🩸 When Numbers Tell Stories: My Annual Blood Report Meets Twice a Month Fasting (Part 3 of “A Journey to Outsmart Blood Sugar”)

For most people, November means pumpkin pies, Diwali sweets, or early-bird Black Friday deals. For me, it’s a combo of Halloween hangover and health homework.

While everyone else is finishing leftover candy and bragging about their costume photos, I’m opening my LabCorp report which, let’s be honest, is scarier than any haunted house. 🎃

This is my version of a Halloween sequel: “Return of the Lab Report. Except the ghosts here have names like LDL, Triglycerides, TSH and they never fail to haunt me every November.

This year, though, I had reasons to be hopeful. For over a year, I’ve been fasting twice a month (36–44 hours each time) and, for the last two months, I’ve downsized from three meals a day to two.

Basically, I’m running a low-budget metabolic startup, testing whether patience, not pills, can fix my biochemistry.

The Good, the Bad, and the Boring (data do not lie)

The Sugar Story: A Quiet Victory

Dr Robert Lustig famously says, “It’s not about calories — it’s about insulin.”
Looks like my pancreas agrees.

By sticking to two eating windows and giving my body longer rest periods, my HbA1c fell from 5.9 to 5.5. No drugs, no supplements, just restraint (and a stubborn streak).
Fasting Glucose held steady at 92 mg/dL, which means fewer glucose spikes and more stable energy.

If there were a Fitbit for insulin, it would’ve thrown confetti.

The Fat Files: Where LDL Thinks It’s the Hero

Here’s where the comedy begins. My LDL climbed from 154 to 162, nudging total cholesterol over 220.

Before anyone panics, let’s borrow Dr Lustig’s metabolic math:

• It’s the TG : HDL ratio, not total cholesterol, that hints at insulin resistance.
• Under 2 is great, 2–3 acceptable, over 3 = metabolic traffic jam.

Mine? 2.6. Not bad, just a polite nudge to “keep running / hiking /walking /Swimming or whatever you like to move your body for.”

So while LDL strutted around, my triglycerides stayed low and HDL didn’t desert me. Lustig would likely pat me on the back and say, “Your liver’s still got its act together — just stop feeding it fructose.”

The Liver Whisper

My ALT and AST stayed normal, meaning my fasting didn’t stress the liver.
Lustig often points to the ALT : AST ratio — when ALT > AST by a lot, it hints at fatty liver.
Mine were well-balanced, so the internal refinery is functioning efficiently — probably because I stopped supplying it with midnight snacks to process.

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The Vitamin D Drama

Now, the real underachiever: Vitamin D 16 ng/mL.
Apparently, fasting indoors does not stimulate solar synthesis.
Even Dr Lustig’s “sunshine hormone” can’t thrive on willpower alone.
Note to self: step outside occasionally or buy those elusive D3 capsules that keep showing up in the Amazon cart.

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What the Trends Whisper

Improved

• HbA1c ↓ 5.9 → 5.5 : Stable glucose, better insulin sensitivity
• B12 creeping upward

Holding the Line

• Liver, kidney, PSA — quiet performers doing their job

Needs Nudging

• LDL ↑ 162 mg/dL (watch the cheese board)
• Vitamin D low → get more sunshine
• TG : HDL 2.6 → keep fasting rhythm steady

Lessons (with a grin)

1. Two Two Meals > Three Temptations
   Who knew eating less often could feel more freeing? My glucose graphs now look like calm sine waves instead of jagged ECG spikes. Apparently, the body runs smoother when it isn’t treated like a vending machine.

• Ratios > Raw Numbers
  As Dr. Lustig says, numbers lie but ratios tell the truth. The TG : HDL and ALT : AST ratios are like health’s debugging logs. They reveal what the pretty dashboard won’t.
• Sunlight > Supplements
  Vitamin D taught me that even the most data-driven person can’t photosynthesize under fluorescent lighting. Step outside. The sun’s API is free.
• LDL Needs Coaching, Not Condemnation
  My LDL may be stubborn, but maybe it’s just trying to protect me from my own enthusiasm for buttered toast. In engineering terms: it’s running in “defensive mode.”
• Discipline > Perfection
  Fasting isn’t a punishment; it’s scheduled maintenance. Like a system reboot — brief downtime, smoother performance afterward.
• Curiosity Never Retires
  It took me decades to realize that biology is just another operating system except you can’t replace the hardware. So I tinker gently and debug patiently.

Final Reflection

Fasting, to me, isn’t punishment — it’s pressing “Reset” twice a month.
Going from three meals to two made my metabolism hum instead of wheeze.

From 2017’s sugar roller-coaster to 2025’s metabolic jazz, the trend is clear: discipline outperforms diet fads.

Twice-monthly fasting has stabilized my glucose, sharpened focus, and kept inflammation quiet.

Now, the plan is simple: keep the sugar steady, charm HDL into rising, convince LDL to behave, and maybe — just maybe — step out into the Californian sun before sunset.

Because as Dr Lustig might say,

“You can’t hack biology — but you can negotiate with it, one fast at a time.”

⚠️ Author’s Note

These reflections come from an engineer who started learning human biology far too late in life — mostly out of curiosity, partly out of necessity. What began as an attempt to outsmart blood sugar turned into a crash course in metabolism, ratios, and resilience. I’m not a doctor, and this isn’t medical advice. Please consult your physician before experimenting with fasting, diet tweaks, or supplement changes. Think of this as a mid-life engineering project on the body’s operating system — one where trial, error, and humility are all part of the lab work.