About five years ago, during the COVID-19 lockdown, I ended up in the hospital.
At the time, I weighed around 85 kg. I was dealing with high blood pressure, and I was also becoming increasingly worried about my blood sugar. That experience stayed with me. I remember thinking that I did not want to end up in the hospital again if there were things about my lifestyle that I could change.
So I decided to lose weight.
That was when intermittent fasting became part of my life.
Fasting Was Not Easy for Me at the Beginning
People sometimes talk about skipping breakfast as if it is nothing. For me, it definitely wasn’t.
At first, I could barely imagine getting through the morning without eating. It took me a few months before skipping breakfast started to feel comfortable. Reaching 3 PM without food took even longer.
Even a 14-hour fast used to feel difficult.
It took me more than a year before fasting for around 14 hours felt like something I could do comfortably and consistently. I stayed around that range for several years. Working from home made it easier because I had more control over my schedule and meals.
Over those years, while practicing intermittent fasting, my weight dropped by roughly 12 kg. Today, I usually weigh around 71 to 72 kg.
I still want to lose more weight, but I don’t want to rush it. My personal target is to reach around 65 kg within the next 12 months, and I want to document what happens along the way.
That is one of the reasons I created Daily Glucose Journal.
Why I Started Tracking My Blood Sugar
Losing weight is only part of what I’m interested in now.
I also want to understand how the foods I normally eat affect my blood sugar.
And by “normal foods,” I mean the foods many of us actually eat here in the Philippines. Rice. Bread. Noodles. Coffee. Eggs. Filipino meals. Snacks. Restaurant food. Food from the grocery store. And sometimes the food I simply want to try because it looks good.
Instead of only reading what a certain food is supposed to do, I want to eat it, test my blood sugar and see what actually happens to me.
That is really what this website is about.
Real food. Real meter readings. My own results.
How I Test My Blood Sugar
For now, I use a finger-stick glucose meter.
A continuous glucose monitor would obviously give me much more information throughout the day, but a CGM is still outside my budget. Maybe that will change in the future. If the site eventually earns enough to help cover one, I’d love to use a CGM so I can see what my glucose is doing throughout the day instead of seeing only individual snapshots.
Until then, I’ll work with what I have.
I’ll record things such as what I ate, how long I fasted, my blood sugar before eating, my readings afterward, how much I slept, whether I exercised, and anything else that might have affected the experiment.
I’m also still improving the way I conduct these tests.
I don’t have a perfect system yet.
Some experiments will probably be cleaner than others. Sometimes I’ll realize afterward that I should have measured something differently or recorded another detail. That’s part of the process.
My goal is to become more consistent as I learn.
And if you notice something wrong with my testing method, calculations or interpretation, I genuinely want to hear about it.
This Is Not a Medical Experiment
I am not a doctor, dietitian, researcher or healthcare professional.
Everything on Daily Glucose Journal is based on my own experience.
If my blood sugar changes after eating a particular food, that does not mean the same thing will happen to you. And even when I have a theory about why one of my readings changed, I try to separate that theory from what I actually measured.
The numbers are the numbers.
My explanation is sometimes just my best guess.
That’s an important distinction I want to keep throughout this site.
I Want to See What Longer Fasts Are Like Too
Another thing I’m curious about is how my body responds as my fasting periods get longer.
I’ve become much more comfortable fasting compared with where I started five years ago. I often notice that I feel clear-headed while fasting, and I can sometimes concentrate on work better when I’m not thinking about my next meal.
My body also seems much more accustomed to going most of the day without food than it used to be.
Eventually, I’m curious about longer fasting periods. Two days. Maybe three days. Possibly even five.
But I don’t want to turn fasting into some kind of endurance competition.
Longer fasts are very different from skipping breakfast or eating one meal later in the day, and I want to approach them carefully rather than assuming that because I can fast for 20 hours, I should automatically push much further.
I’m also curious about autophagy and what the research actually tells us about fasting and the processes happening inside the body. That’s something I still have a lot to learn about.
I Still Want to Enjoy Food
I don’t want this website to become a story about avoiding everything I enjoy.
Quite the opposite.
Part of the reason I’m tracking my glucose is because I want to understand how my body reacts to different foods rather than simply being afraid of them.
There is a lot of good food out there.
I want to try it.
I want to know what happens when I eat different kinds of rice, bread, noodles, desserts, restaurant meals and everyday Filipino food. Some experiments may give me results I like. Others probably won’t.
Either way, I’ll have actual numbers to look back on.
I also still drink light beer occasionally, usually around once a month. For me, the bigger goal is discipline, not pretending that I’m never going to enjoy food or a drink again.
Where I Am Now
I’m still learning.
I don’t have everything organized perfectly yet. I’m still figuring out which measurements are most useful, how often I should test, which foods are worth comparing and how to make one experiment easier to compare with another.
But that’s also why I think documenting the journey from this stage is worthwhile.
You won’t just see polished experiments after I’ve figured everything out.
You’ll see me figuring it out.
Over time, I expect my testing method to become more consistent, my records to get better and my questions to become more specific.
And hopefully, the journal becomes more useful because of it.
I’d Like to Meet Other People Doing the Same Thing
One reason I’m making all of this public is because I know I’m probably not the only person who thinks about blood sugar, weight, fasting and staying healthy.
I’d like to hear from people who are asking similar questions.
What foods have you tested?
What surprised you?
Do you use a finger-stick meter or a CGM?
Have you changed the way you eat because of something you noticed in your own readings?
If you are on a similar journey, feel free to contact me. I’m interested in learning from other people’s experiences while continuing to document my own.
Daily Glucose Journal isn’t supposed to be the story of someone who has everything figured out.
It’s the story of someone paying attention.
One meal, one fast and one glucose reading at a time.
A Note About Fasting and Medical Advice
Fasting is not appropriate for everyone, and nothing on this website is a recommendation that you should copy what I do.
I am documenting my own experience, not providing medical advice. My glucose readings and fasting experiments cannot predict how another person’s body will respond.
If you have diabetes, take medication, have another medical condition, are considering an extended fast, or have concerns about your blood sugar, speak with a qualified healthcare professional before making significant changes to your eating or fasting routine.