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In the following article from 2004-02-17, long-term, serious CRONie Dean outlines recent personal experiences with weight gain and glucose testing.

In my continuing effort to carefully document and share my CR experiences,
here is an update.

As you may recall, in my last major update, I reported an inexplicable and
apparently quite sudden gain in weight on what was previously a calorie
neutral or deficient diet. I'm pleased to report this trend seems to be
continuing. In a nutshell, I appear to be continuing to gain weight despite
cutting more and more calories (via reduced olive oil) each week.

Recall for about 1.5 years I was eating what the USDA database indicated was
about 2400kcal/day - although my own experiments w/ BOM calorimetry
suggested it was substantially less (around 2200kcal/day max, with effect
calorie content around 2000). I had been continually losing weight on such a
diet, and eventually got down to just below 117lbs (BMI 17.5).

I decided that was getting uncomfortably low, so I added 100kcal/day in the
form of olive oil. On 2500kcal/day my weight went up pretty quickly and then
seemed to stabilize at around 119lbs for a few months. Then it suddenly
started marching upward. When I got to 121lbs, I decided to start cutting
back on the olive oil to stabilize. But over the last few months it has just
keeps going up, despite successively cutting back further on the olive oil.

This week I'm a little over 123lbs, and have cut back to a USDA-reported
2350cal/day by reducing olive oil (I'm now at 330g/week, down from a peak of
470g). Note that I'm five pounds heavier and apparently still gaining
weight, despite currently eating 50kcal/day less than I was when I was
losing weight at 117lbs. My activity level has not changed. If anything, I
feel more energized and am pushing myself more during my exercise routine.

I still have no compelling explanation for this apparent shift. It could be
I'm just getting older, and my metabolism is slowing down - but the apparent
abruptness of the change makes such an explanation seem implausible. Or it
*might* be the kind of metabolic shift brought on by long-term calorie
restriction that a recent paper from the CR primate studies suggests may
happen.

Personally I suspect it may be a result of my body's food processing
behavior. I've been deliberately eating more slowly, mostly to increase my
enjoyment of meals. This could potentially have improved my digestion.
Soaking the nuts I eat may have also improved my body's ability to
assimilate the calories I'm ingesting.

There is some evidence to support this hypothesis - my bowel movements are
firmer, more consistent, and less frequent than the used to be, and the
change seems to have coincided with the beginning of my weight increase.

Someone asked me about my glucose level as a
result of reducing fat from about 35% to about 30% of my calories. In
particular, cutting back on the olive oil might increase my post meal
glucose spike through several mechanisms, including reduction in gastric
emptying time.

I did some glucose measurements today to find out. Here are the results:

85 immediately upon waking
98 after working out, immediately before breakfast
99 :30 after start of breakfast
100 :45 after start of breakfast
102 1:00 after start of breakfast
112 1:15 after start of breakfast
97 1:30 after start of breakfast, after stairs
102 1:45 after start of breakfast
104 2:00 after start of breakfast
103 2:30 after start of breakfast
89 3:30 after start of breakfast

Immediately upon waking, my glucose level (two readings) was 85mg/dL - which
is up somewhat from what I used see for a fasting level of around
78-80mg/dL. My peak glucose level occurred 75 minutes after the beginning of
my breakfast (15 minutes after the end) and was 112mg/dL. This level was
brought down quickly by my usual 5 minutes of stair jogging.

Overall I was pretty pleased w/ my body's ability to clear glucose after a
meal, and am quite happy with my practice of CR at the moment. It has long
been a dream/goal of mine to be able to maintain my weight on a lower
calorie intake. It seems to be finally coming to fruition. I'll probably
continue to modulate my olive oil consumption until my weight stabilizes.
I'd actually like to see what calorie level it now takes for me to maintain
a weight of around 120-121lbs.

--Dean -- aka your canary in the coal mine