Zone 3/4). Similarly, my hearth was drumming wildly even during strength sessions, something that almost never happens to me. In other words, workouts became an immense stress to my body, which was even impaired to recover properly.
my attention span was reduced. I was constantly thinking about food, about the next occasion to grab a bite of whatever junk was around. This made focus at work or while studying much, much harder.
Fat showed up on my body. I am usually pretty lean - a result of the combination of physical activity, whole carbohydrates-rich plant based foods and low insulin resistance. But these 10 days of high insulin, high sugars and high fats changed my body drastically as my abdomen was quickly covered by a layer of body fat I didn’t see in years.
If you’ve read the previous paragraph about insulin resistance, the points above should be much easier to interpret, and I think there are takeaways for everyone, especially for people without diabetes.
Your take-aways
Rather than mere take-aways, here are some questions for you:
Why do you always feel tired?
Why is your heart racing for no reason, during a physical effort or even at rest?
Why despite your month of salad-only diet, you’re not losing fat?
Why even that salad is now causing weight gain?
Why do you struggle to focus?
Why do you get slumps and feel sleepy after a meal?
Why, why, why?
This experience has been harmful for me, but I hope that many of the “why”s in the list above now have some kind of an answer, and that answer may very well start with “Insulin resistance…”.
The food we eat makes all the difference, in ways we often don’t even imagine.
I was surprised to see how much just eating processed food impacted me well beyond just blood glucose levels. Insulin resistance decreased my body’s ability to recover, sleep and in turn perform well during the day, it made me fatter and unable to enjoy my runs, workouts and meals as I used to.
If you have diabetes, I hope I provided some good reasons to consider a whole food, plant based approach to your diet.
If you don’t have type-1 diabetes, insulin resistance is what paves the way towards type-2 diabetes. Insulin resistance is promoted by eating processed, high-fat foods, and yes, it is the reason why you gain weight just eating a salad.
But it doesn’t have to be that way: you can EASILY decrease insulin resistance by eating whole plant based ones.
Those that make you (and me) feel at your best.
