MECHANISM ENGINE
What Is Blood Glucose?
Fasting glucose is the number I check most often on my own panels, and it’s the one that finally made the whole system click for me, because you can watch it move in response to what you actually did the day before.
Rolling Hills vs Ski Slope
Picture blood sugar across a normal day as a landscape. Steady, whole-food eating produces something like rolling hills, gentle rises after meals, gentle falls, nothing dramatic. Refined carbohydrate and sugar-heavy food, especially on an empty stomach, produces something closer to a ski slope, a sharp near-vertical climb followed by an equally sharp drop. The steep drop is usually what triggers the next wave of hunger and cravings, not genuine energy need. Same total calories can produce a very different landscape depending on what’s actually on the plate.
Blood glucose is the concentration of sugar circulating in the blood, rising after eating carbohydrate and falling as insulin moves it into cells. Fasting glucose, measured after roughly 8 hours without food, is a standard NHS marker used alongside HbA1c to assess metabolic health. Sharp, frequent glucose spikes, even within a technically normal range, are increasingly linked to hunger, energy dips, and long-term metabolic strain.
NHS guidance defines normal fasting glucose as below 5.5 mmol/L, pre-diabetes as 5.5 to 6.9 mmol/L, and diabetes as 7.0 mmol/L or above on repeated testing, with lifestyle change the first-line recommendation for pre-diabetic range readings.
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Related mechanisms
Educational content only, not medical advice. Never stop or change medication without your GP’s supervision. Neil stopped his own medications in February 2024 on his own initiative and told his GP afterwards, with NHS blood tests to show. That is not the approach recommended here. Speak to your GP before changing your fasting pattern, diet, or medication.
What this is based on
NHS and NICE guidance, cross-referenced against Neil’s own NHS blood test record going back to April 2012. See the full timeline and current numbers.