It’s time to celebrate the fantastic results of the participants in yet another round of the Data-Driven Fasting Challenge!
Our 18th Data-Driven Fasting Challenge took place from 1 to 30 October 2022 and was full of outstanding achievements!
It’s wonderful to see many people experiencing such great results as they use their blood glucose and the Data-Driven Fasting app to guide WHAT and WHEN they eat.
The Data-Driven Fasting app is like a dashboard for your metabolism; it enables you to monitor and manage the most critical parameters for answering the most vital questions in nutrition:
- ‘When should I eat?’ and
- ‘What should I eat?’
Once you learn to manage your blood glucose before you eat, everything else falls into place.
The charts above are from June, who said:
I spent some time evaluating my first experience in DDF—before the next one starts. I know taking the time to clarify my thoughts will help me solidify my learnings—and my unlearnings.
I discovered how much I’d been snacking. Needing to test my BG just for a snack usually wasn’t worth the effort.
I realised how much cheese (fat) I had been eating. It was all ok to eat since it fit into my keto macros, right?
I was surprised (again) by the daily ups and downs of weight/body fat numbers. It was a mental game to ignore that and focus instead on the overall trends, which week to week was downward.
I want to know why things work, and there is so much to learn and unlearn in this way of eating, but I can’t learn it all in one dose. Again, it is a mental game to trust the process, trust the data, and know that understanding will come over time.
I am consistently satisfied with two meals a day and am learning to identify what hunger actually feels like.
I realise that, even though we are on a personal journey, we can find encouragement in sharing the journey with others. I’m so grateful that I found this program and community exactly when I needed it.
Thank you, Marty, for sharing your discoveries in such a thorough and generous way. Almost every time I had a question, it turned up as an article with comprehensive explanations. You’ve built an incredible resource of life-changing information. Bravo!
Weight Loss
The table below shows the final leaderboard from this last challenge. Participants are ranked by weight loss as a percentage of their starting weight. As you can see, there was some tremendous weight loss in just four short weeks!
| Name | Start (lbs) | Finish (lbs) | Change (lbs) | % |
| Caroline | 165.3 | 149.9 | 15.4 | 9.3% |
| Jenna | 167.4 | 156.0 | 11.4 | 6.8% |
| Christina | 146.8 | 138.9 | 7.9 | 5.4% |
| Dean | 152.3 | 144.5 | 7.8 | 5.1% |
| Maggi | 164.2 | 156.2 | 8.0 | 4.9% |
| Diane | 192.0 | 183.0 | 9.0 | 4.7% |
| Maria | 182.1 | 173.7 | 8.4 | 4.6% |
| Matt | 215.0 | 205.0 | 9.9 | 4.6% |
| Kathleen | 143.2 | 136.8 | 6.4 | 4.5% |
| June | 159.6 | 152.6 | 7.0 | 4.4% |
| Larissa | 133.4 | 127.6 | 5.8 | 4.3% |
| Jennifer | 245.1 | 234.7 | 10.4 | 4.2% |
| Suzan | 135.0 | 129.3 | 5.7 | 4.2% |
| Wim | 202.8 | 194.4 | 8.4 | 4.1% |
One of our participants, Tracy, said:
‘It’s now been three months since starting Optimising Nutrition’s programs, and I am down 10% of my body weight! I cannot believe I could achieve this by simply educating myself about when and how I eat! I am ever thankful to Marty for guiding me on this journey. I’ve done two rounds of the DDF Challenge and one Micros Masterclass. Currently, I’m in my second round of the Macros Masterclass. There is no WAY I can unlearn this!’
Check out Tracy’s weight and body fat changes since starting her journey of Nutritional Optimisation.
Premeal Blood Glucose
While most people focus on your glucose after you eat, managing your pre-meal blood is the most useful thing you can manage to guide your weight loss journey.
The following table shows the change in premeal glucose levels before and after the challenge, with massive improvements in just four weeks!
| Name | Start (mg/dL) | Finish (mg/dL) | Change (mg/dL) | % |
| Colin | 254 | 121 | 133 | 52% |
| Laura | 256 | 140 | 115 | 45% |
| Tama | 134 | 76 | 58 | 43% |
| Beckie | 106 | 65 | 41 | 39% |
| Dorota | 115 | 72 | 43 | 38% |
| Klara | 103 | 68 | 35 | 34% |
| Caroline | 110 | 73 | 37 | 34% |
| Danielle | 90 | 60 | 30 | 33% |
| Ian | 101 | 68 | 32 | 32% |
| Pam | 173 | 119 | 54 | 31% |
| Orly | 137 | 95 | 41 | 30% |
| Camille | 110 | 77 | 32 | 30% |
The ‘secret’ to DDF is to learn to determine when and what you eat using your blood glucose as a fuel gauge. Some people with elevated glucose see their blood sugars fall significantly in just four weeks. However, you don’t have to decrease your glucose that much to make progress.
Waking Glucose
As the participants in the DDF Challenge learn to manage their pre-meal blood glucose, their weight, waist:height ratio, post-meal, and waking glucose fall into place. It’s exciting to see so many people move from the prediabetes range to healthy normal blood glucose quickly!
In a world awash with Type-2 Diabetes and metabolic syndrome, we’re thrilled to see many people see their waking blood sugars in just four weeks.
| Name | Start (mg/dL) | Finish (mg/dL) | Change (mg/dL) | % |
| Marj | 139 | 79 | 59 | 43% |
| Colin | 232 | 139 | 94 | 40% |
| Laura | 378 | 238 | 140 | 37% |
| Annemarie | 129 | 85 | 44 | 34% |
| Karen | 120 | 80 | 40 | 33% |
| Tianca | 155 | 104 | 50 | 33% |
| Lou | 113 | 79 | 34 | 30% |
| Resh | 99 | 70 | 29 | 29% |
| Bridget | 112 | 79 | 32 | 29% |
| Alan | 130 | 93 | 37 | 28% |
| Monica | 136 | 99 | 37 | 27% |
| Shawna | 119 | 87 | 32 | 27% |
Post-Meal Glucose
As we mentioned earlier, your post-meal glucose isn’t as critical of an indicator for metabolic health as your waking or pre-meal sugars. However, it can give you some indication of which foods might be causing problems for you.
In the challenge, we initially guide people to dial back their intake of refined carbohydrates if their blood glucose rises by more than 30 mg/dL (1.6 mmol/L) after meals. This prevents excessive hunger due to reactive hypoglycaemia when blood glucose comes crashing back down.
Most people from a low-carb or keto lifestyle already have post-meal glucose in the normal healthy range. Once most of your premeal glucose levels are in the normal healthy range, you can get on with chasing your premeal trigger.
We see the real magic happen when we drain our stored glucose, glycogen, and fat. This will leave you with plenty of room to store the food you eat and allow you to dip into your stored energy reserves (i.e., body fat) for fuel. At this point, the rise in glucose after you eat drops to normal healthy levels.
The table below shows the change in after-meal glucose levels from before and after the four-week challenge.
| Name | Start (mg/dL) | Finish (mg/dL) | Change (mg/dL) | % |
| Vicki | 277 | 103 | 174 | 169% |
| Tama | 186 | 89 | 97 | 109% |
| Toni | 211 | 110 | 101 | 92% |
| Lisa | 153 | 83 | 70 | 85% |
| Leslie | 148 | 81 | 67 | 83% |
| Kevin | 176 | 100 | 76 | 76% |
| Jeri | 198 | 115 | 83 | 72% |
| Lizette | 151 | 88 | 63 | 71% |
| Annie | 165 | 99 | 66 | 67% |
| Isabelle | 167 | 103 | 65 | 63% |
| Jennifer | 159 | 99 | 60 | 61% |
| Chang | 218 | 140 | 78 | 56% |
Fat Loss
Finally, the table below shows the change in body fat across the four weeks, with some fantastic results. Managing your premeal glucose is highly effective in guiding you to draw down the excess glucose and body fat in your system and address the root cause of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome.
| Name | Start (lbs) | Finish (lbs) | Change (lbs) | % |
| Jan | 29.7 | 23.9 | 5.8 | 20% |
| Rebretta | 38.5 | 33.0 | 5.5 | 14% |
| Bryn | 30.0 | 26.0 | 4.0 | 13% |
| Colin | 35.3 | 31.5 | 3.8 | 11% |
| Cheryl | 59.1 | 53.0 | 6.1 | 10% |
| Simon | 21.3 | 19.3 | 2.0 | 9% |
| Milena | 43.7 | 40.1 | 3.6 | 8% |
| Maggi | 26.0 | 24.0 | 2.0 | 8% |
| Kathleen | 37.8 | 34.9 | 2.9 | 8% |
| Michael | 27.0 | 25.0 | 2.0 | 7% |
| Camille | 43.5 | 40.7 | 2.8 | 6% |
Thanks again to all who participated in the October 2022 Data-Driven Fasting Challenge. Way to go, and we hope to see you at another challenge soon to continue your journey!
If you’re interested, we’d love you to join us in a future challenge! You can check out the links below to learn more about Data-Driven Fasting.
