People love leaderboards because they inspire us to believe that we can all be winners. We continue to see amazing results as people use their premeal blood glucose to guide when they eat.
Check out results from our July 2021 30 Day Data-Driven Fasting Challenge, and you’ll see some astounding results as people chase their premeal trigger. Talk about inspiring!
| Name | start (lbs) | finish (lbs) | difference (lbs) | change |
| Jennie | 140.5 | 129.2 | 11.3 | 8.0% |
| Carla | 218.3 | 201.7 | 16.5 | 7.6% |
| Robert | 200 | 185 | 15 | 7.5% |
| Matt | 183 | 170 | 13 | 7.1% |
| Carey | 166.8 | 155.8 | 11 | 6.6% |
| Rod | 266.5 | 249.1 | 17.4 | 6.5% |
| Cindy | 136.4 | 127.5 | 8.9 | 6.5% |
| Alese | 158.5 | 148.2 | 10.3 | 6.5% |
| Lee | 188.4 | 177 | 11.4 | 6.1% |
| Margie | 180 | 169.2 | 10.8 | 6.0% |
But what about the also-rans who scored personal victories and improved biomarkers even though they didn’t rock the leaderboard?
Here’s a quick snapshot of participants and the distribution of all the results we typically see in our Data-Driven Fasting Challenges.
Using the data from more than a thousand people who started the July 2021 challenge, our analysis indicates the average weight loss over four weeks is:
- 1.4% of initial starting weight,
- 2.7 lbs or
- 1.2 kg.
These numbers don’t have the woot-woot, jaw-dropping effect of the leaderboard’s top scorers, but they do show solid improvement and personal commitment to the DDF Challenge. We often start with the best of intentions, but life happens.
That’s why many participants return to DDF as regularly as Homecoming for repeat challenges. Once they grasp the process and recognise true hunger, they make enviable, measurable progress in their second and third rounds.
Often, the people who are most active in the Data-Driven Fasting Facebook Groups, seeking clarification and asking questions, do their best in achieving personal goals. Almost to a person they claim the community support aspect of the DDF challenges is a crucial part of success and science supports their thinking, as in this report, Social Media for Health Promotion and Weight Management: A Critical Debate:
Social support encompasses the provision of material resources, useful information, emotional care, and affirmative feedback, which promote health maintenance attitudes and behaviours [10]. Research has indicated that social support confers physical [11,12,13] and mental [14, 15] health benefits. Even the perception of support – the belief that help is available if needed – has been shown to have beneficial effects [7, 16].
These frequency distribution charts show the range of weight loss achieved by challengers in pounds and the percentage of their starting weight.
I’m unsure whether artifact causes some challengers to gain weight by waiting a little longer to eat, but it does happen. If you’re one of the unfortunates, realise that mastery of the DDF process sometimes takes a while, especially if you’ve come from other fasting methods (e.g., OMAD, ADF, or extended fasting). Some people take a couple of rounds to find their groove with hunger training and identify the eating routine that works for their lifestyle and unique metabolism.
The process of waiting just long enough and observing your hunger signals isn’t as easy as it sounds. Fasting often fails when people go so long without eating that they make poorer food choices when it’s finally time to refeed.
Blood glucose
Possibly more important than weight loss are the stellar results we observe in the reduction of blood glucose levels.
| Name | start (mg/dL) | finish (mg/dL) | change (mg/dL) | % change |
| Margaret | 340 | 151 | 189 | 56% |
| Alicia | 296 | 138 | 158 | 53% |
| Katie | 213 | 106 | 107 | 50% |
| Roxi | 91 | 49 | 42 | 46% |
| William | 178 | 103 | 75 | 42% |
| Kirsten | 144 | 84 | 60 | 42% |
| Pam | 164 | 98 | 66 | 40% |
| Sujin | 167 | 100 | 67 | 40% |
| Lizeth | 155 | 94 | 61 | 39% |
| Debbie | 126 | 78 | 48 | 38% |
It’s not so much the extra body fat that is the problem, but rather when your fat cells become full and spill over into the bloodstream as high free fatty acids, ketones, and glucose, you get into trouble. The excess energy is then stored around your vital organs as visceral fat and your risk of modern metabolic disease rises.
What is a “normal” blood glucose?
Many people wonder what a ‘normal’ blood glucose level is and how close they are to optimal.
To shed some light on this question, the charts below illustrate the frequency distribution for blood glucose of our DDF challengers. The first chart shows imperial (US) units (mg/dL), while the second chart shows metric (the rest of the world) units (mmol/L). To convert from imperial to metric, simply divide or multiply by 18.
The table below shows the average starting and ending premeal blood glucose numbers for all challengers. As people chase their trigger, waiting until they physiologically need to refuel, their premeal blood glucose often drops by around 5 mg/dL or 0.3 mmol/L.
| units | start | end | change |
| mg/dL | 98 | 93 | 4.8 |
| mmol/L | 5.5 | 5.2 | 0.3 |
Voilà! No calorie counting or food tracking required.
How much should my blood glucose change during 30 days?
As noted in the table above, we see an average drop in premeal blood glucose of 4.8 mg/dL or 0.3 mmol/L. But again, there is a large distribution.
As you might expect, if you start with higher blood glucose, you will likely see a more significant drop in premeal glucose as you chase your premeal blood glucose trigger.
DDF produced some fantastic results for people with Type 2 Diabetes. But the good news is you don’t need to have super-high blood sugar levels to benefit from using your blood glucose to validate your hunger and guide your meal timing.
Finally, thanks and congratulations to all of our outstanding DDF challengers. We’re thrilled to see so many people making healthy changes for the better, whether big or small.
More information
Data-Driven Fasting – Index
- Data-Driven Fasting
- Download the manual (PDF)
- Facebook Group
- QuickStart Guide
- Success stories & results
- FAQ #1 – What makes DDF different?
- FAQ #2 – Getting ready
- FAQ #3 – Tracking your progress
- FAQ #4 – WHEN to eat
- FAQ #5 – WHAT to eat
- FAQ #6 – Winning the mind game
- FAQ #7 – Understanding your unique metabolism
- FAQ #8 – Troubleshooting
- FAQ #9 – Things that affect your blood sugars (other than food)
- FAQ #10 – Moving on…
- Join the next 30-Day Challenge
Hi,
I signed up for the October 9th class. What else do I need to do to be ready for it? I don’t believe I was sent an email telling me what I should expect. Thank you!
you should have recieved an invite via email. occasionally they lose their way. sent you another email with the link to the October group.
Good to read but still there is nothing about the most important thing for all of that which of course is insulin. Insulin levels, levels of insulin resistance. Root cause of the problem and major marker. Without that this data are still useful ofcourse.
This is one of the major areas where the keto crowd have it wrong. ‘Insulin toxicity’ is considered the root cause of everything bad. But once you realise how insulin really works you understand that energy toxicity is the root cause of insulin toxicity. The majority of the insulin produced in the pancreas is simply to hold your energy in storage and stop your body disintegrating while you continue to eat. The real way to reduce insulin across the day is to find a way of eating that provides graeter satiety and allows you to eat less and lose body fat. For more details see:
– https://optimisingnutrition.com/keto-lie-8-insulin-toxicity-is-enemy-1/
– https://optimisingnutrition.com/oxidative-priority-the-secret-to-effective-fat-loss/
– https://optimisingnutrition.com/ted-naimans-dam-fat-storage-insulinographic-explained/