What Is Data-Driven Fasting?

Data-Driven Fasting is a first-of-its-kind, personalised approach to guide your daily eating

routine using your internal fuel gauge.

Most popular fasting approaches prescribe a strict one-size-fits-all pattern, like 18:6, 20:4,
alternate day or multi-day extended fasting.

Unfortunately, without personalisation, people only learn to ignore and push through their
hunger, often leading to poorer food choices and overeating when they are ‘allowed’ to eat
again.

Instead of a fixed eating window, Data-Driven Fasting uses your blood glucose to make more
intelligent choices about when and what to eat. Rather than ignoring your healthy appetite
signals, Data-Driven Fasting teaches you to train your hunger so, in time, your body learns to
trust that you will give it precisely what it needs when it needs it.

The Big Secret of Data-Driven Fasting

The big secret of Data-Driven Fasting is that it’s not fasting as most people think of it.

Instead, it’s more quantified mindful eating or glucose-guided eating using technology to
understand your unique metabolism.

While some people use a continuous glucose monitor, all you need is an accurate
glucometer to validate your hunger and understand what your body needs right now.

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Contents
What Is Data-Driven Fasting? .................................................................................................................................. 1
The Big Secret of Data-Driven Fasting ................................................................................................................. 1
Getting Started with Data-Driven Fasting................................................................................................................ 8
Why We Created Data-Driven Fasting ................................................................................................................. 8
Your Healthy Appetite Signals Have Been Hijacked ....................................................................................... 9
What Is the Best Fasting Schedule For YOU? .................................................................................................. 10
What Is the Best Refuelling Schedule for You? ............................................................................................... 11
What Happens When You Run Out of Fuel (or Fast for Too Long)? ...................................................... 12
Why Fasting Fails for So Many .............................................................................................................................. 13
Is Fasting for Longer Really Better? ..................................................................................................................... 14
Protein and Nutrients Matter! ............................................................................................................................... 14
How Your Body Uses the Food You Eat ............................................................................................................. 16
How to Burn Your Body Fat .................................................................................................................................... 17
Your Body’s Fuel Tanks............................................................................................................................................. 20
Your Personal Fat Threshold .................................................................................................................................. 21
Why Are Blood Glucose and Insulin So Important? ...................................................................................... 23
How To Use Your Blood Sugar Meter as A Fuel Gauge............................................................................... 24
Hunger Training: How to Lose Weight Using Your Blood Sugar as A Fuel Gauge ........................... 26
The Research Behind Hunger Training............................................................................................................... 26
The Data-Driven Fasting System .......................................................................................................................... 28
Next Steps ..................................................................................................................................................................... 29
Glossary - Data-Driven Fasting .................................................................................................................................. 30
DDF QuickStart Guide.................................................................................................................................................... 31
The Purpose of DDF .................................................................................................................................................. 31
Baselining ...................................................................................................................................................................... 31
Hunger Training .......................................................................................................................................................... 32
Stages.............................................................................................................................................................................. 33
Your Personalised Trigger ....................................................................................................................................... 32
Your Fuel Gauge Lines .............................................................................................................................................. 33
Progressive Overload for Your Metabolism ..................................................................................................... 34
WHEN to Eat ................................................................................................................................................................. 34
Your Main Meal ........................................................................................................................................................... 35
What To Focus on in Each Stage .......................................................................................................................... 35
WHAT to Eat ................................................................................................................................................................. 35

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 Guidance of the DDF app ........................................................................................................................................ 36
The End Game.............................................................................................................................................................. 37
Maintenance ................................................................................................................................................................. 38
If In Doubt ..................................................................................................................................................................... 37
The Data-Driven Fasting App User Guide.............................................................................................................. 39
How Do I Get the DDF App? .................................................................................................................................. 39
How Do I Record My Blood Glucose Values? .................................................................................................. 39
Rate Your Hunger ....................................................................................................................................................... 40
Use the Events ............................................................................................................................................................. 41
Changing the Time and Date ................................................................................................................................. 42
How Do I Record My Biometrics? ........................................................................................................................ 42
How Do I Record My Meals? .................................................................................................................................. 43
Switching to Hunger Training ................................................................................................................................ 44
How Do I See the Meals I Have Recorded? ...................................................................................................... 44
How Do I See My Biometrics? ............................................................................................................................... 45
Your Diary ...................................................................................................................................................................... 46
How Do I Edit the Values I Entered? ................................................................................................................... 46
How Do I Change the Target Rate of Weight Loss? ..................................................................................... 46
Does It Matter If I Measure In mg/dL or mmol/L? ........................................................................................ 47
How Can I Add My Trigger Value to My Meter? ............................................................................................ 47
What Is The ‘Upper Limit’ On the Hourly Glucose Chart? .......................................................................... 48
Can I Reset My Trigger? ........................................................................................................................................... 49
What If I Can’t Reach My Trigger for the Whole Day? ................................................................................. 50
Should I Keep Chasing My Trigger or Switch to Maintenance? ............................................................... 51
What Are the Milestones in the DDF App?....................................................................................................... 51
What Makes DDF Different?........................................................................................................................................ 52
1.1 How Is Data-Driven Fasting Different from Other Popular Fasting Methods?............................ 53
1.2 How Is Data-Driven Fasting Different from Calorie Counting? ......................................................... 54
1.3 Are There Any Additional Benefits from Extended Fasting?............................................................... 55
1.4 How Is Chasing Your Trigger Different from A Fasting Window? .................................................... 58
1.5 What Is An 'Extended Fast'? How Long is Too Long? .......................................................................... 59
1.6 How Is Data-Driven Fasting Different from The Fast-Mimicking Diet? .......................................... 59
1.7 Would Waiting a Little Longer Be Better? ................................................................................................. 60
1.8 Could Extended Fasting Harm Your Healthy Appetite Signals? ........................................................ 61
1.9 Will I Be Getting Enough Autophagy with Data-Driven Fasting? ..................................................... 62
1.10 Is Calorie Counting the Best Way to Lose Weight? ............................................................................. 64

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 1.11 Counting Calories Can Cause Disordered Eating ................................................................................. 66
Getting Ready for the DDF Challenge ..................................................................................................................... 67
2.1 When Is the Next DDF Challenge? ............................................................................................................... 67
2.3 What Do I Need to Buy? ................................................................................................................................... 68
2.4 Would A Continuous Glucose Monitor Be Better? ................................................................................. 70
2.5 How Do I Test My Blood Glucose? ............................................................................................................... 72
2.6 How Should I Adjust My Medications When I Start Fasting? ............................................................ 73
2.7 Will DDF Work If I Have Type 1 Diabetes? ................................................................................................ 75
2.8 Should I Check My Ketones When Fasting? ............................................................................................. 75
2.9 I’ve Been Doing OMAD/ADF/EF. What Should I Do in Baselining? ................................................. 77
Tracking Your Progress ................................................................................................................................................. 79
3.1 Are My Blood Glucose Levels Before or After I Eat More Important? ............................................ 79
3.2 How Quickly Will I Lose Weight with Data-Driven Fasting? ............................................................... 82
3.3 Should I Track My Weight When Fasting?................................................................................................. 83
3.4 How Often Should I Measure My Waist? ................................................................................................... 84
3.5 What Are Optimal Body Fat Levels? ............................................................................................................. 85
3.6 What Is the Best Blood Sugar Level for Weight Loss? .......................................................................... 87
3.7 How Do I Find My Personal Fat Threshold? .............................................................................................. 87
3.8 What Is the Best Way to Measure Body Fat?............................................................................................ 87
3.9 Can I Lose Fat and Gain Lean Mass at The Same Time? ...................................................................... 89
3.10 Do I Need to Check My Blood Glucose Before Every Meal? ............................................................ 89
3.11 How Do You ‘Build Your Fasting Muscle’? .............................................................................................. 90
3.12 Do I Need to Track Before Every Meal or Every Day? ......................................................................... 90
3.13 What Are Ideal Blood Sugar Levels for Weight Loss?......................................................................... 91
3.14 Does the DDF App Have a Lower Limit for Blood Glucose? ............................................................ 92
3.15 Will I Lose Too Much Lean Mass When I Fast? ..................................................................................... 95
3.16 Should I Record My ‘Pre-Meal Blood Sugars’ When I Don’t Eat? .................................................. 96
3.17 When Should I Check My Waking Blood Glucose? ............................................................................. 96
3.18 How Often Do I Have to Test My Blood Glucose? ............................................................................... 97
3.19 Will DDF Work With OMAD?........................................................................................................................ 98
3.20 What If Blood Glucose Testing Is Getting Too Expensive or Painful? .......................................... 99
WHEN to Eat................................................................................................................................................................... 100
4.1 When Should I Test My Blood Glucose After Eating? ........................................................................ 100
4.2 How Can I Integrate Data-Driven Fasting into My Daily Routine?................................................ 103
4.3 How Many Meals Per Day Should I Eat? ................................................................................................. 104
4.4 How Do I Stop Snacking at Night? ............................................................................................................ 105

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 4.5 Eat 'Breakfast' Like A King ............................................................................................................................. 106
4.6 If My Blood Glucose Is Below My Trigger When I Wake, Should I Eat? ...................................... 107
4.7 How to Use Your Hourly Glucose Chart .................................................................................................. 107
WHAT To Eat .................................................................................................................................................................. 109
5.1 Can You Eat Whatever You Want With DDF? ........................................................................................ 109
5.2 Front-Load Your Protein to Hack Your Satiety! .................................................................................... 111
5.3 Why Am I Not Losing Weight?.................................................................................................................... 112
5.4 Plan What You Will Eat Before You’re Hungry ...................................................................................... 114
5.5 What Should You Eat After Fasting? ......................................................................................................... 115
5.6 Will Coffee “Break My Fast”?........................................................................................................................ 116
5.7 Electrolytes and Fasting ................................................................................................................................. 117
5.8 How Much Protein Do I Need? ................................................................................................................... 118
5.9 Will ‘Too Much Protein’ Raise My Insulin Levels and Stop Me from Losing Fat?.................... 119
5.10 How Should I Break a Fast?........................................................................................................................ 121
5.11 Can I Drink Alcohol While Fasting? ......................................................................................................... 121
5.12 Should I Eat Less Protein If I Have Diabetes? ...................................................................................... 122
5.12 Aren’t Meal Choices Important Too? ..................................................................................................... 123
5.13 Do I Need MCT Oil or Butter During a Fast (aka 'Fat Fasting')? .................................................. 123
5.14 Do I Need Protein When I Fast? ............................................................................................................... 124
5.15 Does DDF Work Best with A Particular Diet (e.g., Low-Carb, Keto, Vegan, Plant-Based)? 125
5.16 What If I’m Above My Trigger but REALLY Hungry? ........................................................................ 126
5.17 How Can I Use My Glucose to Guide How Much I Eat? .................................................................. 126
5.18 How to Use Your Glucose Trends to Guide WHAT You Eat? ........................................................ 126
Winning The Mind Game .......................................................................................................................................... 130
6.1 Quantified Mindful Eating............................................................................................................................. 130
6.2 The Psychological Impacts of Data-Driven Fasting ............................................................................. 132
6.3 Hunger Is Not the Enemy.............................................................................................................................. 133
6.4 Progress Over Perfection............................................................................................................................... 133
6.5 Three Steps Forward, One Step Back........................................................................................................ 135
6.6 Follow the Trend, Ignore the Noise........................................................................................................... 135
6.7 Fasting Can Be Stressful................................................................................................................................. 136
6.8 What If I 'Fall Off the DDF Wagon'? How Do I Get Back On? ........................................................ 136
6.9 DDF May Test Your Emotional Resolve ................................................................................................... 137
6.10 DDF and Dopamine Fasting....................................................................................................................... 138
Understanding Your Unique Metabolism ........................................................................................................... 140
7.1 What Is A 'Good' Trigger Value? ................................................................................................................ 140

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 7.2 What Is the Optimal Blood Sugar Level for Fat Burning? ................................................................. 143
7.3 What Is a Healthy Waking Glucose Level?.............................................................................................. 143
7.4 What Is Dawn Phenomenon? ...................................................................................................................... 147
7.5 How Does ‘That Time of The Month' Affect Blood Glucose for Women?.................................. 147
7.6 Why Does My Blood Glucose Fall After I Eat? ....................................................................................... 149
7.7 Why Would My Blood Glucose Rise After a Low-Carb, High-Protein Meal? ............................ 150
7.8 Will Fasting Help My Gut Health? .............................................................................................................. 151
7.9 How is DDF Different from Zoe or Day 2? .............................................................................................. 151
7.10 What Is the Glucose Ketone Index (Or Dr Boz Ratio)? .................................................................... 153
7.11 Will Data-Driven Fasting Help Me Lose Weight If I Don’t Have Diabetes? ............................. 154
7.12 How Can I Optimise My Sleep with Intermittent Fasting? ............................................................. 156
7.13 How Much Should My Blood Glucose Rise After a Meal? ............................................................. 157
7.14 Do I Need to Worry About 'Insulin Toxicity'? ..................................................................................... 158
7.15 How Long Will It Take to Train My Hunger? ....................................................................................... 159
7.16 What If My Blood Glucose Rises Again Before I Eat?....................................................................... 160
7.18 Why Is My Waking Blood Sugar the Highest of The Day? ............................................................ 161
7.19 Why Do I Get Cold When Fast? ................................................................................................................ 162
7.20 Why Do I Get Headaches When I Fast?................................................................................................. 162
7.21 Why It’s More Important to Manage Your Basal Insulin Than Your Bolus Insulin ............... 162
7.22 Why Your Goal is Not Be Flatline Blood Glucose Levels................................................................. 164
7.23 What Happens to Glucose and Fat When We Eat? .......................................................................... 166
7.24 How Can I Mitigate Menopausal Weight Gain?................................................................................. 169
8.1 Does Insulin Resistance Make It Harder for Me to Lose Weight? ................................................. 172
8.2 Would Data-Driven Fasting Be Appropriate If I’m Active? ............................................................... 173
8.3 What Should I Do If My Waking Blood Glucose Is Not Dropping? .............................................. 174
8.4 What If My Blood Glucose Doesn't Drop Below My Trigger for The Whole Day?.................. 178
8.5 Should I Fast When I’m Sick? ....................................................................................................................... 179
8.6 Is My Blood Glucose Meter Accurate? ..................................................................................................... 179
8.7 How Will Fasting Affect My Sleep?............................................................................................................ 179
8.8 Why am I Gaining Weight When I Eat More Protein? ........................................................................ 180
8.9 Is My Thyroid Stopping Me from Losing Weight? .............................................................................. 182
8.10 Don’t Try Too Hard! ...................................................................................................................................... 182
Other Things That Affect Your Blood Sugars (Other Than Food) .............................................................. 184
9.1 Many Things Affect Your Blood Sugars ................................................................................................... 184
9.2 How Does Sleep Affect Blood Glucose? .................................................................................................. 186
9.3 Should I Exercise? ............................................................................................................................................. 186

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 9.4 How Does Exercise Impact Your Blood Glucose Levels? ................................................................... 187
9.4 Is It Better to Exercise Fasted? ..................................................................................................................... 189
9.5 How Can I Use My Glucose to Optimise My Workout Fuelling? ................................................... 190
9.5 Why Does My Glucose Rise When I Don’t Eat? .................................................................................... 193
9.6 Can I Fast When I’m Stressed? .................................................................................................................... 194
Moving On… After the DDF Challenge ................................................................................................................ 195
10.1 How Long Can I Do This For? .................................................................................................................... 195
10.2 Maintenance Mode ....................................................................................................................................... 196
10.3 What Should I Eat During Maintenance? ............................................................................................. 198
10.4 Should I Switch to Maintenance or Keep on Chasing My Trigger? ............................................ 198
10.5 Pause Mode ..................................................................................................................................................... 199
10.6 Should I Do Another DDF Challenge? ................................................................................................... 200
10.7 When Is the Next Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge? .......................................................... 200
10.8 Should I Do DDF Or the Macros Masterclass First? .......................................................................... 200
10.9 How Do I Get the Free Food Lists?.......................................................................................................... 201
10.10 Nutribooster Recipe Books...................................................................................................................... 202
10.11 Cronometer.................................................................................................................................................... 205
10.12 Free 7-Day Nutrient Clarity Challenge ................................................................................................ 206
10.13 Nutrient Optimiser ...................................................................................................................................... 207
10.14 Join Our Community! ................................................................................................................................. 208
10.15 Follow Optimising Nutrition.................................................................................................................... 208

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Getting Started with Data-Driven Fasting
Over the years, we have fielded many questions in our Data-Driven Fasting Challenges and
documented the answers in the manual for others to benefit.

The detail in this manual will unpack all the hows and whys around using your glucose to
guide what and when to eat. But if you want to get started now, you can:

• access the Data-Driven Fasting app here to find your personalised glucose trigger
today and start the hunger training process,

• download the complete Data-Driven Fasting Manual to read offline, and

• join our Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge, where we will guide you through the
process in a structured manner in a supportive community environment and answer
any questions you might have.

Why We Created Data-Driven Fasting

Intermittent fasting has helped many people lose weight, lower their blood glucose, and
reverse type 2 diabetes without the hassle of tracking their food.

But, sadly, for many others, fasting does not provide the results they had hoped for.

When we get ravenously hungry, we usually reach for energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods that
quickly undo all the benefits of our sacrifice and deprivation.

To ensure long-term success, you need to find the minimum effective dose of fasting
without breaking. You need to learn to stretch your body just a little, but not so much that it
rebels, and you find yourself trapped in an endless restrict-binge-restrict cycle, as many sadly
do.

As with most things, more isn't always better when it comes to fasting. You only just enough
restriction to ensure you're moving towards your goal at a sustainable rate, but without
waking your inner lizard brain.

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Data-Driven Fasting (DDF) gamifies the process of fat loss and improves your metabolic
health using a few simple measurements to guide your weight loss progress. DDF guides
you to personalise your eating schedule to achieve your goals by measuring what matters
and ignoring the rest.

Data-Driven Fasting is a powerful, time-proven tool that has guided thousands of people
toward their fat loss and blood glucose goals without tracking calories or using a rigid, one-
size-fits-all fasting window.

We are thrilled with the results from the thousands of people who have used Data-Driven
Fasting to optimise when and what they eat.

Read on to learn how to use your blood glucose to guide when and what to eat!

Your Healthy Appetite Signals Have Been Hijacked

Sadly, our natural and healthy hunger signals have been hijacked by our modern food
environment, including:

● an abundance of highly processed foods that contain both refined carbohydrates and
fats — this combination of macros is rare in nature and drives us to overeat, much
like we once instinctively did every autumn to build our fat stores for winter survival,

● 24/7 food availability 365 days per year,

● cultural cues that lead us to associate food with fun, affection, pleasure, social
gatherings, and popularity, rather than the source of the nutrients we need to thrive,

● food advertising and marketing campaigns that promote snacking and eating, and

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 ● ‘bait and switch’ artificial colourings, scents, and flavours that trick your appetite into
falsely believing processed food products contain the nutrients you need.

These factors contribute to the burgeoning ‘Frankenfood’ marketplace that perpetuates

overeating and weight gain. This change in our food environment has driven the ‘diabesity’
epidemic that, according to the World Health Organisation, now affects more than 422
million people.

What Is the Best Fasting Schedule For YOU?

While fasting continues to grow in popularity, there is still plenty of confusion about the
ideal routine. Is it:

● Michael Mosely's 5:2 Diet,

● Hugh Jackman's 16:8,

● Bert Herring’s Fast-5,

● Brad Pilon's Eat Stop Eat,

● Ori Hofmekler’s Warrior Diet,

● Valter Longo's Fasting Mimicking Diet,

● Alternate Day Fasting (ADF),

● Multi-Day Extended Fasting (EF), or

● One Meal a Day (OMAD)?

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After experiencing some success, many become passionate about their favourite fasting
routine, enthusiastically proselytising the version that worked for them. But what about you?

● How do you know which fasting plan is right for you?

● How do you know if it’s working?

● How can you fine-tune your routine to optimise your results?

● How do you know your chosen schedule won’t lead to bingeing, thus negating all
your arduous work?

● What if you feel ravenously hungry, but it’s not ‘time to eat’ according to your chosen
fasting approach?

What Is the Best Refuelling Schedule for You?

Imagine your friend told you that the best time to put fuel in your car was at 10 am on the
first Saturday of the month.

But they drive a hybrid hatchback, have a twenty-minute commute to work, and walk
everywhere on the weekend. Meanwhile, you drive a pick-up truck, have a two-hour
commute to work, and sometimes drive to the beach on the weekends.

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Following the refuelling schedule that your friend follows religiously will leave you out of gas
and on the side of the road! The only sensible way to decide when to refuel is to go by the
fuel gauge on YOUR truck.

Just like fuelling your car, there’s nothing magical about someone else’s eating schedule that
means it’s also going to work perfectly for you.

You’ll get better ‘mileage’ by fine tuning your fasting routine based on your fuel gauge (your
blood glucose) than you will by filling up on someone else’s rigid clock-based schedule —
no matter how well theirs works for them.

Data-Driven Fasting helps you optimise your refuelling schedule to suit your unique
requirements and goals by giving you an immediate insight into when your body’s fuel
gauge is ‘full’ and when it is flashing ‘empty’.

What Happens When You Run Out of Fuel (or Fast for
Too Long)?
While you don’t want to fuel up too often, you also don’t want to let the tank go dry. So, to
continue the car analogy, you’ll find yourself in an emergency, broken down on the side of
the motorway.

After being pulled to safety by the tow truck, from that day on, you will always make sure
your fuel tank is filled to the brim at every opportunity to ensure you never have that
experience again.

This is not unlike what happens to most of us when we dabble with extended fasting (e.g.,
OMAD, ADF or multi-day fasting).

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While we think more deprivation is better, we don’t account for our survival instincts
intervening to ensure that we eat more than we need to, just in case we subject ourselves to
another extended fast.

Studies in rats who press a button to get food show that, when food is consistently available,
they will only press the button when they need food. However, when the food supply is
inconsistent — when the button doesn’t yield food every time they press it — they go into a
frenzy of panicked button pressing, whether they need food or not, to account for the
unreliable food availability.

To address this, Data-Driven Fasting uses your blood sugar as a fuel gauge to empower you
to know precisely when and what you need to eat. Once your body learns that it will get
what it needs when it needs it, Lizzy returns to sleep, content that there is no emergency.

Why Fasting Fails for So Many

Many people fast for days but still aren’t lean. It’s not that hard to fast for a few days if you
carry a lot of stored body fat.

You may have seen people claiming to feel fantastic and bragging to everyone on Facebook
about their high ketone levels after days of not eating. However, you’ve also likely seen
others complaining about lack of progress as their weight yo-yos up and down.

They lose and regain the same few pounds repeatedly, usually with worsening body
composition. That is, increasing fat gain with loss of precious muscle.

Many fasting programs promote the idea that you can build your ‘fasting muscle’ with more
willpower and progressively longer and longer fasts. But, unfortunately, many ‘by-the-
window’ fasters, relying on their conscious willpower, only succeed in waking Lizzy, who
responds by turning a silent or softly whimpering hunger into a screeching aria of
unrequited ‘starvation’, which is unscientifically known as the ‘Godzilla response’.

When Lizzy rampages after excessive bouts of fasting, most handlers don’t successfully tame
it with grilled chicken breast and broccoli. Instead, they offer their favourite comfort foods as
peace offerings.

Unfortunately, emergency comfort foods include highly processed, energy-dense, nutrient-

poor foods like cakes, chips, peanut butter and ice cream that quickly undo your fast by
refilling your glucose and fat fuel tanks.

‘Any fool can fast, but only the wise man knows how to break a fast.’

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 George Bernard Shaw

A crucial part of Data-Driven Fasting is learning to give your body the nutrients it needs
when you are hungry, but your blood sugars are still elevated. This ensures we avoid
extreme hunger when all Lizzy wants is nutrient-poor, energy-dense comfort foods.

Is Fasting for Longer Really Better?

Extended fasting advocates like to point to the benefits of extended and alternate-day
fasting in rodents who experience all sorts of benefits. But keep in mind that you’re not a
giant mouse in captivity.

• One mouse day is equivalent to approximately forty human days. So, to be sure you
get the same magical benefits of autophagy that we see in rodent studies after three
days, you would need to fast for 120 days!

• Another thing to remember is that lab rats get the same chow day, regardless of how
hungry or satiated they feel. However, free-living humans can choose to eat
whatever they want when they refeed. So, no matter how disciplined you think you
are, what and how much you eat will always change when you awaken your survival
instincts when you allow your blood glucose level to drop below what your body is
comfortable with.

Protein and Nutrients Matter!

Unfortunately, people who regularly fast typically get less of the protein and micronutrients
they require to prevent cravings, achieve satiety and optimise their health. Over time, they
risk becoming skinny fat, with an increase in body fat and a decrease in muscle mass. This
unfavourable exchange lowers their metabolism and worsens their metabolic health.

As shown in the survey below from our Data-Driven Fasting Facebook Group, many people
report numerous challenges with popular fasting protocols. The most common being
continually losing and regaining the same weight over and over.

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When we saw these widespread issues, we knew we had to design a more effective fasting
and feasting routine to help people get the results they were hoping for.

The bottom line is that there is nothing magical about fasting that eliminates your need for
nutrients from your food. Lizzy will always ensure you get the amino acids, minerals,
vitamins and energy your body requires, regardless of how much willpower you try to exert
with your conscious mind.

The ‘secret’ is to find a way to get just enough restriction to achieve the benefits of fasting
while still getting the nutrients your body requires but without pushing so hard that Lizzy
wakes up and undoes all your hard work.

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Small changes that lead to new sustainable habits that result in long-term health outcomes
are always better than short-term fixes that leave you rebounding and ridden with guilt
because you ‘failed’ again.

How Your Body Uses the Food You Eat

Our bodies have adapted to store and use various fuels to maximise resilience in any context.
The fuel we use to produce energy can come from the food we have just eaten or the fat
stored in our bodies.

The table below shows the relative oxidative priority of alcohol, ketones, glucose and fat in
your body (adapted from Oxidative Priority, Meal Frequency, and the Energy Economy of Food
and Activity: Implications for Longevity, Obesity, and Cardiometabolic Disease by Cronise et
al., 2017).

Some fuels are more challenging to convert into usable energy than others, and the losses
are higher. This is known by several names, including,

• the thermic effect of food,

• dietary-induced thermogenesis or

• the specific dynamic action of food.

While these distinctions are typically ignored in our simplistic discussion of ‘calories in vs
calories out’, they profoundly affect how our bodies use the food we eat, how much we eat,
and how much of it we store as fat.

While we continuously burn a mixture of available fuels, our body prioritises the use of fuels
that it can’t store very much of.

• Any energy available from alcohol, like from a glass of wine, will be used first.

• Ketones are generally present in our blood only when glucose and protein are low, so
they are used as an alternative to glucose.

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 • ‘Excess protein’ is next in the oxidative priority line-up and is burned after alcohol and
ketones. But remember, most of the protein we eat is used to maintain and repair
numerous critical body functions, including muscle protein synthesis. As a result, we
don’t typically overeat protein because it’s incredibly satiating. Instead, most people
struggle to eat enough protein, let alone more than we need!

So, your body’s remaining dominant fuel sources are carbs and fats. While the body likes to
maintain some glucose, having too much slows the use of fat, either your diet or your body
stores.

For more detail, see Oxidative Priority: The Key to Unlocking Your Body Fat Stores.

How to Burn Your Body Fat

Counterintuitively, people carrying a lot of body fat primarily burn glucose at rest. So, when
we measure their respiratory quotient, or the ratio of CO2 exhaled vs the oxygen consumed,
we find that they’re working overtime by trying to burn off the glucose that’s ‘backed up’ in
their system. Because of this excess glucose, they cannot access as much of the fat stored in
their body.

Because you can only store about five grams of glucose in your blood (about a teaspoon’s
worth), a little dietary carbohydrate can quickly change your blood glucose levels. This is
especially true if your fat and glucose storage tanks are already full and can’t easily absorb
the excess energy coming in from your diet.

While we can convert sugar to fat (through a complex and highly regulated metabolic
pathway known as de novo lipogenesis), it’s usually the fat in our diet that is stored while our
body works to use the glucose first. Any leftover dietary fat is easily stored as adipose tissue
for future use.

It’s not that fat is a better fuel source than carbs. While carbs are better for explosive bursts
of activity and fat is more compact and better for storage, both are simply energy sources

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 17

that your body can use. As shown in the chart below from our satiety analysis, reducing
carbs or fat aligns with a reduction in overall energy intake.

For more detail, see Low-Carb vs Low-Fat: What’s Best for Weight Loss, Satiety, Nutrient
Density, and Long-Term Adherence?

Directly after eating carbs, your glucose levels quickly rise and register on your
glucometer. The key thing to understand here is that:

• Glucose essentially ‘floats on top’ of the fat in your bloodstream and adipose tissue.

• You must first deplete the glucose in your bloodstream before your body can access
its fat stores.

You can think of your available fuels as stacked up on top of each other in your various fuel
tanks, as shown below.

glucose in the blood

liver glycogen

free fatty acids in your blood

body fat

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 18

Understanding the oxidative priority of various fuels is the key to successfully burning the fat
and glucose in your bloodstream to finally burn the fat on your body.

Your body’s fuel tanks are separate but interconnected; you’re constantly burning a mixture
of glucose and fat.

• As you deplete the glucose in your blood, it’s refilled from the glycogen stores in
your liver and muscles (glycogen is the fancy name for the body’s stored form of
glucose).

• As glycogen is depleted, your body turns to the fat in your blood for energy.

• Once glucose and fat are depleted, your body can finally use its stored fat.

To burn stored body fat, you must first deplete the alcohol, ketones, glucose, and fat in your
bloodstream and liver.

The image below shows how our blood glucose and liver glycogen stores change over time
when we don’t eat. This is because when we go without food, we deplete the blood glucose
and draw down our liver glycogen.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 19

But it’s important to note that your blood glucose and glycogen are never fully drained. So
even if you’re not eating any carbohydrates, your body can make glucose from the protein,
and even some of the fat, in your diet. If you’re not eating carbs or protein, your body will
turn to your muscles to make glucose.

Rather than encouraging you to fast harder and for longer, Data-Driven Fasting teaches you
to fast smarter by delaying your meals just long enough to allow your blood glucose to drop
below what is normal for you.

This technique fosters sustainable, long-term progress towards your goals without pitting
Lizzy against your conscious brain in a colossal battle over appetite control and perceived
starvation. When push comes to shove, Lizzy will always win.

Instead, your body gets the nutrients it needs while glucose is progressively drained from
your liver and blood. Your body then turns to stored fat for fuel without triggering the all-
too-common binge response resulting from extended fasting protocols.

It’s a win-win for both your waistline and Lizzy!

Your Body’s Fuel Tanks

Did you know your body has a number of different fuel tanks?

As shown in the diagram below, most of us usually have our two glucose tanks, blood (1)
and liver (2), filled to the brim. This is not simply because we are consuming too many
carbohydrates. Instead, it’s because our downstream fuel fat fuel tanks, in our blood (3) and
adipose tissue (4), are also full. Any excess energy effectively ‘backs up’ in our system.
Hence, we see elevated glucose in our blood.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 20

But when we wait a little longer to eat, we allow our body to use the glucose in our blood
and the glycogen stored in our liver. So, reducing the glucose in your blood ‘unlocks’ the
stored glycogen in your liver. Then, so long as we’re not eating excess dietary fat, we can
access the fat that most of us want to lose in our blood and body.

Your Personal Fat Threshold

Our bodies store each respective fuel in varying quantities and uses them in different ways.

Body fat is your largest fuel tank and can store a LOT of energy. But it’s not infinite. It can
still become full and overflow.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 21

For reasons we don’t yet fully understand but that are undoubtedly linked to biological and
lifestyle factors (i.e., ethnicity, diet, inflammation, activity levels, and biological age), some
people reach their Personal Fat Threshold at lower body fat levels than others.

As a result, most people develop type 2 diabetes after gaining significant excess body fat.
However, others are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes while still relatively lean.

You may have heard the term ‘TOFI’ (thin on the outside, fat on the inside) used to describe
people who carry their fat subcutaneously in the adipose tissue under their skin, like the guy
on the left in the image below. In contrast, others store excess fat inside and around their
organs as ‘visceral’ fat, like the guy on the right.

Body fat acts like a sponge, soaking up the excess energy. But just as a sponge can only
absorb so much water, there is a limit to how much energy your body fat can hold before it
overflows into other places it doesn’t belong (like your liver, pancreas and heart).

The amount of fat your body can comfortably store on the ‘outside’ of your body (i.e., your
adipose tissue) is known as your ‘Personal Fat Threshold'. Once your body exceeds its
Personal Fat Threshold, blood glucose levels start to rise as excess energy ‘backs up’ into
your bloodstream, measured as elevated glucose levels, ketones, and free fatty acids.

If stored energy levels continue to rise, visceral fat is deposited in and around your vital
organs. While external fat stored as ‘muffin tops’ or ‘jelly bellies’ makes us cringe and reach
for the latest pop-culture diet book, it’s our internal and invisible visceral fat that’s the most
dangerous to our health.

For more detail, see Personal Fat Threshold Model of Insulin Resistance, Diabetes and Obesity.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 22

Why Are Blood Glucose and Insulin So Important?
Maintaining healthy blood insulin is a big deal. When someone exceeds their Personal Fat
Threshold, they risk developing Type 2 Diabetes and all the other diseases related to energy
toxicity and metabolic syndrome.

You may have heard that elevated insulin and blood glucose levels correlate with many
burgeoning modern diseases, including:

• heart disease
• stroke
• Alzheimer’s disease
• type 2 diabetes
• high cholesterol
• high blood pressure (hypertension)
• abdominal obesity
• non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)
• polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS)
• endometriosis
• neuropathy
• cataracts
• depression
• gout
• atherosclerosis
• gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD)
• obstructive sleep apnoea
• cancer
However, the key thing to note here is that insulin and blood glucose aren’t the fundamental
root cause. The real issue is not insulin toxicity but rather energy toxicity.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 23

The main action of insulin in your body is to stop all your stored energy from flowing into
your bloodstream at once. The more energy you have in storage, the more insulin your body
needs to produce to hold it back.

Once you learn to eat in a way that allows you to lower your glucose and body fat
sustainably, your body will no longer need to produce as much insulin.

For more details, see:

• What Does Insulin Do in Your Body? and

• What Is Insulin Resistance (and How to Reverse It)?

How To Use Your Blood Sugar Meter as A Fuel Gauge

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a simple but precise fuel gauge for your body that could be
used to tell if you:

● needed to eat (refuel) now,

● are craving those yummy leftovers in the fridge just because you know they’re there,

● are reaching for food to soothe your emotions or relieve boredom, or

● are only eating out of habit (because it’s ‘breakfast time’).

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 24

A blood glucose meter is as close as it gets to having a fuel gauge to help you understand
whether your hunger is real instantly.

Unlike an Ouija board, your glucometer never lies. So, it can honestly be your new BFF if fat
loss and healthier metabolic biomarkers are your long-term goals.

Maintaining blood glucose levels in the healthy, non-diabetic range is crucial to your overall
metabolic health. However, our analysis of nearly five thousand people who have used the
Data-Driven Fasting app shows that:

● many people who have some experience with fasting, low-carb, or keto diets have
very stable blood glucose already, and

● manipulating your diet to achieve even more stable blood glucose does not
necessarily lead to more fat loss or improved metabolic health.

To lose fat, you need to manage your blood glucose level before you eat. With Data-Driven
Fasting, you will learn to use a glucose meter as a fuel gauge to lose fat without pushing
your body too hard.

Data-Driven Fasting uses your personalised blood glucose as a ‘trigger’. When you feel
hungry and think about eating, you simply check your blood glucose to validate your hunger
and see if you need to refuel.

• If your blood glucose is above your trigger, simply wait a little longer until it drops
below this point.

• But if you’re starving and still above your trigger, you can focus on meals with protein
and nutrients with less energy from fat and carbs because you know you currently
have plenty of fuel in your bloodstream.

Yes, it’s that simple!

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 25

Waiting until your blood glucose drops below your trigger ensures that your fasting routine
achieves a long-term negative energy balance by using the energy in the bloodstream.

As a result, you gain all the benefits of fasting, like increased insulin sensitivity, improved
blood glucose levels, weight loss, fat loss, and autophagy, without waking your survival
instincts and triggering an unhealthy binge-restrict cycle.

Hunger Training: How to Lose Weight Using Your Blood

Sugar as A Fuel Gauge
We designed Data-Driven Fasting to help you fine-tune your eating routine and find the
minimum effective dose of fasting required to get the desired results.

Data-Driven Fasting is founded on the belief that you must first deplete both the glucose
and fat in your bloodstream before depleting your stored body fat. You make this magic
happen by measuring your blood glucose levels and confirming they’ve dropped below your
trigger before you eat.

Although there’s nothing wrong with going 24 or 36 hours (i.e., skipping a whole day)
without food, you’ll sacrifice all the benefits of your voluntary deprivation if you make poor
food choices when you eat again.

While some people believe that you can eat whatever you want, so long as you do it in a
specific “window”, the reality is that WHAT you eat when you refuel is critical to ensuring that
you get the nutrients you need in the long term. If you find yourself reaching for ice cream,
cake, peanut butter or pizza after your fast, chances are you’d benefit by being a little less
ambitious next time.

The Research Behind Hunger Training

We use a process known as ‘Hunger Training’ to ensure that the time you spend fasting
doesn’t awaken your reptilian instincts and lead to poor food choices when you eat again.
‘Hunger Training’ is an exciting approach with some fantastic outcomes in recent studies.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 26

In her 2012 book, The Glucometer, Angela Ross recommends simply delaying eating if your
blood glucose is above 5.0 mmol/L or 90 mg/dL. Note: mmol/L are the metric units for blood
sugar, while mg/dL are the imperial units used in the USA. To convert mg/dL to mmol/L, divide
by 18.

A 2016 study from the University of Otago in New Zealand (Adherence to hunger training
using blood glucose monitoring) found hunger training extremely effective, with obese people
losing 1.5 kg on average over two weeks. Notably, the study also found it was more effective
for people to have a personalised blood glucose trigger rather than simply reaching an
arbitrary ‘optimal’ blood glucose level before eating.

In the subsequent study, published in 2017 by the same group (The Effect of Different Types
of Monitoring Strategies on Weight Loss: A Randomized Controlled Trial), lead researchers
tested hunger training against:

● daily weighing,

● calorie tracking with the MyFitnessPal app, and

● counselling sessions.

Hunger training using a personalised blood glucose target was the only scenario where
people lost weight. Everyone else gained weight!

People did OK when they simply tracked their weight, which appears to have made them
more aware of their eating. However, the best outcomes were achieved by study
participants who used Hunger Training with their pre-meal blood glucose levels to validate
their hunger signals and verify their actual need for food.
Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 27
Counterintuitively, participants using the MyFitnessPal app saw the most significant increase
in weight of the four approaches tested. People seem to lose touch with their true hunger
signals when they outsource their satiety to a ‘smartphone’ app. The study also found that
depression, anxiety, and stress all worsened for participants who used MyFitnessPal.

Tracking blood glucose is empowering. It provides immediate feedback on whether you

need to eat now or wait a little longer. Validating your need for food based on your blood
glucose gives you a greater sense of control. But most importantly, hunger training allows
you to reacquaint yourself with your healthy hunger signals.

When you see high blood glucose numbers, you can immediately think back to your last
meal and understand how your unique metabolism responds. You quickly learn which meals
keep your blood glucose higher for longer and learn to avoid them in the future. Conversely,
you also learn which meals keep you fuller for longer and allow your blood glucose to return
below your trigger sooner.

This sets you up for long-term success once you reach maintenance. Participants in various
studies and our Data-Driven Fasting Challenges find they can predict their blood glucose
based on their hunger cues, particularly as their blood glucose decreases to healthy levels.

Hunger Training enables us to retrain our understanding of hunger based on our body’s
actual need for fuel, and eventually without the need to be guided by our blood glucose
meter.

The Data-Driven Fasting System

While the research is fascinating, we realised we could make some improvements to make
the process more practical and effective. So, we created a comprehensive system for
sustainable weight loss and long-term maintenance, as outlined below.

● Correctly identifying your initial pre-meal blood glucose trigger is critical to Hunger
Training. In Data-Driven Fasting, we use your average blood glucose before you eat
— calculated based on three days of baselining — to establish your personalised
trigger.

● When you move into the Hunger Training phase, you only need to let your blood
sugar drop a little lower than your current average (rather than meeting some
arbitrary target).

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 28

 ● As you start to delay your meals a little, you will progressively drain your stored
energy. Before long, you will find it easier to reach your initial trigger as your body
adapts and you deplete your excess energy stores.

● To ensure you continue to make progress, the DDF app automatically updates your
trigger based on the average of your past seven days of premeal blood glucose
values. This moving target ensures that you continue to move toward your goals, but
not so fast that you wake your reptilian instincts and end up in a rebound binge.

● Data-Driven Fasting also shows you how your food affects your unique metabolism
and how to make better food choices to see your glucose drop below trigger sooner.

Next Steps
1. If you’re eager to get started, you can access the Data-Driven Fasting app here. All
you need is a simple glucometer to check your blood glucose to find your premeal
glucose trigger.

2. Join our Optimising Nutrition Community here, where you can ask any questions and
share your journey.

3. Keep reading below to learn more about Data Driven Fasting. The comprehensive
FAQs in this manual are effectively a user guide for your metabolism that will show
you how to manage your blood sugars, lose weight, reverse your diabetes and
optimise your metabolic health.

4. Join the next Data Driven Fasting Challenge, which will guide you through a
structured process to tame your blood glucose for weight loss and optimal metabolic
health.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 29

Glossary - Data-Driven Fasting
This section of the Data-Driven Fasting FAQs defines some of the abbreviations you may see
used in our Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge.

• BG – blood glucose (same as blood sugar, but more technically correct).

• BS – blood sugar (same as BG, but more commonly used)

• DDF – Data-Driven Fasting

• EF – extended fasting or not eating for days at a time

• LBM – Lean body mass. This refers to everything other than fat mass that makes up
your total body weight, like bones, water, muscles, and organs.

• Lizzy – the personification of your lizard brain (survival instincts based in your
amygdala) that battles with your conscious brain or prefrontal cortex.

• Macros – Macronutrients, or protein, carbs and fat

• MC – Macros Masterclass or Micros Masterclass

• NO – Nutrient Optimiser

• NSV – non-scale victory

• NutriBoosters – our suite of optimised recipes embedded into Nutrient Optimiser.

• Nutrient density – the content of essential nutrients per calorie.

• OMAD – one meal a day

• P:E - protein: energy ratio

• Protein % - the percentage of your total calories that come from protein.

• PSMF – Protein Sparing Modified Fast

• Satiety – Fullness per calorie

• TMAD – two meals a day

• TOM – time of the month, menses or period

• Trigger – the blood sugar that you need to get below to eat in DDF, calculated by the
app

• Window – a strict and rigid time-based approach to intermittent fasting

• WOE – way of eating

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 30

DDF QuickStart Guide
There are many fascinating things to learn about how your body responds to food. But the
basics of using your blood glucose as a fuel gauge to guide when and what to eat are pretty
simple.

This Data-Driven Fasting QuickStart guide will give you a high-level overview of the process
we guide participants through in the 30-Day Data-Driven Fasting Challenges.

The Purpose of DDF

• Validate your hunger using your blood glucose as a fuel gauge.

• Retrain hunger signals to align with your need for fuel.

• You test to validate your hunger, not eat because your blood sugars are lower, but
not hungry.

Baselining
• Test glucose before every meal and snack you usually eat.

• The Data-Driven Fasting App will calculate your initial premeal trigger based on the
average of your pre-meal glucose.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 31

 • It’s crucial that you eat as you usually would during baselining. Otherwise, you’ll get
a trigger value that is too difficult to keep up with during the four weeks of the
challenge.

Hunger Training
In Hunger Training, you play a ‘get to know you’ game with your inner lizard brain.

You will learn to tame Lizzy and find out what makes her happy and content. Before long,
you will find that she goes back to sleep when you give her WHAT she needs WHEN she
needs it using your blood glucose as a guide.

• If you’re not hungry -> don’t test.

• If you feel hungry -> test your BG to validate hunger.

o If BG is above trigger -> wait.

o If BG below trigger -> eat.

o If BG is slightly above trigger AND hungry -> prioritise protein and nutrients
by focusing on fuel with less energy from carbs and/or fat. This tends to be a
super useful ‘hack’ for people with some level of insulin resistance or a lower
carb diet who tend to see higher blood glucose levels in the morning.

o If BG is significantly below trigger and hungry -> allow some carbs to

replenish, but not overfill, your glucose fuel tank without gravitating to
fat+carb comfort foods.

• When you test your blood sugar, reflect on physical symptoms and sensations that
indicate you’re hungry (e.g., stomach rumbling, mental exhaustion, can’t think
straight, light-headed or feeling cold).

• Over time, you will learn to calibrate your physical sensations of hunger with your
blood glucose levels and understand your true hunger signals.

Your Personalised Trigger

• After five days of Hunger Training, the Data-Driven Fasting App will recalculate your
new trigger based on your average pre-meal blood glucose over the past seven
days.

• Progressively targeting a lower trigger will stretch you so you continue to move
toward your goals without pushing you to the point of breaking.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 32

 • The maximum your trigger drop is = 0.5% per day. However, it won't lower if you
cannot meet your trigger consistently.

Your Fuel Gauge Lines

• Wait until BG is below your current trigger to eat.

• If post-meal BG is above the ‘upper limit’/full line -> reduce food quantity and/or
processed carbs.

• To reduce the time between meals -> reduce dietary fat.

Stages
To maximise sustainability and minimise cost, it’s wise to not overtest. This table outlines the
stages of the Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge and when you need to test your blood
glucose.

Stage Goal pre-meal after meal waking

Baselining Establish trigger yes yes yes
Hunger training Wait to refuel until BG ≤ trigger yes
Eating Window Ensure you’re not eating yes yes
too late
Meal skipping Skip meals if BG > trigger yes
Consolidation Establish your new sustainable yes
routine

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 33

Progressive Overload for Your Metabolism
• The descending blood glucose trigger is a crucial part of the DDF process. It’s like a
progressive overload workout for your metabolism, designed to stretch you without
breaking you.

• We don’t reach our goal all at once, but rather by small doses of stress (fasting) and
recovery (nutrient-dense eating).

• If you are hungry and your BG is below your trigger, eat!

• Waiting longer typically leads to excessive hunger, poor food choices, rebound
bingeing, burnout, and unproductive feelings of guilt and failure.

• You only need the minimum effective dose to progress sustainably over the long
term. The DDF process should gently nudge your eating habits into a more optimal
routine.

WHEN to Eat
• If pre-meal BG is higher earlier in the day and you are hungry -> prioritise foods and
meals with a higher protein % (i.e., prioritise protein and reduce energy from carbs
and/or fat) at your first meal.

• If pre-meal and post-meal BG is higher later in the day -> eat more satiating meals
earlier.

• If waking BG is not lowering -> try to finish eating a little earlier in the day.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 34

Your Main Meal
• After a week of Hunger Training, you can adopt a Main Meal that you can eat
regardless of BG (e.g., family dinner or before or after exercise).

• You don’t need to test your BG before Your Main Meal.

• All other meals and snacks become Discretionary Meals that you eat if BG is less than
your trigger.

What To Focus on in Each Stage

1. Initially, we want you to see blood sugars in the normal healthy range.

2. Then you can focus on delaying meals until your glucose is below trigger.

3. The final phase is to dial back fat to increase protein % to increase satiety and eat
again sooner. We focus on this stage more in the Macros Masterclass.

The table below summarises the various stages we will guide you through in the Data-Driven
Fasting Challenge.

Stage Limit Action When to progress

1. Stabilise < 30 mg/dL or 1.6 Reduce processed carbs When BG rise after
blood mmol/L rise after to achieve healthy meals is < 1.6 mmol/L
glucose meals glucose stability. or 30 mg/dL
2. Meal One Main Meal with Reduce the number of When average meals
timing one Discretionary times you eat per day. per day is less than 1.5.
Meal (OMAD+)
3. Protein % Slowly work up to Increase protein % by When you have
40% protein. reducing dietary fat until reached goal weight,
weight loss re- body fat, waist: height
commences. or waking glucose.

WHAT to Eat
• Once you are comfortable using your BG to guide WHEN to eat, you can use your BG
to guide WHAT to eat.

• If post-meal BG is above the upper limit -> look to reduce refined carbs that are
spiking your blood glucose and overfilling your glucose fuel tank.

• If BG is above trigger and you are hungry -> go ahead and eat a protein-focused
meal (this can be particularly useful in the morning when most people have elevated
BG due to Dawn Phenomenon).

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 35

 • If post-meal BG is typically below the upper limit -> progressively reduce your fat
intake to allow your BG to return to below trigger sooner.

• When pre-meal BG is significantly below trigger -> allow some fast-acting carbs to
bump your BG back up into the normal range to avoid binging on fat+carb comfort
foods.

• It will be hard to fail if you give your body optimal nutrients when you know you have
plenty of fuel onboard.

Guidance of the DDF app

As outlined in the table below, the DDF app will give you feedback when you log your
premeal glucose values. This guidance about WHAT to eat is a critical part of the success of
DDF. In time you’ll learn to understand your hunger give your body exactly what it needs
when it needs it.

Glucose Guidance

Whoops! Your glucose is still significantly above

trigger. Suggest waiting an hour or so to allow your
glucose to drop and/or do some gentle exercise, then
Significantly above trigger
retest.
If your glucose is higher than normal due to stress,
exercise, poor sleep, pain, fatigue, or premenstrual, you

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 36

 Glucose Guidance

can tick one of the events to get a higher temporary

trigger for the next 24 hours to allow you to eat until
you’re recovered.

Your glucose is just above trigger. If you’re particularly

hungry, go ahead and eat, but be sure to prioritise
Just above trigger protein and nutrients while consuming less energy
(from carbs and fat) to allow your stored energy to be
used.

Congratulations! Your BG is below trigger. It’s time to

Just below trigger
eat!

Your glucose is significantly below trigger. It’s

definitely time to eat! Consider adding some whole
Significantly below trigger food starchy carbs (e.g., rice, potato, beans, pumpkin
or oatmeal) to quickly bring glucose back up into your
normal range.

If In Doubt
• Don’t try too hard.

• Don’t overthink it.

• Follow the process.

• Less is more.

• Progress over perfection.

The End Game

The hourly glucose chart from the DDF App shows what a healthy blood glucose chart could
look like after some experimentation with what and when to eat. That is:

• Lower premeal trigger,

• Most glucose values under the upper limit (i.e., 30 mg/dL or 1.6 mmol/L above
current trigger),

• Lower waking glucose, and

• Similar premeal and post-meal values across the day.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 37

Maintenance
We recommend switching to maintenance mode between successive rounds of the DDF
Challenge to allow your body to recover and recuperate and practice maintaining your
weight without rebounding.

You should also transition to Maintenance Mode in DDF app if:

• You reach your goal (e.g., waist: height less than 0.5 and waking BG is less than 100
mg/dl or 5.6 mmol/L),

• The process is becoming overly stressful,

• You are becoming overly food-focused,

• You are struggling to reach your trigger,

• You are feeling overly hungry, weak, cold, depressed, lethargic, or

• You notice changes in libido or monthly cycles (for women).

You can always restart baselining, find your new trigger, and recommence another round of
Data-Driven Fasting when you feel you are ready or at the start of the next Data-Driven
Fasting 30-Day Challenge.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 38

The Data-Driven Fasting App User Guide
We’ve designed the Data-Driven Fasting app to be simple and self-explanatory. But this
section of the Data-Driven Fasting FAQs gives a high-level overview of the DDF app.

How Do I Get the DDF App?

You won’t find the DDF app in the app store.

The DDF app is a ‘web app’ that will function on your computer or your phone. Once you
add it to your phone's home screen, it will function like a native app.

You can access the DDF App here and find your trigger right away.

How Do I Record My Blood Glucose Values?

• Click on track -> glucose

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 39

 • Use the drop-down box to select before meal, waking or after meal, then enter your
glucose value.

• If you test but choose not to eat, you can untick the ‘did/will you eat?’ slider (so the
value won’t be included in your trigger calculations).

• Reflect on and record your hunger level in the app (1 - not hungry, 5 – extremely
hungry). Before long, you will start to calibrate your sensations of hunger with your
blood sugar level.

• You can make notes about how you feel at the time to provide context.

Rate Your Hunger

• When you log your glucose, you can also rate your hunger (1 = hungry, 5 = starving).

• Being mindful of your hunger levels is critical to the DDF process. In time you will be
able to more accurately ‘guess’ your current blood glucose based on your hunger
levels. As you can see from the chart below from the analysis of the data from the
DDF app to date, people tend to feel greater hunger when their blood glucose is
lower.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 40

Use the Events
• If you test your blood sugar and find it’s higher than you anticipated, consider ticking
one of the ‘events’, such as

o stress,

o exercise,

o fatigue,

o poor sleep,

o menses (i.e., between ovulation and your period), or

o pain.

• Ticking one of the ‘events’ will give you a temporarily elevated trigger (+ 10 mg/dL or
0.4 mmol/L) for the next 24 hours, which will allow you to eat even though your
glucose is affected by one of these factors.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 41

Changing the Time and Date
• By default, the date and time will be set to now. However, if you want to enter
historical data, you can change the date using the calendar and the time by clicking
on the clock below the calendar.

How Do I Record My Biometrics?

• Click/tap on track -> biometrics and select the value you want to record, such as:

o weight,

o body fat, or

o waist.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 42

How Do I Record My Meals?
• Click/tap on track -> meal and upload a photo of your meal.

• You can name/describe your meal and note how much it raised your blood sugar and
how full you felt after the meal.

• Before long, you will develop a shortlist of meals that you know to work for your
blood sugars and help you feel full while flagging the ones that don’t work as well for
you.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 43

Switching to Hunger Training
• After your first meal on day 3 of baselining you will be given the opportunity to
switch to hunger training. However, we recommend you log at least three days of
premeal blood sugars before starting hunger training. When you’re ready, click on
‘the click here to start hunger training’ under your name in the app.

How Do I See the Meals I Have Recorded?

• To see the meals you have recorded, go to navigate -> meals.

• You can sort the meals by satiety or glucose rise. This will help you understand which
meals you should prioritise and avoid.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 44

 • Before long, you will have a short list of foods and meals you know you enjoy and
work for your metabolism.

How Do I See My Biometrics?

• Go to navigate -> insights to see your progress charts (e.g., weight, waist, blood
sugars) and milestones.

• You can change the charts that show in the insights section by going to profile (click
on the little person symbol in the top right) and then hiding the charts you don’t
want to see.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 45

Your Diary
• Reflecting on your DDF journey and journaling your thoughts, feelings and learnings
can be a powerful way to reinforce your learnings.

• You can make notes in Your Diary in the DDF app. Simply go to navigate -> diary.

How Do I Edit the Values I Entered?

• If you made a mistake, you can go to navigate -> history and then click on the three
dots on the right of the value to edit.

• You can click on ‘grouped log’ to see your data grouped by the type of
measurement.

How Do I Change the Target Rate of Weight Loss?

• You can change your target line on your weight loss chart by going to your profile
(click on the person symbol on the top right) and changing the rate of weight loss in
the drop-down box.

• Changing the target rate of weight loss doesn’t change your trigger calculations.
Instead, it only changes the green line on your weight chart, which gives you a
projection of where you’ll be in a couple of weeks.

• While your weight can jump around from day to day, seeing a trend line through
your data can help you see the long-term trends and where you’re going. When
people get a glimpse of where they could be, they are encouraged to continue.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 46

 • We suggest you start with 0.5% per week (easy). If you find your weight is dropping
faster after a couple of weeks, you can dial up the target to 1.0% per week to match
your actual progress.

• For long-term sustainability, we don’t recommend you push to lose weight at more
than 1.0% per week. Consistent progress is better than rapid progress, followed by
rebound binging. For more details, see How Much Weight Should I Lose Per Week?

Does It Matter If I Measure In mg/dL or mmol/L?

• The DDF app will identify your location and choose the right units for your country.

• As a general rule, people in the US measure blood glucose levels in mg/dL (imperial)
while the rest of the world uses mmol/L (metric). To convert mg/dL to mmol/L,
simply divide by 18 (and vice versa).

• If you need to change your units, click on the little person in the top right corner of
the app, go to account and use the drop-down box to change your BG units.

How Can I Add My Trigger Value to My Meter?

• If you’re using the Contour Next One meter, you can set up the Contour app with
your trigger and upper limit.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 47

 • Go to My Care -> Target Ranges and enter your current trigger as the ‘low’ and your
upper limit (i.e., trigger +30 mg/dL or 1.6mmol/L) as the ‘After Meal or Overall High’).

• When your glucose is below your trigger, the meter will flash red; if your post-meal
glucose is above your upper limit, it will flash yellow.

• You can tag a glucose value as before or after a meal using the app or the meter
when you log a glucose value.

• You can also go to My Reminders in the app and set up a reminder to test your blood
sugar one hour after a premeal reading.

What Is The ‘Upper Limit’ On the Hourly Glucose Chart?

• The upper limit line on the hourly glucose chart in the DDF app is set at 30 mg/dL or
1.6 mmol/L above your current trigger.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 48

 • The primary goal of DDF is to simply wait until your blood glucose is below your
trigger before eating. However, it’s also helpful to dial in what and how much you
eat so blood glucose returns below baseline more quickly.

• If your post-meal blood glucose during baselining goes above the ‘upper limit’ line,
it’s a sign that you overfilled your glucose tank.

• If your glucose rises and remains elevated for a long time above your trigger, it’s also
a sign that you’ve overfilled your fat fuel tank.

• You can think of the upper limit and your trigger as ‘lane lines’ to guide you by:

o not surpassing the upper limit after you eat, and

o falling just below your trigger before you eat.

Can I Reset My Trigger?

During each round of the Data-Driven Fasting Challenge, your trigger will progressively
decrease – it won’t go back up.

If you click on the three vertical dots in the top right of your trigger value, you can:

• reset your trigger – to revert your trigger to what it was at the end of baselining,

• restart DDF baselining – to restart the three-day baselining period to get a new
trigger value,

• maintenance mode – to use your blood sugar to maintain your current weight, or
Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 49
 • pause mode – stop your blood sugar from decreasing but remain in Hunger Training
mode in the DDF App.

What If I Can’t Reach My Trigger for the Whole Day?

• If you have a party or a big weekend where you overeat, you will likely need to wait a
little longer and/or modify what and how much you eat to catch up and reach your
trigger. However, before long, you will learn to think twice before overfilling your
fuel tank again because you are now aware of how long the excess energy takes to
clear from your system.

• Similarly, you may find it hard to keep up with a lower trigger later on if you try too
hard too early and wait longer than you need to. People who push too hard in the
first few weeks of the DDF Challenge tend to find it hard to sustain in the final weeks
and get discouraged.

• The Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge schedule has been structured to allow
people to take a few weeks off between each challenge to practice maintaining their
weight. We have eight challenges per year, with a few weeks' break between each to
allow people to recover and practice maintaining their weight. You can see the full
schedule of DDF Challenges here.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 50

Should I Keep Chasing My Trigger or Switch to
Maintenance?
• At the end of each Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge, we suggest you switch to
‘Maintenance Mode’ and restart baselining at the start of each challenge to find your
new baseline trigger.

• Learning to eat in a way that maintains your weight is a vital skill in your weight loss
journey. The Maintenance Phase will allow you to track less frequently. The DDF app
will also give you a higher pre-meal trigger to check whether you need to refuel and
will adjust up or down to ensure you maintain your weight without regaining.

What Are the Milestones in the DDF App?

• Celebrating small wins along the way is essential, especially if you have a lot of
weight to lose to reach your goal. The milestones in the DDF app highlight successful
small steps along the journey to your goal.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 51

What Makes DDF Different?

Since we started the Data-Driven Fasting Facebook Group in May 2020 and throughout the
Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenges, we have received a LOT of questions from people
trying to make sense of their blood glucose.

As people hesitantly began learning the hows and whys of using their blood glucose to guide
when and what to eat, we fielded the same questions so often that we developed an
extensive array of Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).

The essence of Data-Driven Fasting is simple and works best when you don’t overthink and
second-guess it. All you need to do is follow the guidance from your blood sugar meter.

But tracking their blood glucose tends to make people curious and full of questions. As a
result, we’ve worked hard to answer them to provide a deeper understanding to empower
you to comprehend your fascinating metabolism and tweak the process once you have
mastered the basics.

Feel free to use this manual as a searchable reference (Ctrl+F) as you chase your trigger in
the Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge.

Once you understand the various things that can affect your blood sugars, you’ll be able to
‘hear’ the signal from your blood glucose and ignore all the noise. While the details may
appear complex, our ultimate end goal is simplicity.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 52

Once you become acquainted with your true hunger signals and make peace with your
survival instincts, you will no longer need to rely on your blood sugar meter as a crutch.

But be patient! It’s allowed to take some time. You will reach your goal faster if you follow
the process and don’t stress or try too hard.

Rather than trying to control your blood glucose levels and getting frustrated when they
don’t behave, we encourage you to approach the process as a curious student and use the
information from your blood glucose meter to guide your progress.

1.1 How Is Data-Driven Fasting Different from Other

Popular Fasting Methods?
Most approaches to fasting encourage you not to eat for days at a time in the hope of
reducing insulin and driving autophagy.

In contrast, Data-Driven Fasting focuses on the long-term trend with shorter bursts of
restriction driven by personal intuition to ensure your blood glucose and weight are moving
in the right direction.

Like any intelligent fitness training routine that balances exercise and recovery to ensure
beneficial adaptations, Data-Driven Fasting ensures that short periods of energy deficit are
balanced with nutrient-dense, high-satiety meals to achieve long-term progress.

If you go all out in the gym and push yourself much harder than your body is used to, you’ll
be sore and tired for days. So, you’ll be less likely to come back the next day to workout.
This will slow your long-term progress.

Similarly, it will be easier to maintain your diet quality if you don’t push to the point that you
are ravenously hungry and your blood glucose is way below your current trigger. By

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 53

balancing bouts of fasting and nutrient-dense feeding, we optimise the long-term trend to
move towards our goals.

Rather than adopting an arbitrary eating window that may (or may not) work for someone
else, Data-Driven Fasting enables you to fine-tune your eating routine to your unique
metabolism, schedule, and activity levels, which vary from day to day.

Rather than focusing on open-ended deprivation and suppressing your healthy appetite
signals, DDF shows you precisely when you need to eat.

1.2 How Is Data-Driven Fasting Different from Calorie

Counting?
Managing calories in vs calories out sounds simple, but it is incredibly difficult to implement
successfully over the long term. The reality is that all calories count, but only if you can
accurately count ALL the calories (which we can’t!).

Tracking is inaccurate, our energy needs change over time, and our lizard brain often finds a
way to trick us into eating more. Our subconscious survival instincts also don’t like to be
controlled by an external force for too long which can prompt psychological disorders to
develop.

Data-Driven Fasting respects energy conservation by using your blood glucose as a fuel
gauge to guide your meal timing to ensure that you are in a negative energy balance and
moving towards your goals.

Data-Driven Fasting not only uses your blood sugars to ensure you are achieving a negative
long-term energy balance while still getting the nutrients you need when you eat. In
addition, this practice helps improve satiety and avoid overeating when you don’t need fuel.

While simply counting calories and staying under an arbitrary limit is often futile in the long
term, adjusting what you eat to get enough protein and nutrients without excess energy
from carbs and fat is critical to taming your appetite.

The DDF app will guide you on what to eat and how to tweak your fat and carb intake to
tame your blood glucose. However, we focus on this a lot more in our Macros Masterclass.
For more detail, see

• Is Counting Calories and Caloric Balance a Waste of Time?, and

• What Are Macros in Your Diet (and How to Manage Them)?

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 54

1.3 Are There Any Additional Benefits from Extended
Fasting?
While there may be benefits of extended fasting, there are also potential risks and
downsides.

Not many people enjoy abstaining from food for days on end and skipping eating for days
at a time can be hard to fit into a regular family routine.

Even the most respected fasting gurus admit we don’t know what length of fasting is
required to achieve the theoretical benefits or the minimum effective dose to produce
meaningful results. Is it 24 hours? Or 36 hours? Three days? Seven days? Or maybe 14 days
to get the full benefits of autophagy?

Unfortunately, extended fasting does little to teach you to eat well when you do eat and may
lead to reduced diet quality, dysregulated appetite signals, increased fat gain, and muscle
loss over the long term.

The bottom line is if you cannot control your food quality when you eat again after fasting,
you are trying to fast for too long and are unlikely to be making sustainable long-term
improvements.

The good news is that most of the benefits of extended fasting can be achieved by dialling in
your daily meal routine by prioritising nutrient-dense food choices when you eat to ensure a
long-term energy deficit that leads to optimal body composition. Data-Driven Fasting

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 55

guides you through optimising meal timing and enables you to focus on getting the
nutrients you need with a sustainable routine over the long term.

While there is plenty of talk about the benefits of fasting for autophagy, cancer, and
Alzheimer’s disease, very few studies are available on humans to validate these theories.

There is some research on autophagy in rodents. However, mice aren’t tiny humans. One
day for mice is equivalent to around 40 days for humans. Therefore, the equivalent of a 24-
or 36-hour fast in a mouse would kill many people as they starve to death.

Another key difference is that, while rats get the same chow no matter how often they eat,
humans have the liberty to eat whatever they want when we’re hungry to replenish our
energy stores quickly.

You will see plenty of posts on social media detailing the specific times you need to fast to
get certain benefits. Meanwhile, the experts in the field still don’t understand the optimal
length of fasting to achieve the benefits of autophagy.

What we do know, however, is that all the conditions we are most concerned about are
vastly improved by achieving and maintaining more optimal body composition.

As shown in the charts below, the relative risk of a range of cancers increases with Body Mass
Index (from Quantitative association between Body Mass Index and the risk of cancer: A
global Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies: Obesity and cancer risk).

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 56

The image below (from Waist-to-height Ratio Is More Predictive of Years of Life Lost Than
Body Mass Index) show that our overall mortality risk increases with a higher BMI.

Many people ask, “How many days should I fast?” But what you really need to know is, “How
can I optimise my normal eating to ensure that I am moving towards an ideal body
composition and staying below my Personal Fat Threshold over the long term?”

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 57

For more details, see:

• Nutrient-Dense Foods and Recipes for Cancer Patients,

• Can Longevity Be Bought in a Bottle? Thoughts on David Sinclair’s Lifespan,

• Personal Fat Threshold Model of Insulin Resistance, Diabetes and Obesity vs the
Carbohydrate Insulin Model, and

• What Is Insulin Resistance (and How to Reverse It)?

1.4 How Is Chasing Your Trigger Different from A

Fasting Window?
Rather than a rigid window of time where you eat whatever and as much as you want (or
can), Data-Driven Fasting guides you to eat when you are hungry and refuel only when your
body needs it.

If you eat more than you require, you will simply need to wait longer until you can eat next.
You quickly learn not to overeat so you can eat again sooner. While limiting the amount of
time spent eating is beneficial, many people consume a lot of energy in a short window,
especially if they choose energy-dense, nutrient-poor, lower-protein foods.

When guided by their blood sugar, most people progress with Data-Driven Fasting with two
separate meals per day. In addition, most people find it much easier to get the protein and
nutrients they need with two meals a day compared to one meal a day (OMAD) or more
extended fasting regimes.

Many people who transition from OMAD to two meals a day in DDF find they have increased
energy levels and greater satiety, and their weight loss restarts after stalling out.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 58

With DDF, we encourage you to ensure your meals are truly ‘window worthy’ so they provide
you with the nutrients you need to maximise satiety. Nutrient-dense meals with less fat and
carbs will help you return to your trigger and increase satiety per calorie.

For more details, see:

o Highest Satiety Index Meals and Recipes,

o High Satiety Index Foods: Which Ones Will Keep You Full with Fewer Calories?

1.5 What Is An 'Extended Fast'? How Long is Too Long?

While you may be able to go for weeks without food, it may not be the best way to achieve
your long–term goals (e.g., weight loss and improving your metabolic health).

For the many people who eat all day, a couple of hours may feel relatively 'extended'. Data-
Driven Fasting will guide you to dial in your daily eating routine. Most people land on a
regular eating schedule with multiple meals each day.

There is nothing wrong with going 24 or 36 hours without food so long as you make good
choices when you refuel to ensure you are getting the nutrients you require.

Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to get the protein and nutrients your body requires
over the long term with regular bouts of alternate day fasting, extended fasting or even
OMAD.

If you find yourself reaching for the peanut butter, nuts, cream, pizza, or other goods, after
fasting, chances are you’ll do better if you are a little less ambitious next time.

1.6 How Is Data-Driven Fasting Different from The Fast-

Mimicking Diet?
The Fast Mimicking Diet attempts to provide a small amount of nutrients while reducing
protein during a multi-day fast. Developed by Valter Longo, the Fast-Mimicking Diet stems
from a plant-based belief system that animal protein is bad.

In contrast, Data-Driven Fasting encourages you to adopt a Protein Sparing Modified Fast
type diet when your blood glucose indicates you have plenty of fuel on board. This ensures
you obtain adequate bioavailable protein and other essential nutrients.

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When your glucose levels fall, indicating you need more fuel, the DDF app will encourage
you to eat normally or even prioritise a few fast-acting carbs if your glucose levels drop too
low.

Maximising nutrient density (i.e., getting all the essential amino acids, vitamins, minerals and
essential fatty acids you need with fewer calories) will ensure that your body gets what it
needs during weight loss to optimise mitochondrial function, prevent the loss of
metabolically active lean muscle mass and minimise cravings.

For more details, see Secrets of the Nutrient-Dense Protein Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF) Diet.

1.7 Would Waiting a Little Longer Be Better?

When they start out, some people wonder if waiting a little longer to get a value that’s a few
extra points below their trigger would be better.

If a little deprivation is good, then more must be better, right?

However, DDF aims to validate your hunger and induce an incremental progressive
overload on your metabolism by stretching it a little bit further each time to ensure
adaptation and recovery.

Recovery is a critical but often undervalued component of any beneficial (hermetic) stress. In
DDF, the recovery component is nutrient-dense, high-satiety eating. You don’t want to push
your hunger too far to the point that you sacrifice diet quality when you eat again.

We’re all impatient and want rapid results but pushing too hard too early tends to wake your
lizard brain, and you end up eating more than you need to and making poorer food choices.
Also, trying too hard in the first week will make it much harder to make consistent progress
in the final weeks of the challenge.

In the first few days of the Data-Driven Fasting Challenge, all you need to do is to learn to
wait until your blood sugar is below what is typical for you. We want you to get into the
habit of testing when you feel hungry and to record it in the DDF App. Once you master the
basics, the intensity ramps up as your trigger drops to push you a little more each day,
building on the new skills you developed in the first week.

So, if you’re hungry and your blood glucose is below your trigger, you’re good to eat—
there’s no need to be in a hurry or try too hard! In the first few days, you will learn to
eliminate unnecessary snacking and find an eating routine that works for your life and
metabolism.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 60

It’s crucial that you get into the habit of testing your blood sugar to validate your hunger
before it gets more challenging.

As you log more pre-meal glucose values below your current trigger, your trigger will
decrease to ensure you continually move towards your fat loss goals and optimised blood
glucose. If you do this consistently, your trigger will continue to drop. Don’t be in a hurry!

1.8 Could Extended Fasting Harm Your Healthy Appetite

Signals?
Many people who have tried extended fasting have reported resultant challenges after losing
touch with their healthy appetite signals.

Although we can push through hunger, this often leaves us unable to stop eating when we
have had enough food. Your survival instincts are on the alert for starvation again, so your
appetite ramps up to make sure you eat more to ensure you never run out of fuel again.

Your body LOVES routine. It can be useful to compress your eating window to give your
metabolism and digestion time to rest while repairing and using up your energy stores
without continually being topped up. However, there is a risk that your lizard brain will get
confused if you subject it to extended periods of fasting or irregular meal timings that are
out of sync with your healthy appetite signals and need for food.

If you go out and eat a big meal late on Friday night, sleep on Saturday and Sunday, and
then go back to work on Monday with an early breakfast, your body gets metabolic jet lag.

Your circadian rhythm is affected by exposure to light and your activity and eating patterns.
This rhythm helps to calibrate the schedule that your body follows to regulate its sleep/wake
cycle, release hormones, and cue hunger.

It is ideal to eat most of your calories earlier in the day when the sun is up, and your body is
primed to use the energy. Regardless of whether you practice early time-restricted feeding
(eTRF) or one meal a day (OMAD) at dinner, your body prefers a regular eating schedule.

Similarly, your healthy appetite signals can become confused when you skip eating for days
on end and then eat to satiety on others. As you push through hunger on some days, you
tell your lizard brain that food is scarce and to eat more than you need to the next time you
eat to ensure that you have enough food for the next self-inflicted famine.

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Hence, we strongly recommend you develop a regular eating routine guided by your blood
glucose, not by some arbitrary time on the clock that may have worked for someone else’s
lifestyle.

DDF will use your instantaneous blood glucose to nudge and fine-tune your current eating
routine without turning everything you currently do on its head. Because your personalised
blood glucose trigger is based on your typical blood glucose before you eat, waiting until
your blood glucose drops below your trigger should only be a gentle stretch.

1.9 Will I Be Getting Enough Autophagy with Data-

Driven Fasting?
While there is much talk about autophagy (i.e., self-eating or the body’s way of cleaning out
old and damaged cells), when we don’t eat, there is very little understanding of the actual
length of fasting required to achieve an optimal amount of autophagy.

Unfortunately, studies on yeast and worms in a Petri dish aren’t the same as humans living in
the real world, who also need to be robust and resilient to survive into old age.

Research by Valter Longo has shown that cycles of 48-hour fasting produce benefits in mice.
However, mice aren’t tiny humans. One day for a mouse is equivalent to 40 human days. The
equivalent of a 48-hour fast in a mouse (i.e., 80 days) would kill most humans.

Unfortunately, measuring autophagy in humans would be impossible to do. So, the reality is
that we know very little about autophagy in humans or how long we need to fast to achieve
it!

But we do know that autophagy occurs all the time, to some extent. However, it is
particularly active when we are not overfed and in a negative energy balance over the long
term. Too much autophagy can be harmful if you lose precious lean muscle mass when you
fast and don’t get enough dietary protein.

People often refer to the case study of Angus Barbieri, who fasted for 392 days and came out
thin and healthy. However, they fail to mention the ten young men in their 20s who died
after not eating between 46 and 71 days in the 1981 Irish Hunger Strike.

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Over time, extended fasting can worsen metabolic health, particularly if you don’t get
enough protein and nutrients over the long term. Common symptoms of extended fasting
without adequate nutrition that can lead to weight loss plateaus include:

• loss of lean mass,

• hair loss,

• fatigue,

• dysregulation of healthy hunger signals,

• adrenal dysfunction,

• thyroid disorders, and

• an inherently lower metabolic rate.

While we know little about the benefits of autophagy in humans, we do know that achieving
a more optimal body composition, body fat percentage, fasting blood glucose, and waist-to-
height ratio are highly correlated with a reduced risk of dying of any cause.

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Cumulative small bursts of autophagy followed by nutrient-dense refeeds are more
beneficial than occasional multi-day fasts followed by energy-dense, nutrient-poor bingeing
that immediately reverses all the benefits of your self-inflicted deprivation.

Data-Driven Fasting ensures you get regular smaller doses of autophagy as your critical
metabolic markers (i.e., body fat, blood glucose, insulin, etc.) move towards optimal.

1.10 Is Calorie Counting the Best Way to Lose Weight?

Many people try calorie counting using apps like MyFitnessPal. But sadly, very few people
achieve the long-term success they had hoped for.

• Most of us live unpredictable lives filled with family dinners, work lunches and
impromptu parties that make weighing and measuring everything we eat impractical.

• While we can be disciplined most of the time, it’s those occasional meals, when your
calorie-tracking app isn’t looking, that sneakily undo all your hard work.

• Even if you could weigh and measure everything you put into your mouth, the
nutrition data in your app doesn’t precisely match the foods you eat.

• Your body doesn't 'burn' foods in the same way that calories are measured in a bomb
calorimeter (pictured below).

• Calorie-tracking apps don't account for the thermic effect of food, which varies
depending on the degree of processing and macronutrient profile.

• Any theoretical calorie target calculated by an online macronutrient calculator is an

inaccurate ‘guesstimate’.

• Your energy expenditure naturally adapts and changes from day to day. Your
metabolism is incredibly complex. Many factors, influence the energy you use each
day, including:

o your muscle mass,

o exercise,

o stress,

o activity,

o age,

o overall health, and

o sleep.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 64

 • Eating is primal and instinctual. Your appetite ensures that you seek out the nutrients
you need. When you restrict calories, the part of your brain that governs your
survival instincts (i.e., your amygdala, also known as your ‘reptilian’ or ‘lizard’ brain)
perceives a starvation threat and responds to this ‘dire emergency’. Your body
responds by slowing your metabolism and driving up your hunger to ensure you eat
more next time you have access to food.

• Despite your best efforts to limit the amount you eat, if you consistently fail to
consume the nutrients your body requires, you can expect a hostile takeover by your
‘lizard brain’ as it hijacks your appetite.

• If you try to maintain a fixed calorie intake, ignoring your healthy hunger signals on
some days and eating more than you need on others, there is a real risk that your
natural and healthy appetite signals will become dysregulated.

• When you slash your energy intake by simply restricting calories without changing
WHAT you eat, your body quickly adapts to ensure your survival and:

o your metabolic rate slows,

o you produce less heat,

o you feel less energetic, and

o your involuntary activity grinds to a halt to divert energy to your heart, lungs,
kidneys, brain, and other organs essential to your survival.

Energy is always conserved. However, the various factors on both sides of the ‘calories in vs
calories out’ equation are incredibly complex and beyond our ability to precisely measure or
manipulate, even with the latest smartphone app or activity trackers.

While we would like to believe that our conscious brain is always in control and that we can
use our willpower to simply eat less and move more, most people are unsuccessful at self-
imposed starvation over the long term.

Prolonged fasting and very low-calorie diets eventually panic our 'lizard brain' into taking
back control from our neocortex, rescuing us from what 'Lizzy' perceives as a starvation
threat.

But fear not! Data-Driven Fasting not only guides you, using the insights from using your
blood sugar as a fuel gauge, to get to know and even make friends with Lizzy. Data-Driven
Fasting will show you how to tame your lizard brain by giving it exactly what it needs,
precisely when it needs it.

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Data-Driven Fasting is like a lullaby for a restless Lizzy—singing your inner lizard back to
sleep, reassuring it that it will receive what it needs so that you can relax into a new routine,
optimised just for you, and thrive!

1.11 Counting Calories Can Cause Disordered Eating

If you’ve ever tried tracking calories, you already know that your lizard brain doesn’t like to
relinquish control of your appetite to a ‘smartphone’ app.

Eventually, frustration and anxiety mount when we discover that all the time and energy,
we’ve invested in tracking everything we’ve put into our mouths has failed to yield the
results we’d hoped for.

Sadly, chronic food tracking can cause many people to become neurotic. A 2017 study
looking at people diagnosed with eating disorders found that 75% of participants reported
using MyFitnessPal. Disturbingly, 73% of MyFitnessPal users said their use of the app had
contributed to their eating disorder.

Simply trying to count calories to stay under an arbitrary target is a recipe for failure. The
simplistic manifesto of ‘eat less, move more’ drives many dieters into a futile cycle of restrict,
binge, restrict, binge, repeat. Calorie tracking is as archaic as using an abacus without
consideration of how your complex metabolism and appetite work.

For more details, see Is Counting Calories and Caloric Balance a Waste of Time?

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 66

Getting Ready for the DDF Challenge

This section addresses many of the most frequently asked questions about preparing for the
Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge.

2.1 When Is the Next DDF Challenge?

We run seven 30-Day Data-Driven Fasting Challenges per year in our Optimising Nutrition
Community.

The dates for the upcoming challenges are listed below. Click here to join the next
challenge to get access to all the materials immediately.

• 1 October 2022

• 5 November 2022

• 7 January 2023

• 25 February 2023

• 8 April 2023

• 20 May 2023

• 1 July 2023

• 12 August 2023

• 7 August 2023
Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 67
 • 7 October 2023

• 25 November 2023

To see the full events schedule, you can join our Optimising Nutrition Community here and
see the full events schedule (including our Macros Masterclass and Micros Masterclass) here.

2.3 What Do I Need to Buy?

Blood glucose meter

In the Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge, you will use your blood glucose to optimise
your intermittent fasting routine.

Accuracy is crucial because you will use glucose to guide your meal timing. If you don’t
already have one, some accurate, cost-effective blood glucose meter options are available.

A great option in terms of features and accuracy is Contour Next One, which comes with a
smartphone app to help you analyse your data. It’s everything you’d hope a modern blood
glucose meter would be!

You can even program the app to give you a happy flashing green light when you are below
your trigger. You’ll get a nice dopamine hit from the green light rather than those less-than-
optimal comfort foods!

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 68

Test Strips

Test strips are often sold separately. You will need at least 100 test strips for the Data-Driven
Fasting 30-Day Challenge and up to 200 if you want to test more regularly.

Many people are squeamish about measuring their blood sugars initially, but once they start,
they love seeing the data and want to test more! This is great initially, but after the first
week or two, we encourage people to use the minimum dose of testing required to validate
their hunger and live their lives rather than worrying about minor fluctuations in their blood
glucose.

Bioimpedance Scales

To get the most out of the Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge, we recommend using a
bioimpedance body weight scale that tracks your body fat and lean mass. Most modern
digital scales will do this. There is a range of options that have various features. Many people
find the Renpho a great option in terms of consistency and value for money.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 69

For more info, see What do the numbers on my bioimpedance scale mean (and how can I
manage them)?

Tape Measure

Your waist-to-height ratio is an excellent indicator of your overall metabolic health. We

recommend measuring your waist each week. A simple tape measure is an excellent
investment.

2.4 Would A Continuous Glucose Monitor Be Better?

Continuous glucose monitors (CGM) are quickly becoming the most sought-after biohacker
toy, and here are a few options available.

The Dexcom is the gold standard for Type-1 Diabetes management, and it sends a reading
to your phone or other devices every five minutes. The Freestyle Libre (used by NutriSense
and Levels Health) is cheaper but requires you to swipe the reader (or your phone) across
your sensor. A CGM is fine if you already have one, but not necessary for Data-Driven
Fasting.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 70

Keep in mind that CGM sensors are not painless to insert, and you will have to change them
every week or so. CGMs are also not cheap over the long term, especially if you don’t have
insurance coverage!

While you can calibrate the Dexcom with your glucometer, you can’t calibrate the Freestyle
Libre. Most people find that the Freestyle Libre reads significantly lower than an accurate
glucometer. People also often see different readings when they change sensors, which
throws out the consistency and accuracy of the data, which is important for Data-Driven
Fasting.

The ultimate goal of Data-Driven Fasting is to retrain your appetite by using your glucose to
validate your hunger before you eat. If you can see your current blood glucose all the time,
you’re more likely to eat even if you’re not hungry because your blood glucose dropped
below your trigger.

Excessive focus on minimising the rise of blood glucose after meals often leads people to
low-satiety, high-fat foods that will slow fat loss from their body. Unfortunately, more stable
blood glucose does not align with lower body weight or healthier waking blood glucose.
That’s why we focus on reducing your pre-meal blood sugars in Data-Driven Fasting, which
allows you to reduce your insulin and blood sugar across the whole day.

Focusing excessively on your blood glucose rise after meals can drive people to opt for more
low-satiety, nutrient-poor, high-fat foods. While fat does not raise your blood glucose much
in the short-term, excessive dietary fat will stop your blood glucose from returning to below
your trigger as quickly.

Your liver will release glucose from storage into your bloodstream to stabilise your blood
glucose. Your blood glucose may even rise in anticipation of food. Unfortunately, many
people get confused when they check their CGM when hungry and later find that their blood
glucose has risen by the time they have prepared their meal and are ready to eat.

Remember, the goal is to verify your hunger with your blood glucose. If you can see your
blood glucose in real-time, you may be tempted to refuel because your blood glucose
dropped below your trigger — even if you’re not hungry.

There are also benefits in the slight hassle of doing the finger prick and recording your blood
glucose before eating. Taking a moment to check your blood sugars works as a pattern
interrupt to ensure you are hungry enough to eat. After a couple of weeks, most people find
they only need to check their blood glucose twice a day.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 71

If you’re interested in learning more, check out:

• How to use a continuous glucose monitor for weight loss (and why your CGM could be
making you fat),

• Glucose Revolution by Jessie Inchauspe (the Glucose Goddess): Review, and

• How to lose weight using a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) and Data-Driven
Fasting.

2.5 How Do I Test My Blood Glucose?

While it might seem a little scary the first time, testing your blood sugar is pretty
straightforward and painless.

1. Insert the test strip into the glucometer.

2. Use the lancet to draw a small amount of blood.

3. Move the test strip to the tiny drop of blood. The strip will suck up the blood.

4. Wait a few seconds to get a reading on your metre. During this time, you can wipe
off any excess blood and close the test strip container

5. Record the value in the DDF App.

Because you’ll be taking regular measurements, you want to keep it as simple as possible.

• Most people use their fingers, but using other areas (like your forearm) can be much
less painful. While different parts of your body can give slightly different glucose
readings, you only need to be consistent for the purposes of DDF.

• There is no need to worry about calibration solutions outside a clinical/hospital

setting.
Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 72
 • So long as you’re not testing on your hands after eating or cooking, there’s no real
need to wash your hands before every test. But you should ensure you don't have
food on your fingers when you test.

• You will need to remove the end of the lancing device the first time to insert a lancet.
So long as you are not sharing your lancing device, you don’t need to change the
lancet after each test. However, after a few weeks, they can get a bit blunt and hence
a little more painful, so it is helpful to change the lancet then.

• You can dial the depth of the lancet up or down to get just enough blood to fill the
test strip while minimising the pain.

• Meters like the Contour Next will allow you to add a little more blood if you don’t
initially get enough the first time. You can push down with the lancing device
(without pricking again) to get a little more blood.

• Having warm hands and being well hydrated will help. Try shaking your hands to
bring more blood to your fingers first.

• Before you prick yourself, it’s a good idea to rub your skin a little bit to mobilise the
blood.

• If you get a blood glucose reading significantly different from what you expected,
you can retest again. After that, accept it, record the one that makes the most sense,
and move on. Don’t keep testing or second-guessing.

2.6 How Should I Adjust My Medications When I Start

Fasting?
Generally, you should continue taking your regular medications throughout the DDF
Challenge.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 73

Many people are on metformin (or berberine), which can help reduce blood sugars.
However, during the DDF Challenge, we focus on your pre-meal blood sugars to address the
root cause (excess body fat).

Medications such as injected insulin will help manage the symptoms of Type 2-Diabetes, like
elevated blood glucose but will do little to reverse the underlying cause (energy toxicity).

If you take any diabetes-related medications (e.g., injected insulin, sulfonylureas or glipizide
that encourage your pancreas to produce more insulin), you should pay particular attention
to your blood glucose as you extend the time between meals.

Many people find they can progressively dial back their diabetes medications as they
continue with Data-Driven Fasting. However, this needs to be done progressively and
carefully.

Work with your healthcare team to adjust your dosing to ensure that your blood glucose
doesn’t go lower than you feel comfortable (e.g., below 4.0 mmol/L or 72 mg/dL). Not only
will you feel unwell below this level, but you will also want to eat anything and everything
until your blood glucose returns to normal.

Because insulin works in your body to hold body fat and glycogen in storage, injecting
insulin to reduce blood sugars can make it harder to lose unwanted body fat because it
pushes your glucose lower, and you feel hungrier earlier.

Excess injected insulin causes your body to hold fat and glycogen in storage, making you
hungrier. As your blood sugar reduces and your body starts to burn off your excess body fat
stores, you may need to dial back your basal and bolus insulin.

A predictable routine is critical, even more so if you take diabetes medications. If you
radically change your eating pattern by skipping a whole day of eating or engaging in a
multi-day fast, your insulin needs will plummet, and you will risk low blood glucose

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 74

(hypoglycaemia). In contrast, Data-Driven Fasting will guide you to make incremental
changes to your eating routine, which will allow you to dial back your medications slowly.

During this transition period, it may be prudent to dial back your insulin dosing and allow
your average blood glucose to run a little higher to avoid lows. Once your glucose variability
reduces, you can tweak your insulin dosing to maintain lower average blood glucose. For
more detail, see:

• What Does Insulin Do in Your Body?

• What Is Insulin Resistance (and How to Reverse It)?

2.7 Will DDF Work If I Have Type 1 Diabetes?

Data-Driven Fasting has been heavily inspired by watching my wife Monica’s closed-loop
CGM-insulin pump system that adjusts insulin dosing based on blood sugar data from her
CGM.

Many people with Type 1 Diabetes have great success with the Data-Driven Fasting
approach, significantly reducing weight and daily insulin requirements.

It doesn’t make sense to eat if your blood sugar is high and if you have plenty of energy
already in your bloodstream. However, the one caveat is that you ‘cheat the system’ and
rapidly bring your blood glucose down with injected insulin. Unfortunately, this will be
counterproductive.

Rather than injecting more insulin to bring your blood sugars below your trigger, Data-
Driven Fasting will encourage you to wait a little longer to eat. This will lead to lower daily
insulin requirements and improved insulin sensitivity.

2.8 Should I Check My Ketones When Fasting?

As you fast for longer, your blood glucose will tend to decrease. This is because your blood
ketones (BHB) increase as your body starts to burn stored fat for fuel.

The chart below shows how blood glucose and ketones change during a seven-day fast -
blood glucose trends downward as ketones rise.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 75

However, you don’t need to be measuring ketones to verify you are burning body fat. As
your glucose decreases, you will be using more fat for fuel. If you are not overdoing your
dietary fat intake, more of the fat you are using will be from your body.

It’s also important to note that, especially over the longer term, elevated ketones are not a
valuable indication of your fat burning! People who carry more muscle and are more
metabolically healthy have more efficient monocarboxylate transporters, meaning that they
can more effectively clear lactate and ketones from the blood. So, as your metabolic health
improves, you will likely see your ketone levels decrease as the energy in your bloodstream
from fat, glucose, and ketones all decrease.

As shown in the chart below from Optimisers in our first Masterclass, people tend to see
their blood ketone values increase for a few weeks. But after that, they continue to decrease
as they continue to lose weight.

Ketosis is simply an alternative pathway to fuel your brain and vital organs when you don’t
have enough oxaloacetate from carbohydrates and protein to burn the fat in the Krebs cycle.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 76

Virta’s study results also show blood ketones are initially elevated in the first few weeks
before returning to baseline as people lose weight and reverse their diabetes.

As with many things, more is not necessarily better when it comes to ketones. Blood ketones
(BHB) that we measure are the storage and transport form of ketones. On the other hand,
your level of breath ketones (i.e., breath acetone or BrAce) is a better indicator of whether
you are burning ketones rather than forcing them to build up in your bloodstream.

If your goal is to understand if you use ketones for energy rather than storing them, tracking
your breath acetone may be more helpful. But again, you don’t need to worry about ketones
to confirm you are using body fat if you are chasing a lower premeal blood sugar.

While there has been plenty of excitement over keto in recent years, tracking your blood
ketones is unnecessary and doesn’t provide you with actionable data because there is no
way of knowing if the ketones are from your body fat or the fat in your diet.

Sadly, tracking ketones often leads people to consume more fat than they require in the
pursuit of ‘optimal ketosis’. Ketone test strips are also expensive. So, unless you are curious
because everyone else is doing it or you have some excess cash to burn, save your money
and skip the blood ketone testing!

2.9 I’ve Been Doing OMAD/ADF/EF. What Should I Do in

Baselining?
There are some nuances to the DDF process depending on previous eating habits.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 77

Some people come to Data-Driven Fasting because their One Meal a Day (OMAD), Alternate
Day Fasting (ADF), or Extended Fasting (EF) routine has stopped working for them.

Stalling out on longer fasting routines is common due to a slowed metabolic rate and a loss
of muscle mass due to inadequate protein intake.

While it is possible to get your daily protein requirements in one meal, it is not easy, and few
people manage to achieve it. More frequent eating is less stressful for your body (i.e., less
cortisol and less digestive hassle). Many people find their weight loss restarts when they get
more than one meal a day in our Data-Driven Fasting Challenges.

As a minimum, we recommend hitting the minimum daily protein shown in the table below
in the lead-up to the Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge (based on 1.4 g/kg LBM).

height (cm) height (inches) female protein (g) male protein (g)
150 59 56 76
155 61 60 81
160 63 64 86
165 65 68 92
170 67 72 98
175 69 77 103
180 71 81 109
185 73 86 116
190 75 90 122
195 77 95 128
200 79 100 135
205 81 105 142
210 83 110 149

You can track your current protein intake in an app like Cronometer. If you want to dial in
your macros, you may find our Macros Masterclass helpful once you’ve completed one
round of Data-Driven Fasting.

If you have been undereating protein for a while, don’t be surprised if your body weight
goes up a little until your muscles hoover up the protein they need. However, you may find
your clothes fit better, your waist circumference is dropping, and your body fat is dropping.
Remember, metabolic health is not just about having a lower body weight.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 78

Tracking Your Progress
This section of Data-Driven Fasting FAQs addresses the most common questions we see
when people start tracking their blood sugars in pursuit of weight loss, reduction in body fat,
diabetes reversal or improved body composition.

3.1 Are My Blood Glucose Levels Before or After I Eat

More Important?
Most people focus on limiting the rise in their blood glucose after eating by lowering
carbohydrates and sometimes even protein. However, rather than micromanaging the rise in
glucose after you eat, the average of your blood glucose across the whole day really matters.
And as you will see, the most effective way to reduce your average glucose across the day is
to manage your glucose levels before you eat.

The period after you eat is only a tiny portion of the day. High-fat meals that only cause a
slight rise in blood sugar after eating can keep blood glucose elevated for longer. Thus,
increasing fats may not help you achieve a long-term reduction in your average blood
glucose across the day, nor will it help with fat loss or reduce your insulin levels.

As shown in the diagram below, while carbs raise blood sugars and insulin over the short
term, dietary fat will elevate your blood sugars over the longer term and prevent them from
falling. Thus, to reduce the area under the curve of insulin and blood glucose, dial back fat

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 79

and/or carbohydrates and wait a little longer to eat until your blood glucose drops below
what is typical for you.

Modifying your diet to reduce the rise in blood glucose after you eat is only one step in the
journey. Delaying meals until your blood glucose is below your trigger ensures your average
blood glucose decreases and your stored body fat is used for fuel.

As shown in the chart below from our analysis of data from people using the DDF app, there
is a strong correlation between premeal glucose and waking glucose, a key marker of your
overall metabolic health.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 80

Large swings in glucose after you eat are not ideal. This can occur because you consumed
more carbohydrates than your body needs or overate. Significant rises in blood glucose (e.g.,
more than 30 mg/dL or 1.6 mmol/L) can result in your glucose crashing back down and
increased hunger (i.e., reactive hypoglycaemia).

However, if your glucose rise after meals is in the normal healthy range, there is no benefit in
trying to reduce it more. As shown in the chart below, there is little correlation between
waking glucose and the rise in glucose after meals. Hence, focusing on managing your
glucose before eating is much more helpful.

In the Data-Driven Fasting Challenge, we will guide you through the following steps:

1. Dial back refined carbs to achieve non-diabetic blood glucose variability. Your blood
glucose should not rise more than 30 mg/dL or 1.6 mmol/L after most meals.

2. Fine-tune your meal timing using Data-Driven Fasting to continue the fat-loss
journey.

3. If you are not achieving weight loss or your waking blood glucose is not decreasing
with a Main Meal and a Discretionary Meal, look to increase your protein percentage,
food quality, and nutrient density by reducing the foods that provide the most fat in
your diet.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 81

 Step Limit Description When to progress

1. Stabilise blood < 30 mg/dL or 1.6 Reduce processed When typical BG rise
glucose mmol/L rise after carbs to achieve after meals is < 1.6
meals healthy blood glucose mmol/L or 30 mg/dL
stability.

2. Meal One Main Meal Reduce the number of When average meals
timing/intermittent with one times you eat per day. per day is less than
fasting Discretionary Meal 1.5.
(OMAD+)

3. Increase protein % Work up to at least Slowly increase protein When you have
by dialling back fat 40% protein. % (by reducing dietary reached goal weight,
fat) until weight loss body fat, waist:height
re-commences. or waking glucose.

3.2 How Quickly Will I Lose Weight with Data-Driven

Fasting?
The rate of weight loss with Data-Driven Fasting can be quite rapid if you can wait until you
are below your pre-meal trigger to eat most of the time and dial up the protein % of your
meals. However, we’d rather you form consistent habits than compete for the top of a short-
term weight-loss leaderboard.

Greater compliance will lead to faster weight loss. However, finding a sustainable routine is
critical rather than pushing so hard that you are bingeing due to excessive hunger, which will
derail your long-term progress.

The chart below shows that some people lose more than 1.0% of their weight each week.
However, if you’re consistently losing more than 0.5% per week, there’s no need to try
harder.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 82

For more details on why we suggest a sustainable rate of weight loss of 0.5 to 1.0% per
week, see How Much Weight Should I Lose Per Week? You can also check out the
spectacular results from our previous challenges here.

3.3 Should I Track My Weight When Fasting?

You don’t have to track your weight daily in the Data-Driven Fasting Challenge. It’s not
critical to the process.

Because the amounts of water and food change in your gut, your body weight can change
daily. While knowledge is power, some people find that tracking their weight AND blood
glucose simultaneously becomes too much of a mind game.

Some people love all the data and find daily weighing keeps them accountable. People who
track their weight in the DDF Challenge tend to lose more weight. However, others find the
data is too much. It’s easy to overthink the day-to-day fluctuations, leading to burnout.

So, tracking your weight each morning to see the trends is ideal. But if you find this
challenging, you only need to log your weight once per week to ensure you are making
progress over time.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 83

3.4 How Often Should I Measure My Waist?
As shown in the chart below, a waist-to-height ratio of less than 0.5 indicates that your
metabolic health is optimal. Your waist measurement doesn’t change quickly, so you only
need to measure it weekly. We recommend you track your waist circumference each week on
Sundays.

Measure your waist just above your belly button at the narrowest point of your abdomen, in
line with your elbows. The precise location and whether or not you choose to suck in your
gut or let it all hang out don’t matter too much. Given that our goal is to track long-term
progress, all that matters is that you measure consistently.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 84

3.5 What Are Optimal Body Fat Levels?
Your pre-meal blood glucose will continue to decrease as you reduce body fat levels to
below your Personal Fat Threshold. Your blood glucose meter can provide insight into
whether you carry excess fat, regardless of weight.

A bodybuilder may still be healthy despite having a high Body Mass Index (BMI) so long as
they are not carrying too much fat. But even bodybuilders can gain too much fat in their
pursuit of strength and see their blood glucose rise. Being strong doesn't necessarily mean
you have excellent body composition or metabolic health.

Data-Driven Fasting is a great way to ensure that someone looking to gain strength doesn’t
gain excessive body fat that will compromise their health.

As you reduce your body fat levels to fitness and athlete levels, you will find that your blood
glucose naturally starts to decrease towards optimal levels.

Description Women Men

Essential fat 10-13% 2-5%

Athletes 14-20% 6-13%

Fitness 21-24% 14-17%

Average 25-31% 18-25%

Obese 32+% 25+%

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 85

The pictures below show what this looks like visually.

Aside from losing body fat, it’s also important to do whatever you can to preserve your lean
mass (i.e., muscle). It’s your lean mass that is metabolically active and 'burns calories'. Like a
fuel-efficient race car or sprinter, resistance training will help increase your power-to-weight
ratio, so you use energy from food more efficiently.

People who lose excessive lean mass often find it extremely hard to sustain their weight loss
because their metabolic rate has slowed. As a result, they must maintain a VERY low-calorie
intake to avoid rebound weight gain.

As mentioned in this video by Dr Ted Naiman, morbid obesity and Type2 Diabetes are on the
opposite side of the spectrum from a lean and muscular bodybuilder. While it’s not
necessarily healthy or sustainable to have extremely low body fat levels, many of us need to
move in that direction by losing body fat and gaining lean muscle mass.

While gaining strength and increasing your lean mass is a worthwhile goal, it can be hard to
do while also losing weight. If you’re currently working out, you should continue your
program alongside Data Driven Fasting. However, we don’t suggest you start an aggressive
lifting program while trying to lose weight, as it can lead to dysregulated blood glucose
levels and increased appetite.

During the Data-Driven Fasting Challenge, your goal should be to preserve your current lean
mass by prioritising protein at meals. In addition, being active and lots of lower intensity
activity like walking will tend to lower glucose and use more fat without trigging a significant
increase in appetite. For more detail, see Optimising Your Exercise [Macros Masterclass FAQ
#7].

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 86

3.6 What Is the Best Blood Sugar Level for Weight Loss?
Generally accepted fasting (i.e., first thing in the morning) and post-meal blood glucose
ranges are shown in the table below. Once your waking blood glucose is below 100 mg/dL
or 5.6 mmol/L, you can rest assured you are under your Personal Fat Threshold and minimise
your risk of diseases associated with energy toxicity and metabolic syndrome.

fasting after meal HbA1c

mg/dL mmol/L mg/dL mmol/L %

Normal < 100 < 5.6 < 140 < 7.8 < 6.0%

Pre-diabetic 100 – 126 5.6 to 7.0 140 to 200 7.8 to 11.1 6.0 to 6.4%

Type 2 diabetic > 126 > 7.0 > 200 > 11.1 > 6.4%

For more detail from our analysis of half a million blood glucose data points logged in the
DDF app, see What are Normal, Healthy, Non-Diabetic Blood Sugar Levels?

3.7 How Do I Find My Personal Fat Threshold?

Your Personal Fat Threshold is the level of body fat that your body is comfortable storing in
your adipose tissue without overflowing into your vital organs. Being above your Personal
Fat Threshold leads to fat being stored in vital organs like your liver and high levels of fat
and glucose overflowing into your bloodstream.

The only way to find your Personal Fat Threshold is to lower your weight to the point that
your waking glucose is in the normal healthy range when you are weight stable. For some
people, this may be at a waist-to-height ratio of 0.5, while others may need to go a little bit
lower.

Once you reach your goal weight, you can switch to ‘Maintenance Mode’ in the DDF app.
Then, if you regain weight in the future, you can restart the process to get your waist and
glucose levels back in this range.

For more details on the range of waking glucose, we see in people taking the DDF
Challenges, see What are Normal, Healthy, Non-Diabetic Blood Sugar Levels?

3.8 What Is the Best Way to Measure Body Fat?

Tracking your body fat percentage helps ensure you lose fat rather than precious and
metabolically active lean muscle mass. The last thing you want is to lose muscle and end up

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 87

looking like a fat skeleton with a low metabolic rate that has to maintain an extremely low-
calorie intake to keep weight off!

There are many ways to measure body fat. None are perfectly accurate, but they’re still
helpful to track your long-term trend.

● A DEXA scan is the most accurate but expensive and inconvenient, so you are unlikely
to do it regularly.

● The Navy Fat calculator is surprisingly accurate and aligns with DEXA scan
measurements. It is based on your waist, hip, neck, and weight measurements.

● The most convenient way to measure body fat is through bioimpedance which can be
measured with most modern scales. These may not be as accurate as DEXA but will
ensure you are heading in the right direction over the long term.

If you look leaner and healthier, you probably are. In our Macros Masterclass, we use body
fat and lean mass measurements to dial in your macronutrient balance using our Smart
Macros Algorithm. However, body fat measurements are not critical for Data-Driven Fasting.
Your waist measurement and selfies will be adequate if you don’t already have a
bioimpedance scale.

For more details, see What Do the Numbers on My Bioimpedance Scale mean (and How Can I
Manage Them)?

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 88

3.9 Can I Lose Fat and Gain Lean Mass at The Same Time?
While most people tend to drop lean muscle mass when losing weight, we have seen several
people manage to gain lean mass while losing fat mass if they significantly increase their
protein intake.

The best ways to minimise the loss of lean mass while losing weight are:

● consuming enough dietary protein,

● resistance training to tell your body to maintain its muscles, and

● getting good sleep, resting adequately, and reducing stress.

See Secrets of the Nutrient-Dense Protein Sparing Modified Fast (PSMF) Diet for more
details.

3.10 Do I Need to Check My Blood Glucose Before Every

Meal?
While some people love ALL the data, we have designed Data-Driven Fasting to allow people
to use the minimum effective dose of testing and tracking to maximise long-term
sustainability.

In the Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge, you can identify your ‘Main Meal’ that you
know you eat at a regular time each day. For example:

• dinner with your family,

• a protein-packed breakfast in the morning, when many people find their glucose
higher, or

• after your workout when you require extra fuel, and your blood sugars can be
elevated due to intense exercise.

You can then use your blood glucose to decide whether you eat at other times throughout
the day (i.e., ‘Discretionary Meals’). If you want, you can then skip testing your glucose
before the main meal and just test before the discretionary meals.

But remember, while you can ‘lie’ to your calorie tracking app, you can’t ‘cheat on’ your
blood sugar. It always tells the truth based on what you have been eating. So, it’s ideal to
track your premeal blood sugar as often as possible and take evasive action before things
get out of hand.

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3.11 How Do You ‘Build Your Fasting Muscle’?
Many people talk about ‘building their fasting muscle’ as if they just need to use more
willpower or do it longer and harder to get more benefits.

But sadly, the majority of people go too hard too early and burn themselves out before
building new habits or a sustainable routine that will provide long-term benefits when it
comes to fasting and exercise.

Building a healthy eating pattern is like building an intelligent workout routine. You need to
do the right exercise at the right time, not overdo it, recover adequately with nutrient-dense
refuelling, and get the minimum effective dose by measuring your progress.

It’s crucial to build Tiny Habits and celebrate small successes yielding sustainable lifestyle
changes that lead to achieving your ultimate goal.

To help you achieve this, Data-Driven Fasting provides a systematic approach to ensure you
address these critical elements to ensure long-term sustainable success.

● By measuring your pre-meal blood glucose, you ensure you are doing the right
exercise by finding the right balance between delaying your first meal and finishing
eating earlier.

● By prioritising high-satiety nutrient-dense food, you maximise your recovery from

fasting, so you are ready to fast again sooner.

● Waiting to eat when your glucose falls just below your trigger ensures you are
getting the minimum effective dose without overdoing it.

● By tracking your blood glucose, weight, and waist measurements, you ensure you are
making progress and rewarding yourself for your effort as you progressively lower
your trigger.

3.12 Do I Need to Track Before Every Meal or Every Day?

You don’t need to log your glucose before every meal for Data-Driven Fasting to work.

However, you will get the most benefit from measuring more often to guide your routine
and learn about your unique metabolism, especially when you start out. After a while, you
will build new habits and get a better appreciation for your true hunger signals.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 90

You may want to lock in your Main Meal and only test before Discretionary Meals. Then, if
you are on holiday or can’t test for a few days, you can pick up where you left off without
feeling like a failure.

You will quickly discover if you have overfilled your fuel tanks while you weren’t tracking. If
you have already drained a little bit of your excess fat stores, it won’t take as long to catch
up to your trigger.

3.13 What Are Ideal Blood Sugar Levels for Weight Loss?
There is no absolute value that corresponds to fat burning. This is because you are
constantly using a combination of fat and glucose.

But as your blood glucose drops, you will be using more fat. So, if you are not overdoing
dietary fat, you will be using the fat from your body.

The chart below shows a compilation of pre-meal vs waking glucose values from people who
have completed the Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge showing that a lower premeal
blood glucose correlates with a lower waist-to-height ratio.

As you chase a lower premeal glucose level in the challenge, you should expect to see a
reduction in body fat and your waist circumference.

The charts below show how premeal glucose (in mmol/L and mg/dL) corresponds with
waking glucose, a critical metabolic health marker.

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3.14 Does the DDF App Have a Lower Limit for Blood
Glucose?
Some people see their blood glucose start to fall when they begin Data-Driven Fasting and
wonder how low is too low and if the DDF app has a lower glucose limit.

The answer is no. The DDF App doesn’t have a lower limit for blood glucose, but your body
does.

The charts below show the range of premeal blood glucose values we see in people
undertaking the Data-Driven Fasting Challenge. Some people see their blood sugar levels
below 60 mg/dL or 3.5 mmol/L. However, most people will have reached their weight loss or
body fat goals before they reach this point. For more details, see What are Normal, Healthy,
Non-Diabetic Blood Sugar Levels?

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While these values are much lower than what passes for ‘normal’ in a world that is awash
with diabetes, there is no issue if you are not taking medications that further decrease blood
glucose (e.g., injected insulin) and feel OK.

Once you reach a waist-to-height ratio of less than 0.5 and a waking glucose of less than 100
mg/dL or 5.6 mmol/L, we suggest you transition to maintenance unless you want to get
super lean and drive your body fat to potentially unsustainable levels. This is not
recommended, particularly if you feel food-focused, weak or tired. You should eat if you feel
unwell (e.g., overly lightheaded, weak, etc.).

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After each round of the Data-Driven Fasting Challenge, we encourage people to take a break
to practice maintenance until they are ready to push again. You shouldn’t keep pushing if
you can’t successfully maintain your reduced weight for a few weeks between challenges.

Because Data-Driven Fasting guides people to delay or skip their meals rather than fasting
for days at a time, we don’t tend to see people having the same issues that are more
common with prolonged fasting or aggressive dieting.

As you chase your premeal blood glucose trigger, your body will adapt to using fat rather
than glucose to fuel. So, you’re much less likely to be symptomatic at a lower blood glucose
level.

But if it’s getting hard, we recommend transitioning to Maintenance Mode in the DDF app
until your lizard brain settles down and you are no longer food focused. You can always
jump back into another round of the Data-Driven Fasting Challenge when you feel you are
ready.

The break between challenges is an integral part of the process to allow your body to find a
new homeostasis and allow their blood sugar to be refilled from the stored energy in your
body and a little bit more food. So don’t be concerned if you find that your new trigger is
slightly higher than where you left off at the end of the last challenge. While your glucose
may not fall much more as you chip away at your trigger for 30 days, you will continue to use
your stored energy for fuel.

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3.15 Will I Lose Too Much Lean Mass When I Fast?
While many simply focus on weight loss, loss of metabolically active lean mass (i.e., your
muscles and organs) is an unfortunate reality for people maintaining a long-term energy
deficit, particularly as we age.

Encouraging people to fast for extended periods and telling them that nutrients and protein
don’t matter, and then saying that they shouldn't binge when they refuel is like taking
someone to the top of a mountain where the air is thin, making them hold their breath for
longer than they ever have, and telling them not to gasp when they take their next breath.

If you want to build strength and resilience in anything, you need to increase the intensity at
a sustainable rate (i.e., progressive overload) while ideally using some form of measurement
to ensure you are making incremental progress and progressively adapting.

Data-Driven Fasting encourages people to track their body fat in the DDF app, using at-
home bioimpedance scales to understand their long-term trend in fat loss vs lean mass.
While bioimpedance scales are not perfectly accurate, tracking changes in body composition
over time can still be helpful and cost-effective. You should also introduce some form of
resistance training to signal to your body that you want to grow and maintain muscle despite
losing fat.

If your lean mass is trending down faster than you would like it to, or your body fat
percentage increases, you can review your diet to ensure you are consuming adequate
protein and try to be a little less aggressive.

To ensure they get adequate protein and nutrients without excess energy from fat and carbs,
many people find our Macros Masterclass a helpful next logical step after they complete a
few rounds of the Data-Driven Fasting Challenge.

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3.16 Should I Record My ‘Pre-Meal Blood Sugars’ When I
Don’t Eat?
If you test and decide not to eat, you can uncheck the ‘did/will you eat?’ box in the DDF app
(as shown below). This will record your glucose value in the app and show on the chart, but
it won’t be used in your trigger calculations.

You may find you take a few extra blood glucose readings while waiting for your blood
glucose to drop below your current trigger, especially in the first few days of Hunger
Training. In time, you will learn how your hunger symptoms align with your blood glucose
without having to go to the effort of testing until you are actually hungry.

3.17 When Should I Check My Waking Blood Glucose?

While you can track your waking glucose every day in the DDF app, you only really need to
do it:

• during baselining,

• in the final three days of the challenge, and

• during the eating window stage (days 11 to 17).

Other than these times, feel free to skip checking your waking glucose if it’s a hassle or if you
find it confusing.

Regarding the time of the day, it should be taken after you get up before eating or drinking
anything. We suggest you integrate it with your morning routine of going to the toilet,

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 96

weighing yourself, taking your morning blood sugar, and making coffee or tea. What
matters here is consistently integrating it into your routine rather than the exact time.

3.18 How Often Do I Have to Test My Blood Glucose?

You should only test your blood glucose to validate your hunger before eating. This could
be as little as twice a day, or even less if you identify your Main Meal regardless of your
blood sugar.

We would also like you to test your post-meal glucose during baselining and waking glucose
at the start and during the eating-window stage. However, most people quickly find that
their post-meal blood glucose is generally in the normal healthy range after they eat, so
there’s little value in continuing to test after meals.

The table below shows the recommended minimum effective dose of testing and tracking
that we recommend during the Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge. Any additional
blood sugar readings are optional. Some people like all the data, but we eventually
recommend adopting the minimum effective dose of testing to guide your eating schedule.

day stage waking pre-meal after meals weight body fat waist
1 x x x x x
2 baselining x x x x x x
3 x x x x x
4 x
5 x
6 x
7 hunger training x
8 x
9 x x x x
10 x
11 x x
12 x x
13 x x
14 eating window x x
15 x x
16 x x x x x
17 x x
18 x
19 x
20 x
21 meal skipping x
22 x
23 x x x x
24 x

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 97

 day stage waking pre-meal after meals weight body fat waist
25 x
26 x
27 x
consolidation
28 x x
29 x x
30 x x x x x

3.19 Will DDF Work With OMAD?

While we usually find people settle on a schedule of three/two or two/one meals per day.
Because most people are unable to get adequate protein and nutrients in one sitting, we
don’t recommend OMAD or ADF.

If you find you are only able to reach your trigger once per day, we suggest trying:

• a protein focussed meal earlier in the day when you’re hungry, but blood sugars are
still elevated, and

• increasing your protein % to at least 40% (by dialling back dietary fat and
carbohydrates).

Once they do this, most people find themselves fuller after each meal and able to reach their
trigger two more times a day while still losing weight.

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3.20 What If Blood Glucose Testing Is Getting Too
Expensive or Painful?
While using your blood glucose is the most powerful way to understand if you need to
refuel, you may find testing becomes expensive, too painful, or hard to do consistently. If you
find this is the case for you, there are several options:

● Make sure you wait until you are hungry to test. Over the first week or so, you will get
a feel for when your blood glucose is lower. After that, testing will become less of a
novelty, and you will test less frequently. For example, if you’re only eating two or
three times a day, you only need to be doing two or three tests.

● It's ideal to have regular mealtimes rather than eating haphazardly based on blood
glucose. After a few days of Data-Driven Fasting, most people find they eliminate
snacking and drop back to a regular schedule of two or three meals a day. Before
long, you will identify your typical eating routine that works for your metabolism,
activity and routine. You can then simply test when you know you have the
opportunity to eat and then fine-tune what and how much you eat based on your
blood glucose levels.

● On Day 10 of the Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge, we guide people to lock in

their Main Meal (the meal you eat regardless of blood glucose) and treat other meals
as discretionary based on their blood glucose.

● If you typically have three or four meals per day and find your blood glucose elevated
before eating one, skip that meal and don’t test until the next meal.

● While tracking waking glucose is helpful to ensure that you are not eating too late, it
can also be confusing when your insulin levels drop, and you are losing weight
despite a rise in waking blood glucose. This is simply a sign that more of your stored
energy is being released due to the lower insulin levels. Feel free to skip the waking
blood glucose testing if that is the case. You can always recheck your waking glucose
once you are weight stable.

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WHEN to Eat
This section of the Data-Driven Fasting FAQs explains how your body uses the food you eat
and how your glucose and fat fuel tanks interact.

4.1 When Should I Test My Blood Glucose After Eating?

In the first week or so of the Data-Driven Fasting Challenge, it can be helpful to check if
you’re overfilling your glucose fuel tank based on your blood sugar 1-2 hours after you eat.
However, given that the main focus is on premeal blood sugars, you don’t need to stress
about the exact timing.

After you log a few post-meal blood glucose values, the trend in your hourly glucose chat
will give you an understanding of whether you need to dial back your carbohydrate intake to
manage hunger when your blood glucose comes back down (i.e., reactive hypoglycaemia).

While many people want to know exactly when to test to find the maximum value after
eating, the rate your blood glucose rises and falls after a meal will depend on what you are
eating and your unique metabolism.

As shown in the chart below, blood glucose rises quickly after a high-carb, low-fat meal
(green line), while it will increase more slowly and incrementally after a high-fat meal (red
line). If you’re curious, you could test before and then one, two and three hours after eating
to see when your blood sugar peaks with the meals you eat.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 100

In DDF, all we are trying to do is:

● find which meals raise your blood glucose the most to determine which ones you
might need to avoid in the future,

● identify when you are most insulin sensitive vs insulin resistant to optimise meal
timing (e.g., if your blood glucose rises the most at night and less in the morning, you
might benefit from shifting your meals earlier), and

● understand if you need to worry about carbs raising your blood glucose or if you
should just be focusing on more satiating nutrient-dense foods and meals.

You don’t need to be too concerned unless a meal raises your blood glucose by more than
1.6 mmol/L (30 mg/dL). This is especially true if your blood sugars also take a long time to
return to your trigger. If this is the case for you, you should consider eating less of that meal
next time.

For reference, as shown in the chart below, the average rise in glucose after meals is 16
mg/dL or 0.9 mmol/L.

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While the blood glucose rollercoaster is bad, flat-line blood glucose should not be your goal.
Stable blood glucose levels are a symptom of good metabolic health. However, striving for
flat-line blood sugars does not necessarily equal a healthy metabolism. While we can achieve
stable blood glucose with a low-carb, high-fat diet (i.e., symptom management), reversing
diabetes and improved metabolic health requires reduced body fat levels.

While higher-fat foods will cause a smaller rise in blood glucose initially after meals, you
need to balance adequate nutrition with stable blood glucose. As shown in the chart below
from our analysis of 125,761 days of data from 34,519 people using Nutrient Optimiser, very
high-fat foods tend not to be as nutritious.

In terms of satiety, people tend to consume fewer calories when they reduce the energy from
fat in their diet. While you don’t need to swing from one extreme to another, working your
way from where you are now to 40% dietary fat may be helpful if you want to lose body fat.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 102

When testing your blood glucose after meals, keep in mind that:

● fast-acting carbs will raise your blood glucose quickly. However, they may also come
down quickly,

● high-fat meals will help you achieve more stable blood glucose, but they may stay
elevated and delay when you are ‘allowed’ to eat again,

● meals that have a similar proportion of fat and carbs with low protein (e.g., cookies,
croissants, milk chocolate, etc.) will fill both your fat and glucose stores and keep your
blood glucose elevated for much longer, and

● nutritious foods and meals that contain a higher percentage of protein will give your
body what it needs with less energy and allow your body to draw down on its fuel
stores.

So, while dialling your intake of refined carbohydrates can be helpful if they rise a lot, you
don’t need to go keto to succeed with DDF. Our analysis of data from Optimisers suggests
that reducing either carbs or fat or even both will increase satiety and help with weight loss.

For more details, see Low-Carb vs Low-Fat: What’s Best for Weight Loss, Satiety, Nutrient
Density, and Long-Term Adherence?

4.2 How Can I Integrate Data-Driven Fasting into My

Daily Routine?
As you progress with Data-Driven Fasting, we encourage you to fit your eating schedule
around your regular work and family routine. For example, if you typically eat dinner with
the family, then you ideally wouldn’t skip that meal. Dinner could be your Main Meal, and
you can treat the other meals as Discretionary Meals.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 103

After a few weeks, it’s ideal if you fall into a reasonably consistent routine and use your
glucose to guide what and how much you eat. For more details, see Data-Driven Fasting by
the Clock for Long-Term Success.

4.3 How Many Meals Per Day Should I Eat?

As you use your blood glucose to guide your progress, you should find that you quickly cut
back on discretionary snacks. Our analysis found that people tend to eat fewer calories
when they eat two meals per day.

We tend to choose more energy-dense foods when we’re ravenous, so we often eat more
with one meal a day than two. It is also easier to meet your vitamin, mineral, and protein
needs if you spread your food intake across two meals rather than trying to get it all in at
once.

Many older or less active people find that alternating between one and two meals a day
based on their blood glucose guides them to long-term success. However, if you’re active or
trying to build muscle, more meals may be required.

You don’t have to jump to two meals a day immediately. However, you may settle on a
manageable routine of one/two or two/three meals per day. Many people who previously
stalled out on OMAD find they feel a lot better and restart their weight loss when they settle
on a routine of two meals per day rather than one.

If you find that two meals per day are still not working for you, we suggest you decrease the
size of those meals and try to dial back carbs and/or fat rather than skipping full days of
eating unless you can ensure you can avoid eating energy-dense, hyper-palatable foods after
not eating for 36 hours!

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 104

Nutrient-dense meals ensure you get the nutrients you need when you eat to feel more
satisfied, reduce your cravings and are less likely to overeat. For some inspiration on what to
eat, see:

• High Satiety Index Foods: Which Ones Will Keep You Full with Fewer Calories?

• Highest Satiety Index Meals and Recipes, and

• Our series of NutriBooster Recipe Books.

4.4 How Do I Stop Snacking at Night?

One possible scenario with Data-Driven Fasting is that you will eat a big dinner, check your
blood glucose in the morning, and find it is above your trigger. You then delay eating until
your blood glucose comes down in the afternoon or before dinner.

However, you may be even hungrier later that evening and find yourself losing control and
bingeing again. This is particularly a concern if your waking blood glucose is trending up
because you’re eating more at night.

If you are reaching for energy-dense foods because you are too hungry after not eating all
day, we recommend having a more substantial, protein-focused meal earlier in the day, even
if your glucose is just above your trigger, so you are less hungry at night. You can also try
increasing the size of your dinner, so you’re less likely to be raiding the fridge later.

Another option is to lock in an earlier Main Meal that you will eat daily. You can then use
your blood glucose trigger to decide if you will eat the other meals. As shown in the chart
below from our analysis of half a million days of MyFitnessPal data, people who eat breakfast
and lunch tend to eat less than those who eat lunch and dinner. This aligns with other
studies, like this one, that show that front-loading your calories leads to greater satiety and
eating less.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 105

If you find you are averaging less than 1.5 meals per day, you should review the quality of
the food you are eating.

You should also increase nutrient density and protein % by dialling back foods that add the
most dietary fat to allow your body to use stored body fat. Instead of jumping from one
extreme to the other, it’s better to slowly increase your protein percentage towards 40% or
more of your calories for maximum satiety and fat loss while minimising loss of precious lean
mass.

If you’re interested in pursuing this, we recommend trying out Macros Masterclass to tweak
your balance of protein, carbs and fat to continue your journey after the Data-Driven Fasting
Challenge.

4.5 Eat 'Breakfast' Like A King

While you don’t need to have ‘breakfast’ first thing in the morning, it appears ideal to front-
load your calories towards your first meal of the day, if possible, rather than eating your
biggest meal right before you go to bed. This is known as early time-restricted feeding
(eTRF).

You are more insulin sensitive earlier in the day and more likely to use the food you just ate
to fuel your activity rather than storing it while you sleep. So, if your schedule allows it, try to
eat most of your food when the sun is up and emphasise more energy at your first meal to
synchronise your eating with your circadian rhythm.

If you find you are overeating at night and your waking blood glucose is not coming down, it
might be worth locking in a protein-focused Main Meal earlier in the day, even if your blood
glucose is still above your trigger.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 106

4.6 If My Blood Glucose Is Below My Trigger When I
Wake, Should I Eat?
No. Especially if you’re not hungry. The goal of Data-Driven Fasting is to eat when you are
hungry AND require fuel - not just when your blood glucose is below trigger.

Even if your blood glucose is below your trigger when you wake, you should wait until you
are hungry, and your blood glucose is below your trigger.

If your blood glucose tends to rise through the day, locking in a protein-focused Main Meal
earlier when you feel hungry and then using your pre-meal trigger for other discretionary
meals may also help.

4.7 How to Use Your Hourly Glucose Chart

Your hourly glucose chart in the DDF app can give you many insights.

• Think of the trigger line as a sign that you are running LOW and need to refuel.

• You don’t want your BG to go too far below your current trigger because your
hunger will drive you to eat anything and everything (at the expense of food quality).

• As you slowly chase a lower trigger, you will continue to deplete your glucose stores
over time sustainably.

• You don’t want your BG to go above the ‘upper limit’ FULL line when you eat. This is a
sign that you overfilled your glucose and (or) your fat fuel tanks are full (i.e., adipose
tissue on your bum and belly), and fuel is backing up in your system. Try to reduce or
avoid foods that boost your post-meal glucose above this threshold. Reducing
processed carbs will help, but don't simply swap them for dietary fat if you want to
lose body fat.

• If your pre-meal values are higher in the morning than later in the day, you should
prioritise protein and nutrients over fat or carbs in the morning. This is because
higher % protein meals tend to help your BG to go down rather than up. Conversely,
you could add more carbs to your first meal if your pre-meal values are lower earlier
in the day.

• If your waking BG is high, you should consider 'closing your window' a little earlier
and (or) eating a little less late at night. However, keep in mind that waking BG can
go up initially as insulin lowers and you start to release stored energy. In time, it will
settle down as you chase your trigger.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 107

 • If your trigger starts to stabilise at a lower level and weight loss slows, try to dial back
dietary fat to allow your body to use stored fat. But, again, focusing on protein and
nutrients when you eat will help you manage satiety.

• After a while, you will start to see the long-term patterns in your metabolism and
when you need to refuel. In the example below, we can see that the lowest blood
glucose is in the afternoon. Hence, this would be ideal for a solid meal, perhaps with
a few more carbohydrates. However, a protein-focused meal with fewer
carbohydrates would be ideal when blood sugars are higher earlier in the day.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 108

WHAT To Eat
Data-Driven Fasting initially helps you solve the WHEN to eat side of the nutrition equation.
You can make a lot of progress just by waiting until your blood glucose gives you the go-
ahead to refuel. But eventually, WHAT you eat will become the limiting factor on your health
quest.

Understanding how your food affects your blood sugars can help dial in your food choices.
By giving your body precisely WHAT it needs WHEN it needs it, you can increase satiety, get
off the blood sugar rollercoaster and deplete the excess fuel in your system, lose unwanted
body fat and eat again sooner!

This section of the DDF FAQs details how you can use the insights from your blood sugar to
dial in the WHAT to eat side of the equation.

5.1 Can You Eat Whatever You Want With DDF?

We don’t care what foods you eat… but your body does!

Measuring your pre- and post-meal glucose levels gives you powerful insights. You can
imagine you are playing the detective in a mystery game as you try to understand what
foods and meals work best for you.

Your goal is to find a shortlist of foods and meals you enjoy that will allow you to reach your
trigger sooner and stay off the blood sugar rollercoaster. When choosing what to eat, take a

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 109

moment to imagine how this food will affect your glucose over the coming hours and how
long you might need to wait to eat again.

You can make a note in the DDF app of which meals and foods work for your body and the
ones that don’t.

To help you find your shortlist of foods and meals, you can reflect on your blood sugars after
each meal:

1. Sharp rise (more than 30 mg/dL or 1.6 mmol/L) and rapid blood glucose drop.

o High-carb, low-fat foods that raise your blood sugar quickly are not
necessarily bad, especially if they fall again quickly (i.e., a small area under the
curve glucose response).

o But if the 'BG rollercoaster' can leave you tired and ravenous once your blood
sugar comes crashing down below your trigger, reducing these foods might
be a good idea. You can save them for times when your blood sugar is
significantly below your trigger to bring it back up quickly without resorting
to energy-dense carb+fat comfort foods.

2. Slow rise (more than 30 mg/dL or 1.6 mmol/L) and no significant fall.

o Foods that raise your blood sugars and keep them elevated for a long time
tend to be a hyperpalatable combination of fat and carbs (i.e., junk food).

o These foods will keep your blood sugars and insulin elevated for a long time.
As a result, you will not reach your trigger again for many hours and will be
using less of your stored energy.

o These foods are not ideal for fat loss or improving your metabolic health and
hence should be limited or avoided.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 110

 3. Slight rise (less than 30 mg/dL or 1.6 mmol/L) followed by a steady drop of blood
glucose over the next few hours.

o Foods with less fat and carbs and more protein and fibre tend to provide
greater satiety per calorie and allow our blood sugars to remain lower and
more stable.

o Add this food to your shortlist of foods that you can use regularly. They will
provide greater satiety per calorie and allow you to eat more regularly while
still losing weight.

4. Blood glucose falls after you eat!

o Higher protein % meals will often cause blood glucose levels to drop after
you eat them.

o These foods provide the protein your body requires with minimal energy from
fat and/or carbs and maximum satiety per calorie.

o These foods are a great way to “hack” your blood sugars in the morning when
you feel hungry, but your blood sugar is elevated due to dawn phenomenon.

5.2 Front-Load Your Protein to Hack Your Satiety!

Our data analysis shows that people who eat more protein at their first meal tend to eat a lot
less throughout the day. Limiting how much you eat throughout the day, especially protein,
tends to leave most people at risk of overeating at night.

Do what you can to ensure your first meal is 'hearty' with plenty of protein (e.g., steak and
eggs, not a Bulletproof Coffee or a croissant). You could try a robust breakfast when you feel
hungry (even if your blood glucose is slightly above your trigger) and a small lunch or skip
lunch to have dinner with the family if and when your blood glucose drops.

Or maybe you have coffee — black, or with just a dash of milk or cream — and eat a larger
meal in the middle of the day, followed by a moderately sized family dinner after work.

Unlike fixed meal plans, the possibilities are endless. You can be flexible to fit around YOUR
schedule.

We want you to identify the routine that suits you and allows you to move toward your
goals. Try to find a routine that works for you, allows you to eat in a controlled manner, and
prevents you from ravenous late-night hoovering of everything in the fridge.

For more detail, see Does More Protein at Breakfast Help You Lose Weight?

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 111

5.3 Why Am I Not Losing Weight?
If you are eating one or two meals a day and waiting until your blood glucose drops below
your trigger but are still not losing weight, you’re likely still loading a lot of calories from fat
into fewer meals.

Food quality becomes even more critical when food quantity is reduced. Don’t
underestimate your reptilian instinct’s ability to outsmart your conscious brain to keep you
alive, especially when you’re effectively trying to starve it!

The good news is you can tame your lizard brain by reverse-engineering your diet to give
your body what it needs, so Lizzy stays asleep and doesn’t step in and undo all our discipline
and hard work.

If you push your body too hard, your cravings for energy-dense foods will increase to enable
you to get more energy in the compressed eating window. To understand if this is the case
for you, it may be helpful to track your food intake for a few days in Cronometer to check the
macronutrient split of the food you are eating.

Our satiety analysis of data from Optimisers shows that foods and meals that contain a
higher percentage of protein are tough to overeat. People who get a higher protein % (by
dialling back energy from carbs and fat and prioritising protein) experience greater satiety
per calorie and more effortless weight loss. To be clear, you don’t have to necessarily eat
more protein, but rather prioritise protein while reducing carbs and/or fat.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 112

Some people refer to this as ‘fuel pulling’ (where you pull glucose and fat from your body
rather than your food), a Low Energy Diet, high protein:energy ratio or a Protein Sparing
Modified Fast.

It’s much easier to consume a lot of energy in your meals if they contain a lot of carbs and
fat with less protein and fibre. Given the opportunity, your body will always choose the low–
protein, energy-dense foods that allow you to consume more energy and store more fat for
the coming winter.

The chart below shows that more energy from fat and processed carbohydrates (and less
protein) corresponds to a higher energy intake.

Sadly, many people who fast choose to refuel on foods with a higher percentage of energy
from fat, believing eating ‘fat to satiety’ will lead to body fat loss. Unfortunately, our data
analysis indicates that this approach makes consuming more energy easier. Therefore, if you
want to use the fat on your body as fuel, you may need to progressively dial back the fat in
your diet.
Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 113
You can learn more about the process we guide people through to dial in their
macronutrients to align with their goals in our Macros Masterclass in the article What Are
Macros in Your Diet (and How to Manage Them)?

5.4 Plan What You Will Eat Before You’re Hungry

When we’re ravenous, we always gravitate to what is quick and easy. So, it’s important to
plan what you will eat before you get hungry for the best results.

If you test and decide to delay your next meal, take a moment to imagine what you will have
when you eat next.

Because you are not fasting for days at a time, you will be less likely to impulsively
congratulate yourself with a pizza or a doughnut because you think you’ve 'earned it'!

Plan to eat nutrient-dense foods with plenty of protein to maximise satiety to avoid having
to wait too long to eat. You can also reflect on what you ate that is keeping your blood
glucose elevated for so long.

Any diet that works over the long term tends to supply adequate protein while minimising
easily accessible energy from fat or carbs. When eating, your goal should be to get adequate
protein with fewer carbs to drain your blood glucose stores and less fat to allow your body
to use your body fat stores.

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5.5 What Should You Eat After Fasting?
What you eat is just as important as when, how much, or how often you eat.

If you fill up on energy-dense and nutrient-poor food, your body will crave nutrients again
sooner. So, when you eat, do whatever you can to maximise nutrient density to ensure you
get the nutrients you need with fewer meals and less energy.

To help with this, we have developed a range of printable .pdf food lists to help you optimise
your diet that you can access in our Optimising Nutrition Community platform here.

If your blood glucose is still elevated, we recommend the Blood Glucose & Fat Loss food list.
However, if your blood glucose is relatively stable, you can go straight for the Fat Loss food
list.

We have also created a series of NutriBooster recipe books optimised for a range of goals.
The table below will help you find the right recipe book for you. Click on the name of the
book in the table to learn more.

Approach Ideal for

Low Carb & Blood Glucose Use these if your blood glucose is consistently elevated (i.e., they
rise more than 1.6 mmol/L or 30 mg/dL after meals).

Blood Glucose and Fat Loss Ideal for anyone with elevated blood glucose and body fat to
lose.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 115

 Approach Ideal for

Fat Loss Ideal for rapid fat loss by quelling hunger and cravings due to
nutrient deficiencies and supplying adequate protein to prevent
muscle loss.

High Protein:Energy Ratio Use this if you want to attack your body fat aggressively without
losing muscle by maximising satiety.

5.6 Will Coffee “Break My Fast”?

Many people enjoy a coffee or tea in the morning and delay their Main Meal until later when
they are hungry, and their blood glucose drops below their trigger.

Your morning cuppa doesn’t need to count as a meal (and you don’t need to test your blood
glucose), so long as you’re not adding hundreds of calories worth of milk, butter, cream,
sugar, or MCT oil.

While there is plenty of debate over whether coffee or artificial sweeteners will break your
fast and whether water alone is more optimal, you need to find the balance between optimal
and sustainable for you. Many people find themselves with headaches if they suddenly slash
their caffeine intake. So, if you want to reduce your caffeine intake, it’s best to scale back
slowly.

Most studies find that caffeine has a positive effect on metabolic rate and fat loss and
stimulates the release of stored energy from the liver. In fact, bodybuilders often use caffeine
as a ‘fat burner’. However, if you’re not sleeping because you are drinking too much coffee
too late in the day, you should stop earlier in the day or cut back.

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Some people who test their blood glucose in the morning around their regular cuppa see
their blood glucose rise. However, it’s difficult to discern whether this is due to regular
morning circadian rhythm effects like when your body releases cortisol, adrenaline, and
stored liver glycogen to boot up your system for the day or if it’s the coffee itself.

If you really want to find out if coffee is spiking your blood glucose, you could test your
sugars before and after consuming caffeinated coffee, decaffeinated coffee, and water
simultaneously during the day. If you see a similar response at the same time regardless of
what you drank, it’s likely the Dawn Phenomenon rather than the coffee.

However, given that the goal of Data-Driven Fasting is to achieve a long-term negative
energy balance, the slight rise in glucose around your coffee should not be of concern as
long as your coffee contains minimal energy. Likewise, any change in insulin or blood sugar
that occurs in the morning around your coffee will not impact your fat loss goals if it doesn’t
contain a significant amount of energy that will stop your body from using your stored body
fat.

So, rather than wondering, ‘Will this break my fast?’, you should ask, ‘Will this allow me to
achieve a negative energy balance that will lead to fat loss and lower blood glucose?’

For more detail, see Will Coffee Break My Fast? A Complete Guide on Coffee and How It
Affects You.

5.7 Electrolytes and Fasting

An adequate intake of electrolytes like sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium is
critical, especially when eating less and losing weight. Our satiety analysis has shown that,
after protein, we have the strongest cravings for the larger macrominerals like sodium,
potassium and calcium. For more on this, see The Cheat Codes for Nutrition for Optimal
Satiety and Health.

One of the many functions of insulin is to help your kidneys recycle electrolytes in your body.
So, when insulin levels decrease, you lose stored water in your body and minerals. You may
feel light-headed or experience muscle cramps if you do not have adequate electrolytes on
board. Often what we experience as 'hunger' is a craving for minerals!

If you’re interested in supplementing these harder-to-find minerals, we have created an

Optimised Electrolyte Mix with the optimal amounts and ratios of sodium, potassium, and
magnesium that many people have found helpful.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 117

One problem with mineral salts is that you can quickly reach your ‘gut tolerance’, or the
amount your body can physically absorb at a given time, so you still may not be able to get
the amount you need from supplements. So, it’s ideal to obtain your nutrients (including
minerals) from food.

To determine whether you need more minerals in your typical diet and which foods and
meals you need more, you can try our Free 7-Day Nutrient Clarity Challenge.

5.8 How Much Protein Do I Need?

Protein requirements depend on your lean mass and activity level.

While 0.8 g/kg LBM is an absolute minimum to prevent deficiency, we tend to find people do
better in terms of nutrient density and satiety with closer to 1.8 g/kg LBM or ideally 2.2 g/kg
LBM. These higher levels of dietary protein help prevent muscle loss during rapid weight
loss and support muscle growth and recovery after training. However, getting this much
protein can be challenging if you also eat less frequently and consume fewer calories overall.

In percentage terms, we find people achieve better satiety and fat loss when they slowly
work up to 40% or more of their energy from protein. However, rather than simply eating
more high protein foods, this is attained by consuming adequate protein while dialling back
easily accessible energy from fat and carbs. Therefore, we recommend you slowly dial up the
protein % of your diet. You only need to increase your protein % if your current way of
eating is not yielding weight loss.

You can use our macro calculator to see how much protein you need, and you can track your
intake in Cronometer for a few days to see what you are getting from your current diet.

If you want to skip the calculations, the table below shows what 1.4 g/kg LBM looks like
(assuming 15% BF for men and 25% for women).

height (cm) height (inches) female protein (g) male protein (g)
150 59 56 76
155 61 60 81
160 63 64 86
165 65 68 92
170 67 72 98
175 69 77 103
180 71 81 109
185 73 86 116

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 118

 height (cm) height (inches) female protein (g) male protein (g)
190 75 90 122
195 77 95 128
200 79 100 135
205 81 105 142
210 83 110 149

If you find you are not hungry, you don’t need to worry so much about your absolute protein
intake (in grams) so long as your protein percentage is higher than 40%. Once you reach
your goal weight, you can bring back some fat and carbs.

If you need more guidance after the Data-Driven Fasting Challenge, you can try out Macros
Masterclass, which will guide you to tweak your macros to help you sustainably move towards
your goals.

5.9 Will ‘Too Much Protein’ Raise My Insulin Levels and

Stop Me from Losing Fat?
Refined carbohydrates raise insulin more over the short term, protein raises insulin over the
medium term, and fat raises insulin and blood glucose over the long term.

While most people typically focus on short-term changes in insulin after eating, our overall
insulin production across the day is more closely related to total calorie intake and body fat
levels. Insulin can be viewed as the ‘anti-entropy hormone’ that stops your body from falling
apart. The bigger we are, the more insulin we require to hold our bodies together.

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Insulin regulates the release of stored energy from the liver while energy is coming in from
our mouth. Someone with Type-1 Diabetes will essentially disintegrate as all of their stored
energy flows into their bloodstream if they do not inject insulin. However, for someone who
has a functioning pancreas, the insulin produced by their pancreas is largely a function of the
amount of fat on their body or how much energy they need to keep in storage.

While protein does elicit a medium-term insulin response, it is also the most satiating
macronutrient. Prioritising adequate protein allows us to eat less over the long term, reduce
body fat levels, and subsequently require less insulin across the day.

Remember, satiety is about getting a higher percentage of protein rather than simply
consuming more protein. To achieve this, you can progressively dial back the energy in your
diet from fat and carbs.

Many people in our Macros Masterclass find that they are already getting the protein they
need; they just need to slowly dial back their energy from fat and/or carbs while prioritising
protein.

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5.10 How Should I Break a Fast?
Many people experience gut distress and diarrhea after fasting for several days and have to
eat particular foods to acclimatise their digestive system to eating again.

However, multi-day fasts are not the goal of Data-Driven Fasting. We simply want to
optimise your day-to-day eating routine so you can consume high-quality, nutrient-dense
food to satiety without digestive issues or bingeing when you refuel.

It’s always ideal to ensure your first meal of the day has plenty of nutrients and protein.
Then, if you still need it later, you can top up with some extra energy. Many people find
their blood sugars are lower later in the day, so protein with a little more carbs is often ideal
in the afternoon. Meanwhile, focusing on protein, which comes with fat, is ideal at your first
meal.

5.11 Can I Drink Alcohol While Fasting?

Alcohol tends to decrease blood glucose, and alcoholics often have very low HbA1cs.
However, this is not necessarily a good thing.

● Due to oxidative priority, your body must burn off the alcohol before glucose and fat,
so you will down-regulate the release of glucose (and fat) into your bloodstream until
your body clears the alcohol it cannot store.

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 ● You should also be aware that alcohol will have a greater impact if you have no other
food on board.

● We tend to make poor food choices after drinking a significant amount of alcohol
that will keep our blood glucose elevated for longer.

● At seven calories per gram, alcohol is energy-dense (for reference, fat contains nine
calories per gram and carbs and protein yield less than four calories per gram).

● Alcohol often comes with plenty of carbs and other yummy things that are easy to
overdo.

● While alcohol initially knocks you out, you don’t get into REM sleep as quickly
because your metabolic rate is elevated to burn off the high-octane energy from
alcohol. So not only will you feel dehydrated and have a hangover, but you won’t get
a great rest either.

● Alcohol is similar to sugar, refined grains, or oils in the sense that it is effectively
empty calories. Alcohol contains lots of energy with very few nutrients, so it won’t
help you on your quest to maximise nutrient density.

For more detail, see What Factors Influence Satiety? How Carbohydrates, Fat, Fibre, Alcohol,
Sugar and Caffeine Affect Your Appetite.

5.12 Should I Eat Less Protein If I Have Diabetes?

Some people mistakenly try to achieve perfectly flat-lined blood glucose by reducing
carbohydrates and even protein. Unfortunately, this often ends in overeating low-satiety,
nutrient-poor, high-fat foods, which leads to increased energy intake, weight gain, and
insulin resistance!

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More dietary protein will be converted to glucose if you are insulin-resistant and have
elevated blood glucose (via gluconeogenesis). The net result is that you will have less
protein available for muscle protein synthesis.

To make up for the protein lost to glucose, your appetite will increase, and you consume
extra energy to get the protein you need. For this reason, it is crucial for people with Type-2
Diabetes or any degree of insulin resistance to prioritise dietary protein rather than restrict it.

For more detail, see What Is Insulin Resistance (and How to Reverse It)?

5.12 Aren’t Meal Choices Important Too?

WHAT you eat is arguably more important than WHEN you eat. Understanding how your
food choices affect your glucose levels between meals is beneficial.

● High-fat foods and meals will keep your blood glucose stable after meals. However,
high-fat foods and meals tend to provide fewer nutrients and satiety per calorie, so,
you will likely consume more calories.

● Meals with more fast-digesting non-fibre carbohydrates will initially raise your blood
glucose. But they may also return to below baseline sooner because they are hard to
overeat and are burned off more quickly.

● Foods that contain both fat and carbs with low protein will fill both your fat and
glucose fuel tanks and prompt you to eat more. Hence, they keep your blood
glucose elevated for longer.

● Foods with a higher percentage of protein are harder to overeat and won’t raise
blood glucose significantly. In fact, they may reduce them or at least your blood
glucose will return to below target more quickly.

Data-Driven Fasting works best when paired with nutrient-dense. During Hunger Training,
it’s important that you reflect on which meals tend to keep your blood sugars elevated for
longer and identify the meals that you enjoy that allow your blood sugars to return to below
baseline more quickly.

5.13 Do I Need MCT Oil or Butter During a Fast (aka 'Fat

Fasting')?
No. Adding nutrient-poor, low-satiety refined oils or fats will be counterproductive if your
goal is body fat loss, insulin sensitivity, improved body composition, nutrient density

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 123

optimisation, or diabetes reversal. For reference, Bulletproof Coffee has the lowest satiety
and nutrient density ranking of the thousands of recipes we have analysed.

5.14 Do I Need Protein When I Fast?

As shown in the chart below from Quantitative Physiology of Human Starvation: Adaptations
of Energy Expenditure, Macronutrient Metabolism and Body Composition (Hall, 2012), your
body will use approximately 400 calories per day (100 g) of stored protein in the early stages
of extended fasting. Over time, this decreases to 250 calories (60 g of protein) per day as it
adapts.

While protein requirements slowly decrease during extended fasting, the amount of lean
muscle mass you will use for fuel is still insignificant. If you fast for a couple of days every
week, you will need to make up for protein across the week to prevent long-term loss of lean
muscle.

After not eating for a while, your body increases your appetite to seek food to replenish
calories and nutrients, particularly protein, to ensure your muscles don’t waste away. If you
do not prioritise protein when you refuel, your appetite will step in and ensure you consume
enough calories to get the protein your body needs.

This is likely the main reason so many people lose and regain the same weight when they
attempt extended fasting without paying attention to food quality. It can be challenging to
get adequate protein without excess energy in the long term when extended fasting forces
us to gravitate to energy-dense food. Regardless of how long you choose to fast, nutrient-
focused refuelling (especially protein) is critical.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 124

5.15 Does DDF Work Best with A Particular Diet (e.g.,
Low-Carb, Keto, Vegan, Plant-Based)?
Data-Driven Fasting will work with a low-carb or low-fat diet. Low-fat foods may raise blood
glucose quickly, but they will also return to baseline more rapidly after a high-fat meal.

Foods high in starch, like potatoes, are hard to overeat if they are not combined with added
fat (e.g., chips or cookies) that increase palatability.

• Many people find they achieve the lowest pre-meal blood glucose on a low-fat diet
with whole foods.

• Conversely, low-carb foods cause a smaller rise in blood glucose after eating but may
cause blood sugars to remain elevated for longer.

As shown in the chart below, reducing fat or carbohydrate in your diet will impact your
satiety and how much you eat.

The problem comes when we consume low protein foods combining fat and carbs together.
These hyperpalatable foods tend to be easy to overeat and will keep your blood glucose and
insulin levels elevated for much longer. It will then take longer for your blood glucose to
drop back below your trigger.

If you wanted to mix it up and get more variety in your diet, you could alternate between
low-carb and low-fat meals. Many people find keeping their carbs for later in the day when
their blood sugars are lower while prioritising protein (which tends to come with some fat)
earlier in the day extremely helpful.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 125

5.16 What If I’m Above My Trigger but REALLY Hungry?
If you are above your trigger, it’s ideal to wait. You know your body has enough fuel on
board! But if you are REALLY hungry and just above your trigger, the DDF App will suggest
you can eat but prioritise protein and nutrients and limit fat and carbs.

It’s hard to go wrong if you limit fuel when you’re above your trigger and only refuel (with fat
and carbs) when your blood glucose is below your trigger. Thus, DDF encourages you to
follow a PSMF-style diet when your glucose is elevated, and you have plenty of fuel on
board. But then you eat normally or even refuel with some extra carbohydrates when your
blood sugars drop below your trigger.

5.17 How Can I Use My Glucose to Guide How Much I Eat?

We feel hungry for many reasons, but our conscious brain doesn’t always understand what
our body requires. But the good news is that you can use your glucose as a fuel gauge to
help decipher what fuel and how much you need.

• If you’re hungry and your BGs are elevated, then you likely don’t need carbs but
protein (which tends to come with some fat). If your blood sugars are elevated, you
can see this as a sign that your fuel tanks are full. Therefore, you should try to eat a
smaller meal rather than an all-out feast.

• If you’re hungry and your blood glucose is much lower than usual, then it’s time to
eat. Giving your body some carbs may help to bring your blood sugars back up
quickly and can quickly smash your cravings.

5.18 How to Use Your Glucose Trends to Guide WHAT

You Eat?
It’s been fascinating to see how different people with different dietary patterns and routines
have their unique glucose patterns that can give data-driven insights into what to eat.

Low carb pattern

People who follow a lower-carb diet tend to have higher glucose in the morning and lower
glucose levels in the afternoon.

As shown in the example chart below, only a few post-meal glucose values are above the
upper limit due to limited carbohydrates. So, people from a lower carb or keto diet
background typically don't need to worry about dialling back their carbohydrate intake.

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Counterintuitively, higher waking glucose can be managed by dialling back fat in the
evening. This is because excess energy from fat can cause all your fuels to back up in your
system overnight.

Rather than simply delaying meals until the afternoon, it’s ideal to prioritise protein (which
typically comes with some fat) and fewer carbs in the morning, even if your blood glucose is
marginally above. This usually allows blood glucose to drop so you can eat again sooner.

Save any carbohydrates until your blood sugars are lower in the afternoon to bump your
glucose back up before bed, but not so much that you boost blood glucose above the upper
limit.

Low blood glucose at night isn’t ideal for sleep and can lead to late-night snacking.
Carbohydrate before bed increases the uptakes of tryptophan by the brain, where it is
metabolised to melatonin.

It’s ideal to test your glucose after your evening meal to ensure you’re not overdoing the
carbs. You don’t want to see your glucose below your trigger when you sleep, but you also
don’t want to boost it above your upper limit.

Alternating between protein+fat in the AM and protein+carbs in the PM tends to allow

people to stabilise their blood glucose across the day. They can also have a more varied diet
that is potentially more nutritious while staying out of the carb+fat danger zone that leads to
overeating.

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Lower fat diet pattern

People on a lower-fat diet tend to see lower waking glucose and higher glucose values
during the day, particularly in the afternoon, as shown in the example hourly chart below.

The first step here is to dial back the excess carbs that are overfilling their glucose fuel tank
while prioritising protein to increase satiety. Converse to the low carb profile, people
following a lower-fat diet may do better with more of their carbs in the morning when they
are more insulin sensitive and less at night, particularly if they see their pre-bed values going
well above their upper limit line.

Mid-afternoon pattern

Other people, like the chart shown below, see a distinct dip mid-afternoon dip, indicating
that this is the ideal time for them to have their largest meal.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 128

Balanced profile

Finally, the hourly chart shows what we believe to be an ideal hourly glucose chart, with:

• Most post-meal values under the upper limit line,

• Lower waking glucose, and

• Fairly similar premeal values across the day.

In time, with some guidance from the DDF app and feedback in the DFF Challenge, you can
find the optimal eating routine that suits your metabolism and routine.

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Winning The Mind Game
The ultimate goal Data-Driven Fasting is to guide you to understand your true hunger
signals and get to know Lizzy. Not only will you learn to tame it by giving it what it wants
when it needs it, but you will also learn to listen to it and trust your appetite signals and
respond more appropriately.

6.1 Quantified Mindful Eating

If you want to leverage the benefits of the Data-Driven Fasting process, you can make notes
in the DDF app to record what you are learning and incorporate it into your future routine.

By reflecting on your physical sensations of hunger, you will start to learn what your body is
trying to tell you. Once you learn to decipher the messages Lizzy is giving you, you will no
longer need to rely on your glucose meter to guide want and when you eat.

When you feel hungry and think of eating, rate your hunger. Then, take a moment to
imagine what your blood glucose might be if you tested it based on your physical symptoms
of hunger (e.g., grumbling tummy, weakness, light-headedness, etc.).

The most common symptoms of hunger include:

• rumbling/growling stomach,

• feeling food focussed,

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 130

 • feeling mentally fatigued or not being able to think straight, or

• feeling lightheaded.

Some of the more extreme symptoms of hunger can include:

• nausea,

• headaches,

• feeling cold, tired or lethargic, and

• disturbed sleep.

Before you eat, you want to be hungry but not starving to the point that you binge. After
you eat, you should feel full and satisfied, but not completely stuffed.

Reflecting on your hunger signals and calibrating them with your need for food is a central
component of Hunger Training. In the DDF app, you can rate how hungry you feel on a scale
of 1 – 5 (not hungry to extremely hungry) before recording your blood sugar.

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As you can see from the chart below of perceived hunger vs premeal glucose, a lower
premeal glucose is directly correlated with greater hunger.

Before long, you will understand the factors that can influence your blood glucose (e.g.,
exercise, stress, and hormonal changes). If you are hungry and your blood glucose is below
your trigger, go ahead and eat. There is no need to be a hero! If you are not overly hungry,
you are less likely to overeat and more likely to make better food choices.

6.2 The Psychological Impacts of Data-Driven Fasting

The ultimate goal of Data-Driven Fasting is to become more attuned to your hunger signals.

While testing your blood glucose may sound like a hassle, a tiny amount of pain and
inconvenience from blood glucose tracking is not such a bad thing. It forces you to be more
mindful and question whether you need to eat. It also interrupts habitual mindless eating
and adds a quantitative check to see if you need to refuel.

While many people find that calorie counting harms their mental health, Data-Driven Fasting
helps you feel empowered and puts you in control of your hunger and appetite with a
precise fuel gauge.

A little bit of measurement gamifies the intermittent fasting process as you wait for the
green light on your blood glucose meter. There is a little bit of luck because of the many
factors that affect blood glucose and a bit of skill involved with juggling your eating routine
and food choices. However, aside from looking and feeling great, the grand prize is excellent
metabolic health.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 132

6.3 Hunger Is Not the Enemy
With Data-Driven Fasting, your goal is to become more in tune with your hunger rather than
fear or ignore it.

You will grow to understand your hunger by giving it some attention until you understand it,
and it will become your friend. While extended fasting can lead to dysregulated hunger
signals, Data-Driven Fasting helps you better understand your true hunger.

As your blood glucose stabilises, your body will become more comfortable with a small
amount of hunger. Soon, that little bit of hunger will no longer be uncomfortable.

You will ‘train’ your appetite and hunger as your body becomes comfortable with a lower
energy level in your bloodstream because it has learned to trust that you will regularly
provide it with quality food.

6.4 Progress Over Perfection

Remember, your goal should always be progress, not perfection! You don’t have to be
militant about not eating if your blood glucose isn’t dropping and you feel ravenous. You
only have to log premeal blood sugars below your trigger more often than not to make
progress.

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If you have a bad day, that’s OK. You don’t need to beat yourself up over it. You will always
learn something if you pay attention to how your blood sugars. Your blood sugars and the
DDF App will give you a clear direction on what you need to do to catch up.

The goal of Data-Driven Fasting is to be below your trigger more often than not before you
eat. If your blood glucose is slightly above your trigger and you’re ravenously hungry, then
don’t be afraid to eat.

Your glucometer is a tool to empower you with knowledge about whether you need to
refuel, not to make you feel like a failure or wracked with guilt. Using your blood glucose as
a fuel gauge tells you if your hunger is real and you need to refuel. The process will be more
sustainable if you don’t try to be perfect in the first few days and weeks. Instead, learn to
accept the ebb and flow of your glucose, making better food choices to progressively guide
it down.

You should approach this as a curious student, eager to learn how your body responds to
food. Data-Driven Fasting will help you realise the impact of those 'bad days'. Before long,
the 'bad days' will become less frequent. You will learn that overeating and poor food
choices will have a downside in the future, so you will learn to moderate your meals today.

Feel free to take a break if you feel you are becoming obsessive or the process is consuming
too much time or mental energy. While some people love quantifying everything, others can
quickly become overwhelmed. We have designed Data-Driven Fasting to minimise the
cognitive load as much as possible to maximise sustainability so you can keep going until
you reach your goal.

If you feel ravenous, grumpy, light-headed, cold, you can’t think straight, you have a report
due or an important meeting to attend, don’t be afraid to eat. You can always catch up later.
Your blood glucose will guide you, so you don’t need to stress.

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6.5 Three Steps Forward, One Step Back
Don’t be surprised if you find yourself ‘backsliding’ occasionally. Weight loss is rarely a linear
process. It’s also natural to follow a fasting and feasting cycle that ebbs and flows with the
varying needs of your body.

It’s normal and healthy to want to eat more sometimes, particularly if you have been
restricting yourself. It may take a few days to get back to where you were, but you should be
able to deplete your glucose stores more quickly than last time because you have already
burned off some excess fat.

If you find yourself particularly hungry, there is no need to be ashamed of eating to satiety.
In time, you will iron out the bumps in your routine and ensure a long-term trend towards
your goals as you follow the guidance of your premeal trigger.

6.6 Follow the Trend, Ignore the Noise

As you start tracking, you will quickly learn that biometrics like weight, blood sugar and body
fat can bounce around from day to day. This noise can be confusing, so try to stay focussed
on the long-term trends.

While there may be many day-to-day variabilities, you should see a long-term trend as you
wait for your blood glucose to drop below trigger. As blood glucose decreases, weight and
body fat will follow. Once you drain your glucose stores, your body will get on with using
your excess stored body fat.

While it’s helpful to track body fat to ensure you’re losing fat and not precious lean muscle
mass, you should be aware that body fat data can be even noisier. But, as you chase a lower

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 135

pre-meal trigger by delaying or skipping meals, you will see your weight and body fat trend
down.

Try to follow the recommendations given by the DDF app without overthinking the process.
Accept that there will be some days when the data doesn’t go your way.

You are free to use your brain to decide whether you need to eat even if your blood glucose
is above your trigger.

6.7 Fasting Can Be Stressful

A little bit of stress can be beneficial (i.e., hormesis or eustress). While your body likes
consistency and routine, complete stagnation and monotony lead to weakness and atrophy.
So, you need some stress to grow, but not so much you break.

For millennia, the four seasons (e.g., autumn, winter, spring and summer) forced our bodies
to go through periods where different amounts and types of food were available, thus
forcing us through natural bulking and cutting phases. Any good workout routine involves
periods of progressive overload interspersed with rest and recovery.

Too much stress beyond the point that we can adapt and recover (i.e., distress) is not good
and forces our survival instincts to take evasive action. Data-Driven Fasting ensures our
eating routine is punctuated by just enough stress to keep our body moving towards our
goals.

6.8 What If I 'Fall Off the DDF Wagon'? How Do I Get

Back On?
Most of us can’t help swinging to extremes, from exuberance to disappointment.

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We desperately want to make progress, so we push hard with ambitious hopes of overnight
success. But then, our survival instincts kick in, and we can end up rebound bingeing.
Afterwards, our initial instinct is to go even harder with more resolve and willpower, driven
by guilt and renewed determination. But even that only lasts for so long before Lizzie kicks in
again.

If you want to get off this all-too-familiar restrict-binge cycle, it’s better not to punish
yourself after you ‘fall off the wagon’. Instead, just get back to chasing your trigger again.

If your glucose is above your trigger for a few days, you know you have plenty of fuel
onboard and only require protein and nutrients.

6.9 DDF May Test Your Emotional Resolve

Because it was necessary to run away from dangers in the past, we tend to weigh negative
data more than positive. Sometimes negative data makes us feel like a failure, so we try
harder and fail harder when Lizzy rebels and has to step in to keep us alive.

The good news is, eventually, with a bit of community support and self-love, most of us learn
to relax. Any significant achievement is usually built from a culmination of small positive
actions. Eventually, as you persist and push through the frustration, you will learn to trust
the process and chip away at the small changes that lead to big wins in the long term.

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6.10 DDF and Dopamine Fasting
Dopamine is the neurotransmitter released to drive us to action and want to do something.
It’s fundamental to our survival to ensure we eat, learn, have fun and reproduce. We feel
good when we elevate our dopamine levels. We become focused and driven to take action.

In recent times, we have created a range of novel ways to continually keep dopamine
elevated, with endless social media, caffeine, drugs, porn, YouTube, Netflix and engineered
hyperpalatable comfort foods.

But regardless of how many dopamine-inducing things you add, your body continually
works to find balance. Your hypothalamus cannot continue to secrete infinite amounts of
dopamine.

Eventually, the things that bought you pleasure will no longer bring you as much pleasure,
and you will find pain and discontent in new areas of your life that were once fine. This is
because you have moved your dopamine (or hedonic) set point.

Dopamine also drives us to seek our food. Again, this is fundamentally a good thing.
Without dopamine, we would starve and forget to reproduce.

Food with energy from fat stimulates dopamine because your body needs it. Similarly, foods
with energy from carbs also stimulate a healthy level of dopamine. But our modern food
system has designed foods that combine fat and carbs in a way that stimulates more
dopamine than any food in nature ever did before, so we eat more of these foods.

We can also use these ‘comfort foods’ to elevate dopamine to alleviate sadness and low
dopamine created in other areas of our life. In reality, we sometimes need to work on those

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areas rather than turning to food for comfort. Or perhaps we’re just so overstimulated by
everything that nothing stimulates us, including quality food?

Data-Driven Fasting leverages the power of dopamine in our life by gamifying the fasting
process. You get a positive dopamine hit when you see a healthy number on your glucose
meter and a reaffirming message from the Data-Driven Fasting app.

You can become motivated to improve the numbers that will fundamentally improve your
health. But at the same time, by delaying your meal just a little, you are resetting your
dopamine levels and re-sensitising your dopamine receptors rather than always treating your
dopamine deficit with food.

When you eat all the time mindlessly, food stops tasting as good. But once you learn to wait
until you need to eat, you will learn to enjoy your food, especially the food that is good for
you because it contains the nutrients you require to thrive. You will no longer need to
consume foods designed to overdrive dopamine, and you will be able to stop when you’ve
had enough.

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Understanding Your Unique Metabolism
Your body is a fascinating and complex organism that adapts to the stresses of any new
environment to keep you alive. By exposing yourself to bursts of stress like Data-Driven
Fasting, your body can adapt to thrive.

When you start out with DDF, all you need to do is follow the process without overthinking
it. But as things progress, a little bit of understanding can be a good thing, too.

This section of the FAQs covers the many questions that often arise as people start tracking
and taming their blood sugars.

7.1 What Is A 'Good' Trigger Value?

We find it interesting to see how we compare with everyone else to understand how far we
must go to catch up with others.

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The charts below show waking glucose vs pre-meal trigger values logged in the DDF app (in
mg/dL). As you manage your pre-meal trigger value, your waist, body fat, and waking
glucose levels will follow.

The chart below shows the distribution of pre-meal glucose values (in mg/dL) logged in
the Data-Driven Fasting Challenges.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 141

The following chart illustrates the same data in mmol/L for those outside the US.

The table below summarises the analysis of 241,405 pre-meal blood glucose values.

mg/dL
• mmol/L

Average 82 4.6

15th 76 4.2

85th 88 4.9

n 251,405 251,405

• The average pre-meal glucose is 82 mg/dL (4.6 mmol/L).

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 142

 • You’re likely metabolically healthy and fairly lean if your pre-meal blood glucose is
towards the lower end of this range (i.e., close to 76 mg/dL or 4.2 mmol/L).

• However, if your pre-meal blood glucose is on the upper end of this range (i.e., closer
to 88 mg/dL or 4.9 mmol/L or above), you may have some more work to optimise
your metabolic health.

For more detail, see What are Normal, Healthy, Non-Diabetic Blood Sugar Levels?

7.2 What Is the Optimal Blood Sugar Level for Fat

Burning?
You are constantly burning a combination of fat and glucose. We tend to burn more glucose
when doing an intense activity and more fat during rest or lower-intensity activities. But if
you have a lot of glucose in your system, you won't be burning as much fat because your
body must burn through the glucose first because of oxidative priority.

As you lower the glucose in your system, your body will turn to fat. If your intake of dietary
fat is not excessive, more of the fat you’re using for fuel will be from your body.

Counterintuitively, when we measure respiratory quotient, we find that people who are
obese and insulin-resistant tend to primarily burn glucose at rest despite having a lot of fat
in storage.

As you wait until your glucose drops below your Personalised Trigger before you eat, you will
ensure that you burn more fat at the end of each fasting period.

As you slowly lower your premeal trigger through repeated cycles of short-term ‘fasting’ and
nutrient-dense feasting, you will burn more fat and less glucose as you drain excess glucose
backed up in storage.

As the glucose in your blood and glycogen in your liver drop, your body will turn to fat for
fuel. Therefore, as long as you are not supplying excess dietary fat, you will be burning body
fat when your glucose levels are lower.

7.3 What Is a Healthy Waking Glucose Level?

While most of us focus on weight and body fat, being below your Personal Fat Threshold is
arguably more important. But how do you know if you are below your Personal Fat
Threshold?

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As you can see from the chart below (from Association between fasting glucose and all-
cause mortality), the lowest overall risk of dying from any cause aligns with a fasting glucose
between 80 and 100 mg/dL (4.4 to 5.6 mmol/L).

If your waking blood glucose is in the optimal range, it means:

● you are insulin sensitive,

● your insulin levels are low,

● your body fat can absorb extra energy from your food, and

● you do not have excess energy backing up into your bloodstream.

The charts below show the distribution of waking glucose numbers recorded in the DDF app
(in mg/dL and mmol/L).

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The table below shows the average waking BG along with the 15th and 85th percentile values.

mg/dL mmol/L
Average 103 5.7
15th 88 4.9
85th 116 6.4
n 124858 124858

It’s important to note that lower waking glucose isn’t necessarily better. While rare, very low
waking glucose (e.g., below 76 mg/dL or 4.2 mmol/L) tends to correspond to anorexia, poor
immunity and fragility.

It’s also worth noting that your waking glucose may be slightly higher than ‘optimal’ if you
follow a lower-carb diet. However, your glucose across the day will tend to be lower.
Conversely, people on the lower fat diet tend to see lower waking glucose but higher
glucose values across the day.

Keep in mind that waking glucose is just one of the parameters that you can use to gauge
your overall metabolic health. Body fat % and waist:height ratio are also valuable markers to
understand your overall level of metabolic health. Below 25% body fat for women and
below 15% for men is a great goal, while a waist-to-height ratio of less than 0.5 is ideal. But,
again, pushing significantly below these levels may not be healthy or sustainable.

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You can track your waking glucose in the DDF app as a marker of metabolic health.
However, it’s not critical to the DDF process and does not affect your trigger.

Keep in mind that you may see your waking glucose increase initially as insulin drops, your
stored energy is released, and you start to lose weight. Later, you may see your waking
glucose stabilise at a lower level once you switch to Maintenance Mode.

Waking glucose isn’t something you can easily “hack”. Lower waking glucose follows as you
chase a lower premeal glucose trigger, lose body fat and improve your overall metabolic
health.

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7.4 What Is Dawn Phenomenon?
Your body clock (i.e. circadian rhythm) is closely tied to your eating, sleeping, activity, and
light exposure.

As your body prepares to wake in the morning, melatonin decreases while cortisol and
adrenaline rise. Your body releases glucagon from the liver to increase the glucose in your
bloodstream, so you are fuelled and ready to bounce out of bed and start the day.

This increase in glucose is stimulated by glucagon and is usually balanced by insulin. This
duo ensures your blood glucose is regulated and doesn't rise too much. People with Type-1
Diabetes typically see their insulin requirements the lowest overnight, with a rise a few hours
before they wake up as their liver pushes out glucose to start the day.

People with some degree of insulin resistance may find that their blood glucose increases
more in the morning due to what is known as the Dawn Phenomenon. While some rise in
glucose in the morning is normal, increased insulin resistance means that the glucose
released from the liver is not balanced adequately with insulin to stabilise blood glucose.

There is no need to eat immediately if your blood glucose is high in the morning, especially if
you are not hungry. But when you start to feel hungry, rather than waiting until your blood
glucose is below your trigger, you can choose to have a higher protein meal.

Prioritising protein earlier in the day often causes blood glucose to fall, and you can eat
again sooner rather than waiting all day. As you draw down on your excess fuel, you will
start to see your waking blood glucose come down and a smaller rise due to the dawn
phenomenon.

7.5 How Does ‘That Time of The Month' Affect Blood

Glucose for Women?
Females of reproductive age should be aware that cravings, blood glucose, and insulin
sensitivity vary throughout the month.

Women with Type-1 Diabetes find their insulin requirements increase in the days leading up
to their period before dropping once menses commences. In addition, insulin requirements
rise after ovulation until a few days before menses commences.

Insulin requirements and blood sugar rise between ovulation and menses as progesterone
rises. The chart below shows the variation in total daily insulin requirements for my wife
Monica over 22 monthly cycles.

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Cravings, water retention, and associated water weight gain also increase in the days leading
up to menstruation. So, you may need to be more gracious when waiting for your blood
glucose to drop if it’s ‘that time of the month’. You need to understand that your body is
preparing for a possible pregnancy and craving more energy and nutrients, particularly
protein.

You may want to accept a slightly higher trigger value or default to your regular eating
routine and just eat when you are hungry during this time rather than fighting the process
too much.

The DDF app will allow you to log ‘menses’ when you log a pre-meal trigger value. This will
give you a temporarily elevated trigger, so you don’t have to battle with your trigger
unnecessarily during this time.

For more discussion, see What to Eat for Each Phase of Your Monthly Menstrual Cycle.

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7.6 Why Does My Blood Glucose Fall After I Eat?
Some people are surprised that their blood glucose drops after eating. This is a positive sign
that you are metabolically healthy or not overeating carbohydrates.

Because glucose and fat stores in your liver are depleted after an overnight fast, many
people see their blood glucose drop after their first meal. Any energy they eat goes to
replenish the stores in their liver rather than backing up into their bloodstream.

When you eat a higher protein meal, your pancreas secretes some insulin to enable you to
use the amino acids to repair muscles and organs, make neurotransmitters, and a host of
other functions. Glucagon is also released by your pancreas to balance insulin, as shown in
this chart (from Marks’ Basic Medical Biochemistry).

For someone below their Personal Fat Threshold, this balance of insulin and glucagon means
that blood glucose will remain stable. Blood glucose may even decrease, indicating that you
have plenty of spare capacity to absorb the meal you just ate, and energy from your meal is
not overflowing into your bloodstream.

Testing your glucose response to a high protein meal can be a useful measure of insulin
resistance vs insulin sensitivity and whether you are above your Personal Fat Threshold. You
know you're reasonably metabolically healthy if you see your blood glucose drop after a
high-protein meal.

Conversely, if you see your blood glucose rise, you know you have some level of insulin
resistance. However, the solution is not to avoid protein. Instead, you should reduce carbs

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and fat while prioritising protein to decrease your body fat levels below your Personal Fat
Threshold.

For more details, see Why Does My Blood Sugar Drop (or Rise) After Eating Protein?

7.7 Why Would My Blood Glucose Rise After a Low-Carb,

High-Protein Meal?
Someone who is insulin resistant or has diabetes has (i.e., insufficient insulin to maintain
stable blood glucose). This person may see their blood glucose rise after a high protein meal
as glucagon kicks in to tell the liver to release stored glycogen. Insulin is also released to
keep blood glucose stable.

If someone is insulin resistant, their insulin does not work effectively, and their blood glucose
is not suppressed. Therefore, insulin-resistant people can see a rise in blood glucose after a
high-protein meal because they have insufficient insulin to simultaneously metabolise the
protein and suppress glucagon release from their liver.

Some people see this rise in glucose and think they should avoid protein to maintain stable
blood glucose. However, this may make things worse.

If you are insulin resistant (i.e. Type2 Diabetes) or your pancreas is not producing enough
insulin (e.g., Type-1 Diabetes), you will likely lose protein through gluconeogenesis. If this is
the case for you, you will likely benefit by focusing on a higher protein percentage to ensure
you don’t end up having to overeat to get the protein your body needs.

If you are insulin resistant because you carry excess body fat, the solution is to focus on
foods with a higher protein percentage to increase satiety. This will enable you to lose body
fat without losing too much lean mass.

If you are already lean (i.e., waist:height ratio less than 0.5) and you see elevated blood
glucose after a low-carb, high-protein meal, then it may be helpful to talk to your doctor to
get your fasting insulin, and c-peptide measured. This will help you understand if your
pancreas can produce enough insulin to rule out Type-1 Diabetes or MODY (Maturity Onset
Diabetes of the Young).

For more details, see Keto Lie #4: Protein Should Be Avoided Due to Gluconeogenesis.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 150

7.8 Will Fasting Help My Gut Health?
While adjusting to solid food after fasting for multiple days can be challenging, many people
find intermittent fasting improves their digestion and gut health.

When we eat more food more often than we need to, our gut struggles to keep up, and we
get indigestion and bacterial overgrowth.

Conversely, when we eat less, we give our stomachs a chance to rest. The excess ‘bad
bacteria’ (e.g., Firmicutes) associated with obesity die off as they are not continually overfed
with nutrient-poor inflammatory foods. As a result, the ‘good bacteria’ (e.g., Bacteroidetes)
associated with healthy body weight can flourish.

Gut health is complex, and we don’t know much about it yet. You can’t analyse your faeces
to determine what to eat. What we do know, however, is that:

1. Eating ultra-processed foods that are a combination of refined starches, sugars, and
industrial seed oils will cause an overgrowth of ‘bad bacteria’ and excess growth in
the human host.

2. Prioritising nutrient-dense high, satiety foods will lead to a more balanced gut
bacteria and a leaner human host.

7.9 How is DDF Different from Zoe or Day 2?

There is a technological arms race to create a patented system to provide personalised
nutrition recommendations based on the analysis of your poop.

Zoe is a technology start-up company spearheaded by Professor Tim Spector that seeks to
provide personalised nutritional advice based on the analysis of the gut microbiome.

To get your personalised nutritional prescription from Zoe, you send your ‘poo in the post'
to their lab for analysis (USD$350, plus USD$59 for app access after six months). You also
test your glucose (using a CGM) and fat response to standardised low-fat and high-fat
muffins.

While the well-funded Zoe team are publishing fascinating data, this level of testing and
analysis is potentially excessive for most people.

Day 2 is a similar service that provides meal recommendations based on your stool analysis.
Their work is based on a 2015 study Personalized Nutrition by Prediction of Glycemic
Responses which identified that people could have markedly different glucose responses to

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the same food. Therefore, they hypothesised that they could design a diet to stabilise blood
sugars based on a complex (and patented) analysis of your gut bacteria.

There is no doubt some interaction between your blood sugars, body weight, and
microbiome. However, the relationship between the three is incredibly complex. It’s
impossible to tease out correlation vs causation and determine how to use this data to guide
dietary choices. The experts haven't yet defined what a ‘good vs bad’ microbiome profile
looks like, let alone what to eat to make yours better.

No matter how much data or computing power is applied to the task, we may never reach
the point that anyone can tell you what to eat by looking at what goes down the toilet.
Without an intelligent application of a fundamental understanding of how your body uses
energy from your food, particularly how your glucose and fat fuel tanks interact, we risk
paralysis by analysis and falling victim to garbage in – garbage out (GIGO).

As shown in the figure below from the Zoe PREDICT 1 study, despite the hype, your gut
microbiome is NOT a strong predictor of your glucose or fat response to food. Instead, meal
composition, genetics, meal context, and current blood sugar levels have a more significant
effect than your microbiome.

What we can see from the PREDICT1 study data is that:

• the macronutrient composition (i.e., the mixture of carbs, fat, and protein) of food has
the most significant impact on your blood glucose response to a meal, while

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 • the amount of fat already in your blood has the most significant impact on the rise in
the fat in your blood after you eat. In other words, if your system is already full of
energy, there is nowhere for the extra energy to go.

This aligns with our understanding of how glucose and fat fuel tanks work in our bodies. If
your fat stores are full, excess fuel cannot be absorbed, backs up in the system, and
overflows in your bloodstream.

If you eat in a way that gives your body the nutrients from the food that it needs to function
and attain a more optimal body composition, your gut bacteria will likely look after itself as it
continually adapts to the food you feed it.

While there will always be some variability in your glucose response to the foods you eat, our
analysis of the Food Insulin Index data gives us a solid understanding of factors affecting our
short-term insulin and glucose responses to foods. We have used this understanding to
identify optimal foods and meals suited to a wide range of goals and preferences that will
allow you to stabilise your glucose to healthy levels.

Rather than prescribing a meal plan and recipes designed for someone else, the DDF app
allows you to track your glucose response to the foods you eat to empower you to create a
shortlist of meals you enjoy eating that work for your unique metabolism.

In the Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge, we use simpler, less invasive, and more cost-
effective biometrics to guide your dietary choices.

• If your blood sugars after meals rise by more than 1.6 mmol/L (30 mg/dL), reduce
your intake of processed carbs until your blood sugars stabilise.

• If your waist: height ratio is > 0.5 and your blood sugars are in the healthy range after
dialling back carbs, you will also likely need to cut back on your fat intake.

Not only will your blood sugars and body composition improve as you stop overeating too
often, but your gut microbiome will become healthier too.

7.10 What Is the Glucose Ketone Index (Or Dr Boz Ratio)?

The Glucose:Ketone Index (GKI) was developed in 2015 by cancer researcher Professor
Thomas Seyfried to track cancer patients' metabolic health while fasting for prolonged
periods.

The GKI is your glucose (in mmol/L) divided by your ketones (in mmol/L). More recently, Dr
Annette Bosworth has popularised the Dr Boz Ratio, glucose (in mg/dL) divided by ketones
(in mmol/L).

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Use of the GKI is based on the understanding that if glucose is low and ketones are high,
insulin levels will be low, and you’re in good metabolic health. But conversely, if your
glucose is high and ketones are low when you fast, then your insulin levels are likely high.
This indicates that you have some level of insulin resistance that you need to attend to.

The problem, however, comes when people don’t differentiate between endogenous ketones
that are made from your body fat when you’re fasting vs exogenous ketones that are from
the fat in the food you just ate, added MCT oil, or ketone supplements.

Most of the benefits that are often attributed to ketosis come from the energy deficit. If you
are jamming in thousands of empty calories of nutrient-poor fats to raise ketones to get a
higher GKI or Dr Boz ratio, then you will be driving up insulin levels as your pancreas has to
work overtime to hold the added energy in storage.

The good news is, you will likely be producing plenty of ketones from your body fat if you
are chasing a lower pre-meal blood glucose. So, you don’t need to worry about measuring
ketones because they don’t give you any guidance about what or when you should eat.

Hence, we recommend you skip the expense and confusion of testing ketones and focus on
pre-meal blood sugars.

For more detail, see Is the Acetone:Glucose Ratio the Holy Grail of Tracking Optimal Ketosis?

7.11 Will Data-Driven Fasting Help Me Lose Weight If I

Don’t Have Diabetes?
Data-Driven Fasting will work for most people trying to lose weight, even if they don’t meet
the criteria for diabetes.

While Type-2 Diabetes is diagnosed when you have a fasting glucose of greater than 125
mg/dL or 7.0 mmol/L, you can use Data-Driven Fasting to drive your pre-meal trigger down

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to much lower levels (e.g., 70 mg/dL or 3.9 mmol/L). As you do this, your weight and body
fat levels will follow.

While using your glucose to guide what and when you eat is extremely helpful for people
with Type 2 diabetes, most of the people in our challenges have glucose values in what
would be considered the normal healthy range. Rather than settling for ‘normal’ the DDF
Challenge guide people to optimise their metabolic health and weight.

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The one scenario where Data-Driven Fasting may not be as effective is when people have
been on a high fat, low protein ketogenic diet for a long time. These people may already
have very low blood sugars, which don’t vary much after eating but still have a lot of fat to
lose. For this scenario, our Macros Masterclass tends to be more effective to help them
fine-tune their macros to suit their goals (e.g., prioritise protein and reduce fat to facilitate fat
loss).

7.12 How Can I Optimise My Sleep with Intermittent

Fasting?
Not eating too late in the day seems to help us sleep better. According to Professor
Matthew Walker in his book Why We Sleep, we don’t enter REM sleep while burning off a lot
of energy from a late dinner. This survey of Oura Ring users shows that not eating too late is
by far the most beneficial 'hack' to ensure sound sleep based on their quantitative data.

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Don’t be surprised if you find you sleep more soundly as your blood glucose decreases
because your body is not working so hard to process excess energy overnight.

On the flip side, it’s also good not to be too hungry when you go to bed. If you find you
wake up through the night because you are hungry, you may need to eat something a bit
closer to bedtime. A little carbohydrate at your last meal may be beneficial to raise glucose
into the normal range to ensure your body doesn’t think it’s starving overnight.

Your body prioritises burning off alcohol, which can keep your metabolic rate elevated. So,
try to avoid too much alcohol later at night. Similarly, protein requires a lot of energy to
metabolise, so it’s ideal if you don’t try to consume all your daily protein intake just before
bed. In contrast, carbs and fat are metabolised more easily (i.e., they have a lower Dietary
Induced Thermogenesis) and thus will give you a better chance at a sound sleep.

7.13 How Much Should My Blood Glucose Rise After a

Meal?
Data-Driven Fasting primarily focuses on blood glucose before meals to ensure you are
reducing the excess energy stored in your body. As insulin sensitivity improves, waking and
post-meal blood glucose should also decrease.

If you see your blood glucose rise by more than 30 mg/dL or 1.6 mmol/L in the one to two
hours after you eat, you likely ate too much or too many carbohydrates at that meal. You
should either avoid that meal or eat less of it in the future. Your glucose tank is already full,
so you don’t need more carbs.

Many people find their blood glucose rises more after dinner, indicating that their energy
stores are being overfilled. As a result, they may benefit by reducing the size of their dinner
and prioritising larger meals earlier in the day when their energy tanks are not as full.

You can use the hourly glucose charts in the DDF app to tailor your meal choices and routine
to minimise the post-meal glucose values above the upper limit line (i.e., 1.6 mg/dL or 30
mg/dL). Once you master this, you can focus on your pre-meal blood sugars and delay your
meals to reduce your trigger.

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The rise in glucose after you eat is more a reflection of what you ate. On the contrary, your
fasting blood glucose and your glucose before meals indicate your metabolic health and
whether you are over-fuelling throughout the day.

7.14 Do I Need to Worry About 'Insulin Toxicity'?

Many people focus on insulin toxicity as the 'root cause' of diabetes and metabolic disease.
Hence, they see reducing insulin as the end goal.

However, if you are part of the 98.5% of the population with a functioning pancreas that is
not injecting insulin to manage Type1 Diabetes, your body won’t produce more insulin than
required to keep body fat in storage when food is coming in from your mouth.

When someone with Type-1 Diabetes accidentally injects too much insulin, their liver will
reduce the release of energy into the bloodstream, and their blood glucose will drop quickly.
This causes them to feel ravenously hungry, and they will be driven to eat anything and
everything to bring their blood sugar levels back up.

However, unless you are either a Type-1 or insulin-dependent Type-2 diabetic injecting
insulin, high insulin levels do not cause overeating or obesity. The reverse is true: high insulin
levels cause overeating and obesity. Therefore, rather than worrying about ‘insulin toxicity’,
we should focus on managing energy toxicity and insulin will look after itself.

The Carbohydrate – Insulin Hypothesis simplistically assumes:

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 158

 carbs -> insulin -> fat storage

However, it is a little more complex than this. It’s critical to understand the true cause-and-
effect relationship. Rather than addressing the symptom of high insulin, we need to focus our
effort and attention on the root cause. A rise in insulin is simply the response to increased
body fat. It is not the cause! Instead, the real cause is:

low satiety, nutrient-poor foods -> increased cravings and appetite to get the nutrients
we need -> increased energy intake -> fat storage -> increased insulin

Hence, the solution to managing diabetes, blood glucose, and insulin levels and dodging the
complications of metabolic syndrome is:

high–satiety, nutrient-dense foods and meals -> decreased cravings and appetite ->
decreased energy intake -> fat loss -> lower insulin levels

You will reduce your body fat by managing your pre-meal blood glucose by waiting to eat
until you need to refuel. As a consequence, your insulin levels will also fall.

We designed Data-Driven Fasting to keep things as simple as possible by shifting your

primary focus to blood glucose before meals to draw down on glucose and fat stored in the
body, subsequently reducing your insulin levels across the day.

For more detail, see:

• What Does Insulin Do in Your Body?

• How to Reverse Your Insulin Resistance,

• Your Metabolism Explained: In 2 Infographics, and

• What Is Insulin Resistance (and How to Reverse It)?

7.15 How Long Will It Take to Train My Hunger?

People with elevated blood glucose often find it hard to judge their true hunger. So,
monitoring blood glucose is a great way to train your hunger if you are overweight or have
elevated blood glucose.

Many fascinating studies (e.g. Training to estimate blood glucose and to form associations
with initial hunger) have shown that people can learn to predict their blood glucose from
their sensations of hunger.

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After several weeks of testing blood glucose, people can get a good feel for their blood
glucose when they are truly hungry based on their symptoms, like their stomach rumbling,
changes in energy levels, becoming food focussed or mental fatigue.

When you log your blood glucose in the DDF app, it’s critical to take a moment to observe
your hunger and log your current hunger level. This moment of self-reflection is critical to
help you calibrate your hunger signals going forward.

Once you can predict your blood glucose and rate your hunger based on your symptoms,
you will be able to wait until you are hungry to eat. From there, you can wean yourself off the
measuring and rely on your hunger signals.

For more detail, see Hunger Training… How to Use Your Glucometer as a Fuel Gauge to Train
Your Appetite For Sustainable Weight Loss.

7.16 What If My Blood Glucose Rises Again Before I Eat?

The goal of Data-Driven Fasting is to use your blood glucose to validate your hunger before
you eat.

If your blood glucose is below your trigger when you feel hungry, you have successfully
depleted the glycogen in your liver and have begun to use more body fat. You are ready to
refuel again!

However, when they test again before they eat, some people have found that their blood
glucose may have risen while preparing their meals. It is normal for your body to release
glucose into your bloodstream:

● when it anticipates food is coming,

● as part of the normal process of maintaining stable blood glucose, and

● if it gets stressed by low blood glucose and hunger.

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The ‘secret’ here is not to test again. Go ahead and eat if you are hungry and your blood
glucose has dipped below your trigger, and you were hungry.

This is one of the downsides we see with people using continuous glucose monitors, as it can
provide more data than necessary. In Data-Driven Fasting, we want to use the minimum
effective dose of measurement to ensure you move progressively rather than become
overwhelmed and give up before you reach your goal.

7.18 Why Is My Waking Blood Sugar the Highest of The

Day?
If you have plenty of stored body fat, your body will release it as energy overnight into your
bloodstream, even if you follow a lower-carb diet.

Your body can make glucose from protein and even the fat you eat and the fat on your
body. So, if you have excess energy stored in your body, the glucose you’re consuming from
food will back up in your system and overflow into your bloodstream.

Making sure you are not overeating too late may help decrease waking blood sugars.
However, reducing your body fat levels to more optimal levels may take some time. To do
this, you need to keep chasing a lower pre-meal blood sugar by delaying your meals. You
also must ensure you are eating nutrient-dense, high-satiety meals when you do eat.

Counterintuitively, people on a higher fat diet often see higher blood glucose levels in the
morning, particularly when they ate more fat the night before.

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If your waking glucose is elevated, you could experiment with eating less fat and perhaps in
your evening meal when your blood glucose is lower. Over time, by using your blood
glucose to guide what and when to eat, you may find that your blood glucose levels become
more consistent across the day.

7.19 Why Do I Get Cold When Fast?

Some people find that one of their symptoms of lower blood sugar is being cold. This is
because when your body has less fuel available, it slows the amount of energy it uses to save
energy.

You should take this as a sign that you are hungry and ready to eat. If there is food
available, your body won’t let you be cold and miserable for too long before your appetite
kicks in and you wake Lizzy.

If you feel cold regularly, you should ensure you are getting adequate protein when you eat.
Not only does protein help you maintain your precious muscle, but it also produces more
heat as you digest and metabolise it (i.e., the thermic effect of food).

7.20 Why Do I Get Headaches When I Fast?

As well as energy, your body stores toxins in your body fat. As you lose weight, these stored
toxins will flow into your bloodstream and need to be processed and excreted by your
kidneys. People who fast for extended periods can get bad headaches due to these toxins,
which overload the body and often drive them to stop fasting and eat again.

If you are getting headaches, you should make sure you are drinking plenty of fluids. Some
electrolytes (e.g., salty water or our Optimised Electrolyte Mix recipe) can also help when
your body excretes electrolytes when your blood sugars drop.

However, with Data-Driven Fasting, most people find that headaches are minimal because
they lose weight at a sustainable rate so their body can process the toxins.

7.21 Why It’s More Important to Manage Your Basal

Insulin Than Your Bolus Insulin
Unfortunately, confusion and misunderstanding abound regarding the role of insulin in our
bodies. Optimising our blood glucose, insulin, and body fat is not as simple as reducing our
intake of carbohydrates to achieve more stable blood sugar levels.

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Insulin is an important and powerful hormone secreted by the pancreas. Its most well-
known role is to facilitate the movement of glucose from the bloodstream into your cells, to
either be used as energy or stored away.

The graph below from the Food Insulin Index Data shows how different foods raise our
insulin levels after eating (postprandial).

Notice that pure glucose (black line) quickly drives insulin up, then returns to baseline after
two hours. In contrast, foods like milk (containing a combination of fat and carbs) have a
small initial spike but keep insulin levels elevated beyond the two-hour mark.

But the more significant but often overlooked role of insulin is to function as a dam, holding
back your stored energy while dietary energy is coming in through your mouth.

Monitoring insulin dosing of people with Type 1 Diabetes using insulin pumps gives us
fascinating insight into the actual magnitude of ‘basal insulin’, which is required to stop your
body from disintegrating — regardless of whether you are eating. In contrast, bolus insulin
refers to increased insulin levels after eating.

In people on a standard Western diet, basal insulin makes up about half their daily insulin
dose. However, basal insulin can be 80-90% of the daily insulin requirement for people
adhering to a low-carb or keto diet.

A recent study of people with Type 1 Diabetes showed that when insulin wasn’t taken:

• dietary glucose raised blood sugar in the first three hours or so, while

• dietary fat initially lowered blood glucose in the short term but caused a significant
rise after three hours.

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So, rather than focusing on carbs vs fat or fasting for days at a time, you need to find a way
to reduce the amount of energy from your food sustainably. This allows your body to reduce
the amount of energy you’re holding in storage and thus reduce your insulin levels
throughout the day.

7.22 Why Your Goal is Not Be Flatline Blood Glucose

Levels
Because the amount your blood glucose rises after meals is closely related to what you eat,
many people think managing their blood glucose levels after meals is their end goal. They
mistakenly believe that super-stable, flat-line blood sugars will improve metabolic health and
fat loss.

Unfortunately, this misguided thinking leads some to swap carbs for more dietary fat and
even less protein. This often results in a nutrient-poor, low-satiety diet that drives the
pancreas to increase basal insulin levels and thus total insulin across the day.

Simply swapping carbs for fat in an effort to pursue flat-line blood sugars and lower insulin is
a bit like measuring the volume of water in the ocean by measuring the height of the waves
at the beach.

The real solution is to reduce the area under the curve of your insulin and glucose levels
throughout the day, not just after you eat! As shown in the image below, dietary
carbohydrate governs the short-term rise in glucose, but dietary fat prevents your blood
sugar from dropping for longer.

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The only way to get your blood sugars to drop below what is typical for you and access your
stored energy is to progressively dial back the energy from fat and carbs in your diet and
wait to eat until your body needs more fuel.

Data-Driven Fasting uses the insights from your blood sugars to guide you through fine-
tuning:

• when,

• what, and

• how much you eat.

Before long, you learn to select higher-satiety foods that empower you to manage your
appetite, enabling you to eat less and use stored energy for fuel.

Our analysis of 487,285 glucose values from 4,402 people who have used our Data-Driven
Fasting app over the past two years shows that your blood glucose before you eat matters
the most. Once you solve the energy toxicity problem (i.e., excess stored energy), insulin
toxicity and all the other downstream issues related to your metabolic health will look after
themselves.

For more details, see What are Normal, Healthy, Non-Diabetic Blood Sugar Levels?

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 165

7.23 What Happens to Glucose and Fat When We Eat?
In a recent study (Hall et al., 2020), NIH researchers fed participants a 75% fat or a 75%
carbohydrate diet for two weeks. They tracked blood glucose continually and tested free
fatty acids present in the participants’ blood after meals.

The chart below shows how free fatty acids change after a low-fat meal (plant-based low fat
- green line) vs a high-fat meal (animal-based low carb - red line). Fat in the blood decreases
more after a high-carb meal as the liver (controlled by insulin) slows the process of ‘lipolysis’
(the release of stored fat) until all incoming dietary energy is exhausted. Once our bodies
clear the carbs, stored fat is again released into the bloodstream.

The following chart from the same study shows that after eating a high-carb meal (plant-
based low fat - green line), blood glucose levels rose for about an hour and then fell back
towards the baseline, while a low-carb, high-fat meal (animal-based low carb - red line)
elicited a much flatter glucose response. Interestingly, participants lost slightly more weight
on the low-fat diet, despite their higher glucose and insulin levels.

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Unfortunately, dietary advice promoted by some keto advocates (i.e., reducing carbs and
protein and increasing dietary fat) only manages the symptoms by stabilising blood glucose
after meals; it won’t necessarily help you lose body fat or reverse insulin resistance.

As shown in the chart below from our analysis of people using Data-Driven Fasting, there is
no correlation between a smaller blood glucose rise and a healthier waist-to-height ratio.

So, while overfilling your glucose fuel tank with more dietary carbohydrates than your body
requires is not a great idea, switching carbs for fat to achieve more stable blood sugars
doesn’t help address the root cause.

The charts below show that body fat (assessed by the Body Mass Index or BMI), insulin, and
blood glucose have a strong positive correlation. Therefore, the higher your body fat, the
higher your fasting blood glucose and insulin across the day are likely to be.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 167

So, the only meaningful way to reduce your insulin and fasting blood glucose levels and
reverse Type-2 Diabetes is to reduce the amount of stored body fat you are carrying.

To learn more, see:

• How to use a continuous glucose monitor for weight loss (and why your CGM could be
making you fat), and

• How to lose weight using a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) and Data-Driven
Fasting.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 168

When you don’t eat for a while, your body begins to use up the fuel available in your
bloodstream.

As these supplies are depleted, your liver releases glucose to maintain stable blood sugars.
Then, as glycogen stores are exhausted, your body uses a process known as
‘gluconeogenesis’ to convert protein and even fat to glucose to refill your liver. This critical
process ensures that you always have some glucose available for explosive activity if
required!

When your glycogen stores are depleted—but not entirely exhausted—your blood glucose
starts dropping. Then, finally, you begin pulling energy from stored body fat.

Congratulations. It now takes less insulin to ‘hold’ your fat in storage.

Whether you’re eating a high-fat or a high-carb diet, the key to burning stored body fat is
having blood glucose levels return below your baseline before eating again.

7.24 How Can I Mitigate Menopausal Weight Gain?

Many women find they gain weight during menopause and turn to fasting and other
aggressive strategies to improve their body composition. However, sadly, extended fasting
and extreme calorie restriction may be exacerbating the problem.

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A recent study, Weight gain during the menopause transition – evidence for a mechanism
dependent on protein leverage, by Professors Raubenheimer and Simpson outlined the
mechanism and the solution.

During menopause, women experience a reduction in estrogen (in women) and increased
anabolic resistance/insulin resistance (which also occurs in men as well), leading to a loss of
lean mass as we age. In addition, activity levels often also decrease as we age, so we require
less food.

The body craves more protein to compensate for the loss of critical muscle mass. So, if we
don't change what we eat, we consume more food to get the required protein and hence
gain weight.

To mitigate menopausal weight gain, we need to increase the protein % of our diet by
dialling back energy from fat and carbs and prioritising protein. Of course, being more
active is also helpful. But if you're unable to exercise, you may need to increase your protein
% a little more.

Most people think it's the young bros that need more protein. However, they often find it
easier to get adequate protein because they are more active and use more energy. We often
see older women with the highest protein % thriving in our programs.

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Data-Driven Fasting will guide you to prioritise protein and reduce energy from fat and
carbohydrates when your blood glucose indicates you have plenty of energy available in
your system. This will ensure you minimise the loss of lean muscle mass while also losing
unwanted body fat and draining excess glucose.

In their paper, Raubenheimer and Simpson emphasised that it doesn’t take a massive shift in
protein % to mitigate menopausal weight gain. If you’re still active, you may only need to
increase your protein by 1% or 3% if activity levels decline.

As shown in the chart below from our satiety analysis, increasing protein % tends to align
with a considerable reduction in calories but only a moderate increase in protein intake.
While only small, this increase needs to be consistent.

One of the issues identified by the authors in the consultation with industry groups was that
menopausal women wouldn’t know how to modify their diet to moderately increase their
protein %. While this sounds simple, in theory, it’s often challenging to change our habits
and fight against our instincts that crave energy-dense foods that provide energy from fat
and carbs and less protein. Many people come unstuck when they try to jump from one
extreme to another.

Often tracking your food for a few weeks can be helpful. If you need some extra help, this is
the exact process we guide Optimiser through in our four-week Macros Masterclass.

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Troubleshooting Your Blood Sugars and
Intermittent Fasting
This section of the Data-Driven Fasting FAQs answers questions that arise in the challenges
as people troubleshoot their journeys towards optimal weight and metabolic health.

8.1 Does Insulin Resistance Make It Harder for Me to

Lose Weight?
There is a common misconception that being insulin resistant or having Type2 Diabetes
makes it harder to lose weight.

However, the opposite is true.

We become insulin resistant because we are obese.

We are not obese because we are insulin resistant.

This distinction is critical.

People who can gain a massive amount of weight are often highly insulin-sensitive and have
normal blood glucose levels. This is even true for someone with much higher body fat levels
before they develop diabetes.

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Lean people are typically much more insulin sensitive, meaning they can quickly gain weight
in the form of both muscle and fat when they eat. Weight loss generally slows as someone
becomes leaner, and hunger increases to prevent starvation.

It takes massive discipline and self-restraint for bodybuilders to diet down for a competition.
Bodybuilders regularly deprive themselves of energy to become leaner, despite having high-
calorie demands to support their exercise. After the show, many of them subsequently
regain weight due to a massive upregulation of appetite. Their fat cells are primed, like an
empty sponge, to soak up all the energy they can get.

As a general rule, someone who is obese is more likely to be insulin resistant and have
excess energy flowing into their bloodstream and elevated blood glucose. However, it’s
harder to gain more body fat (at least compared to an ultra-lean bodybuilder) because their
adipose tissues are already much fuller.

However, once they drain the excess energy from their bloodstream and give their body the
nutrients they require without excess energy, they will be able to lose body fat. Their
pancreas is likely struggling to keep up with insulin production to store their excess energy.
As they lose body fat, insulin levels reduce, regaining insulin sensitivity and healthy blood
glucose levels.

8.2 Would Data-Driven Fasting Be Appropriate If I’m

Active?
One of the biggest challenges for active people is getting enough fuel to recover and grow
without eating so much that they add excess body fat. This becomes even more difficult if
someone wants to include fasting in their routine. Our daily energy requirements and
appetite vary depending on the activity type.

Intermittent fasting can be a valuable tool for active people to manage their body
composition. Data-Driven Fasting is not just for overweight people or those with Type-2
Diabetes. We have seen the process be incredibly effective for people at both extremes of
the spectrum of age or metabolic health.

It’s valuable to refuel if your blood glucose is low to avoid getting too hungry, where you
become susceptible to bingeing later. However, given that your blood glucose is closely tied
to body fat levels, using your blood glucose as a fuel gauge also enables you to curb your
appetite.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 173

In contrast, other fasting methods often leave users with a raging appetite and feeling
entitled to eat unlimited amounts of energy that leave them gaining fat despite all their hard
work.

When you are active, your body will crave more energy for recovery and build muscle and
your liver releases stored glucose to fuel your activity. Your muscles become inflamed and
demand glucose to help with the refuelling and repair process.

If you see your blood glucose elevated after a workout, you can flag it in the DDF app, giving
you a slightly higher trigger so you can still eat. Another strategy is to time your Main Meal
before or after your workout.

If your blood glucose is trending up rather than down when you’re well-rested and
recovered, it’s a sign you are over-fuelling and need to dial things back in to avoid gaining
excess body fat.

8.3 What Should I Do If My Waking Blood Glucose Is Not

Dropping?
Your waking blood glucose is a crucial marker of metabolic health and indicates whether you
are holding excess stored energy. We have found that lower pre-meal blood glucose
correlates with lower waking blood glucose.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 174

If you are achieving a negative energy balance, draining your excess glucose stores from
your bloodstream, and losing body fat, you should also see your waking blood glucose
trending downward over the long term.

However, there are several reasons that your waking glucose may not be dropping:

Scenario 1 – Eating too late

When waiting for your trigger, it’s possible that we can push our last meal back so late that
we end up overly hungry late at night. As a result, it might not be a surprise that your
waking blood glucose remains elevated if you are still digesting your meal from the night
before. While many people find it easier to eat later in the day, you should work to
personalise your fasting approach to suit your lifestyle and preferences.

However, plenty of studies, like this one, show that people who eat most of their food later in
the day tend to have worse metabolic health. Although it’s good to wait until your blood
glucose falls below baseline before eating, holding off as long as you possibly can may not
be the solution.

Instead, the best way to manage this may be to start the day with a nutrient-dense, protein-
focused meal regardless of your blood glucose and to finish eating earlier. You can then
treat your other meals as discretionary based on your blood glucose.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 175

Scenario 2 – Stress and poor sleep

Stress and poor sleep will have an impact on your waking blood glucose. High-stress levels
can also trigger comfort eating. Higher waking blood glucose levels may indicate that you
need to manage your stress better.

If your blood glucose levels are abnormally elevated due to stress, you can tick the relevant
boxes in the DDF app to get a slightly higher trigger for 24 hours so you can still eat.

Scenario 3 – Low protein percentage

People who have body fat to lose but eat a lower protein percentage may see minimal
variability in their blood glucose after meals. However, their body still releases plenty of
stored energy into their bloodstream overnight, which can cause elevated morning blood
glucose. Prioritising a higher protein percentage by reducing dietary fat and carbs provides
greater satiety. In time, this will help with fat loss and lower waking blood glucose.

Scenario 4 – Your weight is in freefall!

As you wait for your pre-meal blood glucose to drop below your trigger, your insulin levels
will plummet to allow stored energy in the form of glucose, ketones, and free fatty acids to
flow into your bloodstream. If you have fat to lose, this is a good thing as you will use stored
energy. Despite eating less, you will have plenty of fuel in the bloodstream.

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If your waking blood glucose is higher but your pre-meal blood glucose, weight, waist and
body fat are all trending down, you simply need to be patient. It’s normal for insulin levels to
drop and ketones to rise over the first couple of weeks of weight loss before levelling out
when your weight stabilises again.

If other markers like waist, weight, and body fat are moving in the right direction, you should
expect to see lower waking glucose once you switch to maintenance mode and your weight
stabilises. This is because your body has less energy to hold in storage, and waking glucose
thus becomes lower.

Rather than stressing over your waking glucose, we suggest you stop testing your waking
blood glucose during the challenge and focus on pre-meal blood glucose until you transition
to maintenance. Once your weight is stable, your waking glucose will be a more useful
indicator of metabolic health than while your weight is in freefall.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 177

8.4 What If My Blood Glucose Doesn't Drop Below My
Trigger for The Whole Day?
As you start to make progress and burn through excess glucose stores, your body will start
to find a new normal. Some days, you may not see your blood glucose fall below your
trigger and wonder if you’re allowed to eat at all that day.

This is where you can fall back to your Main Meal and Discretionary Meals. If your blood
glucose is above your trigger despite still feeling hungry, you can choose to eat one less
meal than usual that day. For example:

● If you usually have three meals, you can choose to have two.

● If you usually have two meals, you can drop back to only Your Main Meal.

We don’t recommend you try to skip full days of eating as you risk becoming overly hungry
and bingeing on less optimal foods when refuelling. If your blood glucose is slightly above
your trigger, the DDF app will suggest you focus on nutrient-dense foods with a higher
protein percentage if you are hungry. Focussing on protein and nutrients will allow your
body to draw on the energy stores in your body while still getting everything you need.

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8.5 Should I Fast When I’m Sick?
Sickness, infection and inflammation can affect your blood glucose. People often see their
blood sugars rise when they are sick. This is because your body may need more food to
recover from illness. You may also lose your appetite while your body takes some downtime
to heal.

Feel free to take a break from testing your blood glucose and follow your regular eating
routine when you're sick. Listen to your appetite signals and eat when hungry. You can
always pick back up where you left off with Data-Driven Fasting once you recover.

8.6 Is My Blood Glucose Meter Accurate?

Some people are bemused when they take multiple tests and find they are slightly different.
This causes them to question the accuracy of their meter.

Others take multiple tests with multiple meters and get confused when they get different
readings. In this case, you should find one accurate meter and stick with it. Your trigger will
adapt to you and your meter, so it doesn’t matter how it compares to other meters.

There’s no harm in taking another measurement if the number you see on your meter isn’t
what you expected or is outside your normal range. Measurements can sometimes be less
accurate if you initially didn’t get enough blood and had to add more to get a reading.

However, keep in mind that no measurement is perfectly accurate. We recommend you

don’t continue taking multiple measurements and second guess the numbers.

While any measurement will always vary, you can still use the data to force the trend in your
desired direction. If you feel starving, you are free to override the blood glucose trigger.

8.7 How Will Fasting Affect My Sleep?

Many people find their sleep improves when their blood glucose starts to stabilise.

Not eating too much or too late enables your body to rest, repair, and recover rather than
working all night to store the food you ate just before bed.

Getting adequate protein is critical to provide amino acids like tyrosine and tryptophan.
These compounds are the precursors to melatonin, which promotes healthy sleep cycles.

It’s important to remember that as you get leaner and move towards the other end of the
spectrum, your sleep may worsen. This often results because your body perceives starvation

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 179

and releases cortisol and ketones to keep you alert to survive. So, insomnia and poor sleep
could indicate you’re going too fast with your dieting or that you’ve gone too far in your
weight loss.

Most people who have dieted down to very lean levels find their sleep deteriorates. Not
sleeping well is not sustainable and can even be counterproductive to weight loss. Sleep
deprivation can trigger cravings for energy-dense food, as your body does whatever it can to
reach a more comfortable body fat level.

If you find you are not sleeping well, it might be wise to back off for a little while and be
more gracious with yourself. Try switching to Pause Mode or Maintenance Mode in the DDF
app until you feel OK. You can always come back when you are ready.

8.8 Why am I Gaining Weight When I Eat More Protein?

Some people are perplexed when they see the weight on the scale increase when they start
eating more protein. However, at the same time, their body fat and waist measurements are
decreasing.

If you currently don’t eat a significant amount of protein because you are following a high-
fat keto diet or some form of extended fasting, your body may be starving for adequate
protein. When you give it more protein, your appetite may temporarily increase for high-
protein foods as your body uses it to rebuild your muscles and organs.

While this may result in a temporary increase in scale weight, you can rest assured that your
body finds it very hard to convert protein to body fat. Before long, your appetite will settle,
and you can get on with losing body fat once your body has obtained protein.

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Remember, your goal is not just to lose weight but rather to lose fat without losing too much
muscle. Muscle is denser than fat. If you are tracking using bioimpedance scales, you want
to see a trend toward reducing body fat rather than only weight loss.

A simple waist measurement and how your clothes fit will indicate whether you’re gaining
muscle or fat with your increased protein.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 181

See What do the numbers on my bioimpedance scale mean (and how can I manage them)?
for more details on how to make the most of your scales.

8.9 Is My Thyroid Stopping Me from Losing Weight?

Many people who have excess stored fat and metabolic syndrome have some level of thyroid
dysfunction. Diabetes and autoimmune issues, such as poor thyroid function often come as
a package. However, similar to insulin, poor thyroid function can be the result of obesity
rather than the cause.

Your thyroid is a central governor of your metabolism. Like insulin, your pituitary gland will
ramp up the production of thyroid-stimulating hormone to rev your metabolic rate if you
have more energy to burn off.

If you are taking medication for your thyroid, you should continue to have your thyroid-
stimulating hormone (TSH) monitored by your health care team and adjust your medications
as required.

As you lose weight and reduce your blood glucose, your body won’t need as much thyroid-
stimulating hormone to keep your metabolism elevated. Thus, your TSH levels may decrease.
Many people have had to decrease their medication to accommodate their normalising TSH
levels as they progress with Data-Driven Fasting.

It’s also worth noting that consuming adequate micronutrients like selenium, iodine, niacin,
histidine, and tyrosine is critical to healthy thyroid function. Hence, prioritising nutrient-
dense meals from whole foods is also a crucial part of the equation.

If you find your blood sugars are low and stable and your weight loss has stalled later in your
Data-Driven Fasting journey, an occasional bolus of carbs can boost thyroid function and
metabolic rate to restart weight loss when your blood sugars start to bottom out.

For more details, see Metabolic flexibility: How to Give Your Body What it Needs When It
Needs It.

8.10 Don’t Try Too Hard!

Ironically, we find that people who stress less and gamify the DDF process do better than
those who try harder.

Don’t try to push your blood glucose too far beyond your current trigger by waiting too
long.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 182

You want to feel a little hungry - not STARVING! - before you eat. Otherwise, you will be
more likely to overeat at your next meal and have to delay your next meal even further until
your blood glucose falls below your trigger.

Data-Driven Fasting is a tool to ensure you achieve an energy deficit over the long term. Not
surprisingly, it will become more challenging if you force a more significant energy deficit as
your lizard brain fights back to ensure you survive.

Your long-term goal with Data-Driven Fasting is to find a sustainable routine that allows you
to move towards a goal like weight loss, fat loss, lowered blood glucose, or insulin sensitivity
over the coming weeks and months.

Data-Driven Fasting helps fine-tune your eating schedule, retrain your appetite and hunger
signals, and build long-term habits. If you push too hard, your body will always find a way to
compensate to survive.

You only need the minimum effective dose of fasting to move toward your goals at a
sustainable rate. Not only will this be easier to do, but it will also give you a better chance of
long-term success with less stress.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 183

Other Things That Affect Your Blood
Sugars (Other Than Food)
As you progress through your Data-Driven Fasting journey, you will start to notice how
different things other than food influence your blood sugars.

A deeper understanding of these various factors will help you to better interpret the number
you see on your meter.

9.1 Many Things Affect Your Blood Sugars

As noted by Dr Jason Fung, back in 2016, when we were initially developing the ideas around
DDF, many things can affect your blood glucose, such as stress, exercise, illness, and
hormones.

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Tracking your blood glucose is a powerful way to ensure you give your body what it needs
when it needs it. However, it’s helpful to be aware of factors other than your food that can
affect your blood sugars.

The intent of Data-Driven Fasting is to use your blood glucose as a guide. Don’t be hard on
yourself if you feel compelled to eat before your blood glucose drops below your trigger.
When this happens, try to be mindful of the other factors like exercise, stress, mood, and
hormones (e.g., that time of the month for women) that can affect your blood sugars.

Remember, you only need to log a blood glucose below your trigger more often than not
to make progress. Your blood glucose can also highlight areas that need improvement, like
stress and sleep.

If your blood glucose is a little high, you know you still have plenty of fuel onboard and that
all you need is nutrients. So, if you are hungry and choose to eat, prioritise nutrient-dense
foods and meals with a higher protein percentage.

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This will allow you to draw on your body’s stored fat and glucose while providing the
nutrients you need to function optimally, prevent cravings, and preserve precious lean
muscle mass.

9.2 How Does Sleep Affect Blood Glucose?

Getting good sleep is essential, especially when it comes to managing your cortisol and
waking blood glucose. Don’t underestimate the power of a good night’s sleep to stabilise
blood glucose and help manage your appetite!

We tend to sleep better if we’re not over-full or too hungry. So, try not to eat your largest
meal, or only meal for the day, just before you go to bed. If you do, your metabolism will be
elevated through the night as you burn off the energy from dinner or that late-night snack.

At the same time, you don’t want to be too hungry. Ketone levels rise once your glucose is
depleted to ensure you are alert and energised to go out and hunt rather than lie down and
sleep deeply.

If you start to notice your blood glucose is elevated after not sleeping well, do what you can
to improve your sleep hygiene by limiting blue light from screens after dark, having a wind-
down routine, and allowing enough time for sleep.

It’s also worth noting that high-protein meals will keep your metabolism more elevated than
carbs and fat. Thus, it’s ideal to front-load your protein earlier in the day and top up on
energy later (if required) when your blood sugars are lower.

9.3 Should I Exercise?

Resistance training sends a signal to tell your body to maintain your muscle during weight
loss. However, keep in mind that your blood glucose may go up or down when you exercise.
You should, therefore, only use your blood glucose as an indicator of when to eat after your
blood glucose has settled down.

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If you typically feel hungry around your workout, you could choose to eat your Main Meal in
the morning just before or after your workout, regardless of your blood glucose. Ideally, this
should be protein-rich to support recovery. You can treat other meals and snacks across the
day as Discretionary Meals and only eat them if your blood glucose is below your trigger.

If you notice that your blood glucose is abnormally elevated after exercise, you can flag it in
the DDF App to get a slightly higher trigger for the day.

While lower-intensity exercise can lower blood glucose levels, keep in mind that intense
exercise can increase them. Although your post-exercise glucose levels may be higher than
your trigger, it’s OK to eat quality food when you’re hungry after your workouts. It’s often
ideal to eat after exercise when you first feel hungry, even if your blood sugar is still above
your trigger, rather than waiting to the point you are ravenous because your blood glucose
has plummeted.

9.4 How Does Exercise Impact Your Blood Glucose

Levels?
Taking a moderate-paced walk or doing low-intensity exercise can deplete your blood
glucose.

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Exercising at a lower intensity when you can still breathe and talk easily will burn more fat
and lower your glucose. Resistance training helps build metabolically active lean mass,
which increases your overall metabolic rate.

Both resistance training and low-intensity exercise have their place, but they will affect your
blood sugar differently. Higher-intensity exercise will cause a release of stored energy from
your liver, and you may see blood glucose rise.

If you do intense exercise, your body will release glucose into your bloodstream to fuel the
activity. This is not a problem, but it’s just something to keep in mind when testing your
blood glucose.

People often don’t feel hungry after exercise because of this elevated blood glucose.
However, if you feel hungry after your workout and your blood glucose is still artificially
elevated, don’t be afraid to eat! You may find that eating your Main Meal before or after
your workout helps you avoid more intense hunger later in the day, which often leads to
poorer food choices.

If you do a heavy workout like high-intensity interval training or intense weightlifting that
depletes glycogen stores, don’t be surprised if you find yourself hungrier later in the day as
your body tries to refill your glucose and fat fuel tanks. You can use your blood sugar levels
to experiment with your meal timings to ensure you refuel before your blood glucose gets
too low and you end up in an all-out binge.

It’s virtually impossible to calculate calories burned during exercise accurately. It’s also easy
to overeat due to increased hunger after your workout. However, once the glucose surge

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has settled, your blood glucose will give you a good idea of whether you are over or under-
fuelling over the long term.

9.4 Is It Better to Exercise Fasted?

If your blood glucose levels are low before your workout and you need to perform high-
intensity activity, it can be a good idea to eat to ensure you have adequate glucose onboard.
However, if your blood glucose is in the normal range and you’re not overly hungry, then
refuelling with a hearty meal after your workout is ideal.

Carbing up right before your workout can lead to a glucose crash once you start working out
(i.e., reactive hypoglycaemia). Many people don’t feel great working out on a full stomach
because your body’s resources are directed to digestion rather than performance.

If you want to burn body fat, have plenty of glucose on board, and are not hungry, exercising
in the morning before you eat is a great idea. However, if you want to perform explosive
exercise, run faster or lift heavier, you don’t want to have low blood glucose before your
workout.

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9.5 How Can I Use My Glucose to Optimise My Workout
Fuelling?
Your blood glucose can give powerful insights to help you decide when and what to eat
around exercise. CGMs have even been banned in cycling competitions due to their
potential performance advantages.

Even if you’re not an elite cyclist, you still want to keep your blood glucose in the normal
healthy range to maximise performance. Overdoing carbs can cause sharp rises that lead to
glucose crashes later. Similarly, you also want to avoid running out of glucose (known as
‘bonking’).

Outlined below are some scenarios to show how you can optimise your workout selection
and fuelling to align with your goals to enable you to leverage the insights from your
glucose monitor.

Lower Intensity Short Duration Exercise

Low-intensity exercise is a great way to lower glucose at any time.

One of the primary observations from many people who have tried CGMs is the importance
of being active throughout the day to lower glucose.

If your blood glucose is elevated, a gentle walk is a great way to bring it down at any time of
the day, e.g.:

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 190

 • in the morning before you eat when your blood glucose is elevated due to the dawn
phenomenon, or

• after a meal to blunt the rise in glucose after you eat.

Lower intensity exercise mainly uses fat, but it will also slowly deplete your blood glucose.
The good news is that if you are using your glucose to guide when you eat, you will be able
to eat again sooner because you have used the excess glucose in your system.

If you want to get technical, your goal is to keep your intensity low enough to stay below
your “lactate threshold”. This is the intensity at which your body can use the lactate
produced for energy without it building up to higher levels in the blood.

But unless you’re an elite cyclist, you’re probably not testing your lactate or VO2max. You can
also use a heart rate monitor and keep your heart rate under 180 minus your age. This is
also known as “Zone 2” training.

But the most practical way for most people to monitor intensity is to monitor their breathing.
For example, if you can still carry out a conversation with complete sentences and breathe
through your nose, you’re in Zone 2 and will deplete rather than raise your glucose.
Likewise, if you were talking on the phone, the person on the other end would know you’re
exercising, but it wouldn’t hamper the conversation.

You could potentially go all day and not get tired at this lower intensity. And possibly, more
importantly, you can get up the next day and do it all over again without feeling overly
fatigued.

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This pace may initially feel slow, but in time, as your body learns to oxidise more fat for fuel
rather than glucose, during exercise, the speed and power you can produce at a lower
intensity will increase.

You don’t have to go all out if you're new to exercise. Monitoring your step count on your
phone can be a great way to start. If you look at your phone and find your current average
step count is 2000 per day. Next week, aim for 3000. Once you can consistently do that for
a week, aim for 4000 each day.

If you’re curious, you could check your glucose before and activity the activity. You should
see it drop slowly but not so low that you get ravenously hungry afterwards.

Short Duration High-Intensity Exercise

Once your body has mastered using fat for fuel at a lower intensity, more intense exercise
such as resistance training or high-intensity interval training (HIIT) is a great way to build
strength and aerobic capacity. But your body will need some glucose to fuel your more
intense activity.

Unless your glucose is lower than normal for you before your workout, you don’t need to eat
before an intense workout. Your body has plenty of stored glycogen that it can release to
fuel your activity. If you test your glucose, you may see a rise in glucose during your
workout.

However, you need to be ready for the crash in glucose afterwards. If you used a lot of
glucose in your high-intensity workout, your muscles will be depleted afterwards and suck
the glucose from your blood into your muscles to refuel.

Rather than insulin ‘pushing’ glucose into your cells, this process uses your GLUT1 glucose
transporters (i.e., non-insulin-mediated glucose uptake). Waiting too long to eat after a
workout can lead to lower blood sugars than your body is comfortable with and intense
cravings for energy-dense foods to quickly replenish the energy deficit created by the
workout.

So, you should be ready with a robust, protein-focused meal after your workout that will
blunt your hunger and give your muscles what they need to recover and grow. If your blood
sugars are lower than normal for you, you can use some faster-acting carbs to bring your
blood glucose up into the normal range and keep Lizzy at bay.

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Longer Duration Low-Intensity Exercise

If you’re doing long-duration activity (e.g., triathlons, marathons etc.), you must train your
fat-burning metabolism with lower-intensity exercise and get used to having lower glucose
levels.

This training style means you have plenty of glucose in reserve for intense efforts. While you
may be able to use mainly fat for the majority of an event, competitions are won and lost in
the sprints at the end. Therefore, having some glucose in reserve is critical.

Fast-acting carbs that raise your blood glucose levels can lead to crashes later. So, it can be
useful to monitor your blood sugars before, during and after exercise and ensure that your
blood sugars are not rising excessively (e.g., by more than 30 mg/dL or 1.6 mmol/L) after you
eat or crash below your normal level.

Evening out your fuelling by finding the balance of fat and carbs that suit your activity and
metabolism can lead to more stable and sustainable energy levels. For example, if your
blood sugars don’t rise excessively, you can afford to fuel with more fast-acting carbs. But if
you’re not yet as metabolically flexible as a Tour De France cyclist, you may need to lean
towards more fat to ensure a steadier fuel flow.

Of course, if you find lower blood sugars towards the end of the activity, some fast-acting
carbs can be helpful. This is why endurance athletes are constantly pounding gels and bars
during the event to refill their glycogen stores quickly to prevent bonking.

You can find the fuelling regime that works for your metabolism and training with some trial
and error. For example, many high-performance athletes require tons of fast-acting
carbohydrates. However, people who compete in more extended duration events often find
it more helpful to lean towards a higher fat diet to maintain more stable energy, less
dependence on in-race fuelling and less digestive distress.

Once you’ve trained your fat-burning metabolism, you can load up on carbs and fats to fuel
up for race day for the best performance.

9.5 Why Does My Glucose Rise When I Don’t Eat?

It may seem counter-intuitive, but your blood glucose after meals or upon waking can
increase as you lose weight, particularly if you don’t have great metabolic health and (or)
have a lot of weight to lose.

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If you are overweight, your body has a lot of stored energy to unload when you don’t eat for
a while. So, given the opportunity, your body is eager to dump your stored energy in the
form of glucose and fat into your bloodstream.

You should see your waking blood glucose trend down over the long term, especially once
your weight is stable. However, many people see their waking blood glucose drift up a little
in the short term. They also find their blood glucose can increase during the day, even if
they haven’t eaten. This can be frustrating when they are delaying their meals and waiting to
eat.

However, this is not cause for concern. Your body is just releasing stored energy from its fuel
reserves into your bloodstream. You can see rising glucose when you don’t eat as a sign that
your body is releasing stored energy, so you don’t need to eat now.

If other health markers like body fat, weight, and waist are moving in the right direction,
there is a good chance you will be in a much healthier position long term.

Rather than trying to fast for longer, which can cause your blood glucose and ketones to rise
even more, it’s ideal to find a sustainable daily eating pattern. Eventually, you should see
your blood glucose levels fall, and your body fat levels decrease as you deplete your liver
glycogen.

9.6 Can I Fast When I’m Stressed?

The extra adrenaline and cortisol from stress can also cause your blood glucose to rise,
regardless of what you eat (or don’t!). Stress can also cause your lizard brain to awaken, and
you may eat for comfort to prepare for an emergency like during a famine or to run away
from a predator.

Aside from waiting to eat, you can lower your blood glucose by doing what you need to
relax and de-stress. Breathing exercises, meditation, a walk in the sun, sleeping in, a hot
bath, and journaling are powerful and free ways to calm your mind. Don’t be surprised if
actively managing your stress helps you lose weight!

Many people find they get the best results with Data-Driven Fasting when they relax, don’t
overthink the process and stop trying quite so hard to force the process.

In the Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge, we encourage people to relax and follow the
process. It’s only four weeks of your life! If it doesn’t work out, you can always go back to
what you were doing before.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 194

Moving On… After the DDF Challenge
As we head towards the end of the Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge, many people ask
about what’s next and what they can do to dial in WHAT they eat (rather than just WHEN).

We’re big believers in keeping things as simple as possible to allow you to master one new
skill at a time. If in doubt, it’s better to keep things simple rather than become overwhelmed.
But eventually, WHAT you eat becomes critical.

This final section of the DDF FAQs will give you some ideas you can implement once you feel
you are ready to take the next steps toward Nutritional Optimisation.

10.1 How Long Can I Do This For?

You can follow Data-Driven Fasting until you achieve your goal. For example:

• a waist-to-height ratio of less than 0.5,

• a body-fat level of less than 15% for men or 25% for women, or

• as waking glucose of less than 100 mg/dL or 5.6 mmol/L.

As shown in the chart below, a pre-meal trigger of 4.5 mmol/L or 80 mg/dL corresponds with
a waking glucose of about 4.9 mmol/L or 90 mg/dL, which aligns with the lowest risk of all-
cause mortality.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 195

But if you have a long way to go, you may not reach your goal in a single four-week DDF
challenge. We recommend you transition to Maintenance Mode if:

• You reach your goal,

• The process is becoming stressful,

• You are becoming overly food-focused,

• You are struggling to reach your trigger,

• You are feeling overly hungry, weak, cold, depressed, or lethargic,

• To take a break until the next round of DDF Challenge, or

• You notice changes in libido or monthly cycles (women).

You can always restart the process when you feel you are ready or when the next round of
the Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge rolls around. You can see the schedule of
upcoming DDF Challenges here.

10.2 Maintenance Mode

Long-term weight loss can get hard after a while. Therefore, it can be beneficial to take a
‘diet break’ to ‘practice maintenance’. When you’re ready to activate maintenance mode,
click on the three dots on the right of the DDF app home page and select ‘maintenance
mode’.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 196

Maintenance mode will give you a slightly higher pre-meal glucose trigger (10 mg/dL or 0.6
mmol/L above your final trigger) that will help you maintain your current weight.

If you weigh yourself at least weekly, the DDF app will provide you with an updated
maintenance trigger.

• If your weight drops by more than 2%, your premeal trigger will increase.

• If your weight starts to trend up, your premeal trigger will lower.

• If your weight goes up by more than 4%, we recommend you jump into the next
round of the Data-Driven Fasting Challenge to dial things back in again.

Learning to maintain your weight is also a skill that many find more challenging than the
weight loss process itself. Hence, it can be helpful to continue using your blood sugars to
guide you as you start this new phase. You can think of it as having trainer wheels at your
new lowered body weight.

Maintenance does not mean you eat anything and everything. Instead, you are practising
eating in a way that enables you to maintain your weight. During maintenance, you may be
able to focus a little more on the WHAT to eat side of the equation without worrying so
much about eating less frequently.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 197

It’s interesting to see that many people continue to lose weight in the maintenance phase
with a higher trigger after improving their fat burning and stress less over managing their
glucose.

10.3 What Should I Eat During Maintenance?

Maintenance Mode will allow you to eat more often and/or in larger quantities. Therefore,
what you eat initially shouldn’t change too much. However, if you are finding you’re still
hungry, you can bring back some more energy from carbs and/or fats.

But be careful about reverting to hyperpalatable carb+fat comfort foods. Most people find
these foods hard to eat in moderation. Once you start and tell your body that these foods
are available, it can be hard to stop, and you may find that you quickly undo all your hard
work and be back where you started. Continuing to check your premeal glucose during
maintenance will ensure that you don’t go off the rails as soon as the ‘diet’ is over as many
people tend to do.

10.4 Should I Switch to Maintenance or Keep on Chasing

My Trigger?
Many people are eager to continue the DDF process after the challenge rather than
switching to maintenance.

If you haven’t lost a lot of weight and are easily meeting your trigger at every meal, you may
want to keep chasing your trigger between challenges. However, if it’s starting to get hard
and you’re feeling overly food-focused, tired, cold or mentally exhausted, we recommend
taking a break and practising weight maintenance until the next round. It’s important you
don’t push your body to the point that it’s hard not to rebound.

It’s normal for your premeal trigger to be slightly higher after re-baselining at the start of
each round of the challenge. As shown in the chart below from Julia’s 18-month DDF
journey, your premeal trigger will fall during the first few rounds but then finds a lower level
that it is comfortable with.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 198

Periods of maintenance between challenges allows your glucose stores to replenish at this
new normal before starting again. Even though your trigger may not continue to drop
further, you will continue to lose weight as you repeatedly chase your trigger in successful
founds.

10.5 Pause Mode

We designed ‘Pause Mode’ for people who want to take a break from chasing a lower trigger
but don’t want to see their trigger go up during maintenance. Pause mode would be ideal
for a quick break between challenges, especially if you are not finding the process too
challenging (yet). To activate Pause Mode, go to Quick Actions (three vertical dots) and select
‘Pause Mode’. Later, when you’re ready, you can restart Hunger Training at the same trigger
without having to re-do baselining.

If in doubt, we suggest you transition to maintenance between challenges rather than

continue to chase a lower and lower trigger, which can get very difficult and frustrating after
a few months.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 199

10.6 Should I Do Another DDF Challenge?
Many people have found they love the community support in the Data-Driven Fasting 30-
Day Challenge. After one challenge, they feel they are just starting to get the hang of the
process and want to keep going.

The DDF process is quite simple but retraining your habits and finding a new groove can
take some time to master. If you sign up for a single challenge, you will access the DDF app
for 45 days.

If you are already a DDF Unlimited Member or have our All Inclusive Membership, you will
get an email inviting you to join the next challenge group at the end of each challenge. The
All Inclusive Membership allows people to do any of the DDF Challenges (eight per year)
they want as well as our Macros Masterclass (five per year) or Micros Masterclass (four per
year) to continue their journey of Nutritional Optimisation.

You will also be invited to a DDF Masters group where people can ask for support beyond
the challenges. We are building a supportive community of people who have mastered DDF
to help newcomers who join in the future.

10.7 When Is the Next Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day

Challenge?
The growing Data-Driven Fasting community is extremely exciting as more people return for
subsequent rounds of DDF to continue their journey and help newcomers find their way.

You can check out the full schedule of upcoming events here.

10.8 Should I Do DDF Or the Macros Masterclass First?

Data-Driven Fasting is a great introduction to kick start your weight loss journey by dialling
in WHEN you eat. However, WHAT you eat eventually becomes the limiting factor.

DDF simply uses your premeal blood glucose, whereas the Macros Masterclass and the
Micros Masterclass require that you track your food for four weeks to guide you to dial in
your meal choices.

You should only bring out the big guns once you have exhausted the simplest options. But
when you’re ready, the Macros Masterclass and the Micros Masterclass are excellent options
to help you fine-tune WHAT you eat to help you move towards optimal.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 200

10.9 How Do I Get the Free Food Lists?
We have created a wide range of nutrient-dense food lists tailored towards different goals
that you can access in our Optimising Nutrition Community here.

• If your post-meal BGs are typically below your upper limit and do not rise more than
30mg/dL or 1.6 mmol/L after meals, we recommend using the Maximum Nutrient
Density or Fat-Loss food lists.

• If you are still working to stabilise your blood sugar to a healthy range, you should
choose the Blood Sugar and Fat Loss food list.

Each food list is organised into groups (e.g., plants, animal-based, seafood). The foods at the
top of each list are ranked the highest for each goal. We recommend you work through

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 201

these food lists and find foods you want to incorporate into your daily routine. You will find
some you like and others you don’t.

10.10 Nutribooster Recipe Books

After publishing hundreds of articles about nutrient density, satiety, and optimising blood
sugar and insulin levels, we finally realised that we needed to make it as easy as possible for
YOU to implement in your kitchen if Nutritional Optimisation was going to become a
movement.

When everything is optimised using artificial intelligence and big data these days, why
shouldn't you be able to optimise the nutrients in your food? Our ambitious goal was to
reinvent and revolutionise the recipe genre by spotlighting essential micronutrients using a
data-driven approach.

To bring this to fruition, we created a series of recipe books tailored to a range of goals. To
help you decide, we have prepared this table with a brief description of each book and who
they are most suited for.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 202

 Goal Appropriate for

Designed for rapid fat loss by providing optimal satiation from

Fat loss adequate protein to prevent muscle loss and decrease hunger and
cravings stemming from nutrient deficiencies.

Maximum Nutrient These are the most nutrient-dense recipes available!

Density

Designed to stabilise blood sugars and maintain weight on a

Low Carb & Blood
nutritious low-carb diet. Ideal for someone with diabetes or anyone
Sugar
who enjoys eating low carb.

Blood Sugar & Fat Designed for someone with elevated blood sugars and body fat to
Loss lose.

Designed for someone looking to gain muscle without increasing

Bodybuilders
excess body fat.

High Protein:Energy Designed with a high protein:energy ratio for aggressive fat loss.

Designed for someone who enjoys eating ketogenic but does not
Nutritional Keto
require therapeutic ketone levels.

Designed for people who require therapeutic ketone levels for

Therapeutic Keto
specific conditions (e.g., for epilepsy, dementia, or Parkinson's).

Plant-Based These are the most nutrient-dense plant-based recipes available.

Vegetarian These are the most nutrient-dense vegetarian meals.

These are the most nutrient-dense, low-carb vegetarian meals

Low Carb Vegetarian
designed to stabilise blood sugars.

These are the most nutrient-dense, lacto vegetarian (i.e., no meat,

Lacto Vegetarian
seafood or eggs).

Designed to help you maintain your body weight by optimising

Maintenance
nutrient content to live a healthy and energised life.

These are the most nutrient-dense pescatarian recipes (i.e., vegetarian

Pescatarian
plus seafood).

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 203

 Goal Appropriate for

Egg-Free The most nutrient-dense meals without eggs.

Dairy-Free The most nutrient-dense meals without dairy.

Egg & Dairy-Free The most nutrient-dense meals without eggs or dairy.

Designed to support activity or growth while optimising nutrient

Athletes & Bulking
density.

These are the most nutrient-dense meals that contain meat (i.e., beef,
Meat-Based
pork, chicken, etc.).

Recipes designed to prioritise nutrients like iron, selenium, zinc,

Immunity potassium, vitamins A, C, and D that support healthy immune
function.

Designed for someone with cancer that needs less glutamic acid and
Cancer (weight loss &
methionine while maximising nutrient density and satiety to promote
nutrient density)
fat loss.

Designed for someone with cancer that requires less glutamic acid
Cancer (weight
and methionine while providing enough energy to maintain a healthy
maintenance)
weight.

Designed for someone with cancer that requires less glutamic acid
Cancer (weight gain) and methionine while providing plenty of energy to support weight
gain after or during cancer treatment.

Smoothies The most nutritious smoothies for quick and easy meals on the go.

Low-oxalate NutriBoosters to maximise nutrient density while

Low Oxalate
avoiding foods high in oxalates.

Our Low FODMAP NutriBoosters were created to supply nutrient-

Low FODMAP
dense, satiating recipes while excluding high FODMAP foods.
We have designed this collection of NutriBoosters to minimise
Low Histamine
histamines while maximising nutrient density as much as possible.
Designed for people who prefer eating low-fat, which can be great if
Low Fat your blood sugars are excellent, or you need to refill your glycogen
stores quickly.

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10.11 Cronometer
While DDF solves the energy balance equation without food tracking, paying attention to
your macronutrients and micronutrients is also helpful to help you dial in WHAT to eat to
reach your goals. Similar to tracking your blood sugars, tracking your current eating habits
for a period can be valuable to see if you are giving your body what it needs.

Cronometer allows users to see their macronutrient intake (carbs, protein, and fat) and their
micronutrient intake (vitamins and minerals). Cronometer has a paid (Gold) option, but the
free version is fine for our purposes.

If your glucose is dropping, but you do not see the fat loss you want, we recommend you
slowly dial up your protein % by dialling back dietary carbs and fat.

We tend to see the best fat loss and satiety results when people work towards 40% protein.
However, you don’t need to jump there immediately. It will be more sustainable if you
progressively dial it up. For example, if you find that your current protein % is 15%, try
increasing it to 20% next week. If the scale isn’t moving, try 25% the following week.

You can see your protein % in Cronometer by tapping on or mousing over the ‘consumed’
circle (shown on the left below) in the app or on the computer. We will guide you through
this process step by step in the Macros Masterclass, where the Smart Macros algorithm in
Nutrient Optimiser will help you tweak your macro targets based on your progress each
week.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 205

10.12 Free 7-Day Nutrient Clarity Challenge
Nutrient Density is central to everything we do at Optimising Nutrition. However, there is no
‘one-size-fits-all’ solution to solve the puzzle of what food YOU need to prioritise to improve
the micronutrient profile of your diet. To help you understand what foods and meals you
need to focus on, we created a 7-Day Nutrient Clarity Challenge.

At the end of 7 days of tracking, Nutrient Optimiser will calculate your micronutrient
fingerprint (see example below) and identify which foods and meals you need to focus on to
get more of the nutrients you are currently getting less of.

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10.13 Nutrient Optimiser
Nutrient Optimiser is the DDF app's BIG brother. We have been working on this for four
years, trying to make it as powerful and straightforward as possible. If you have already
done the 7-Day Nutrient Clarity Challenge, you will already have a login. If not, you can
complete the Quiz at https://nutrientoptimiser.com/ to get set up.

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 207

10.14 Join Our Community!
If you want to dive a little deeper into our world, we’d love you to join our free Optimising
Nutrition Community here. After growing a fantastic community on Facebook over the past
couple of years, we decided it was time to set up our own space away from the noise of
social media.

All our future challenges will be run here. You will also get a stream of recipes and other
inspiration to help you continue your journey towards optimising your nutrition.

10.15 Follow Optimising Nutrition

In addition, we also have many resources that you can check out.

Follow

• Podcast
• Facebook
• YouTube
• Twitter
• Instagram

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 208

 • Pinterest

Facebook Groups

• Optimising Nutrition
• Data-Driven Fasting
• NutriBooster Recipes
• Nutrient Optimiser

Free Tools

• Food Lists
• Macro calculator
• Food-nutrient analysis search
• Best foods for each nutrient
• NutriBooster
• 7-Day Nutrient Clarity Challenge
• Nutrients for Health Conditions

Products

• NutriBooster Books
• Data-Driven Fasting 30-Day Challenge
• Macros Masterclass
• Micros Masterclass
• All-Inclusive Lifetime Membership
• Big Fat Keto Lies (Book)

Data-Driven Fasting Manual Oct-22 page 209