I’m always looking for collaborators for future experiments. If you’re interested in collaborating on scientifically rigorous self-experiments with low-carb foods, supplements, or other health interventions, please let me know in the comments or via the contact form on the right.
I finally finished and posted my flour replacement tests. This was a really fun experiment. I found a number of alternate flours with low BG impact that I hadn’t heard of before (e.g. ground chia seed and King Arthur Keto blend) and learned a lot about the behavior and exact BG impact of the flours I had been using. This has got me interested in doing some low-carb baking experiments again. I’m going to try making pizza first and will report back if anything works well.
Experiments this week:
- Whole foods: Palmini low-carb linguine, almonds, salmon, tuna, pork rinds, tomatoes
- Blood pressure:
- 5/20 runs of the deep breathing study
- 5 measurements testing concordance between two BP meters
- Exercise-induced Rhinitis:
- 5/6 runs of the fast-acting antihistamine (blinded, placebo-controlled).
Next week:
- Food effect: next week is Thanksgiving here in the US, so I’ll be doing less food effect tests, but I should be able to fit in a few more whole foods.
- Blood pressure:
- I’ll be continuing the deep breathing study, but it will take another 3 weeks to finish and analyze.
- I’m going to take advantage of the holiday to do try tracking my BP over the course of a day to see how it varies. I’ll post that data sometime in the next couple weeks.
- On the allergy study, I’ll be finishing the last antihistamine run, unblinding, and analyzing the data, so I should get that posted next weekend.
– QD
Active & Planned Experiments
- Blood Glucose Impact of Low-Carb Foods & Ingredients
- Goal: Determine blood glucose impact of low-carb foods and ingredients
- Approach: Protocol
- Status:
- Reported:
- Up next:
- Whole foods (vegetables, meats, low-carb fruits)
- Dietary fibers
- Miscellaneous low-carb prepared foods
- Blood Glucose Impact of Supplements
- Goal: Determine blood glucose impact and mechanism of promising supplements
- Approach: Protocol
- Status:
- This week: Initial replication
- Reported:
- Up next:
- Full meal test
- Alternate macronutrients
- Alternate acid sources
- Blood Pressure
- Goal: Identify causes & interventions to improve my elevated blood pressure
- Approach: under development
- Status:
- This week: Request for feedback on experimental design
- Reported:
- Up next:
- Analysis of historical data
- Effect of deep breathing protocols
- Allergies/Breathing
- Goal: Identify causes & interventions to improve my breathing during exercise
- Approach: under development
- Status:
- This week: Request for feedback on experimental design
- Reported:
- Up next:
- Effect of masking
- Effect of antihistamines
- Improving Sleep
Let me know in the comments if there’s any other experiments you’d like to see.
– QD
Observations & Data
- Sleep
- Sleep was even worse this week, due to a combination of insomnia and multiple early wakings where I couldn’t go back to sleep. I’ve got off of work the next week for Thanksgiving, so I’m going to focus on getting this back under control.
- Pulse looks to be stabilizing, but that may be related to the poor sleep.
- HRV still up this week, still don’t understand how to interpret this…
- Blood Glucose
- Blood glucose still looking good, but it’s hard to tell with my current metrics. When I get some time, I’m going to switch to using time low & high, rather than just time-in-range.
- Other Blood
- Hemoglobin still in the normal range. I’m not really getting anything out of this measurement. No real variation and I’m not aware of it predicting and long-term health trends. I will likely drop it when I run out of test cuvettes.
- Cholesterol has come down from the peak in September, largely due to a drop in LDL and triglycerides, which is great. HDL is lower than I’d like, will look into ways to increase.
- Blood pressure continues to be “elevated.” Hopefully my new study will uncover something useful here.
- Body
- Weight and waist are continuing to drop, despite no intentional dieting on my part. I’m going to start adding more calories in at breakfast, since I’m already eating as much as I want at dinner.
Sleep
Blood Glucose
Other Blood
Body
Methods
- Sleep
- Metrics: total time, heart rate variability, pulse (sleeping vs. waking)
- Methods: Apple watch + Autosleep app
- Frequency: daily
- Blood Glucose
- Metrics: fasting BG, Avg. BG, coefficient of variation, time 70-140 mg/dL, time <60 mg/dL
- Methods: Dexcom G6 CGM
- Frequency: continuous
- Other Blood
- Metrics: weight, waist circumference, BMI, waist/height
- Methods: scale + Renpho tape measure
- Frequency: daily
- Body
- Metrics: hemoglobin, cholesterol, blood pressure, pulse
- Methods: Hemocue 801, Cardiocheck PA, Omron Evolve
- Frequency: daily for blood pressure & pulse, every 2 weeks for hemoglobin & cholesterol
