Hi all. I just wanted to share my experience of being diagnosed as borderline diabetic, and the journey I had to reverse it. It's purely a personal experience, and it is intended to deliver a personal account for anyone, who like me, might have been diagnosed as Insulin Resistant, or Pre Diabetic. In retrospect, while the initial diagnosis was quite a shock, it has been one of the best experiences of my life, as I have gained control of my lifestyle, diet, and emotions, and generally feel like a new person.
I am a 45 year old man. 6'. On 1 January this year (2012) I weighed in at 300 pounds.The heaviest I had ever been. I was not sleeping well. Sweating a lot, lethargic and generally knew that I was overweight and needed to change. I had tried diets before, generally calorie counting but it never lasted long, and the weight came back. This time however I took a good friends advice, and decided to have a full medical. I went to a well known centre in Brussels for a battery of tests, and I unsurprisingly had many many issues, all weight related. The most pressing however was a mmol/l of 6.9. Basically as close to being diagnosed as a full diabetic as you can get.
Today I was re-tested. I have lost 60 pounds this year so far, I completed a 5k last Saturday ( I would have had trouble driving 5k back in January) and my mmol/l was 3.9. It can be done. Here is how I did it, and I sincerely hope it can help some people to motivate themselves to reverse Insulin Resistance, if they get diagnosed with it.
1. You have to give up alcohol. Alcohol provides your body with Acetate, a fuel that the body will burn before it burns fat. You have to lose weight. Burn fat. Give up alcohol. It can be temporary, but trying to lose weight while drinking even a moderate amount is very very hard. Don't compromise. Getting lashed up on a Saturday night will mean that your body will be burning Acetate all the next day and not fat. Not even considering the empty calories you are taking in.
2. For the first 3 months I gave up bread entirely. No sourdough. No Rye. No bread period. I have gradually introduced high fibre bread in the last 2 months, but initially nothing. If you cant do that (bread was my real vice) then Pita bread, especially wholegrain is excellent. Waitrose sell high fibre Pita which is ideal.
3. For the first 3 months I gave up potatoes, white rice and pasta. I replaced white rice with Basmati rice and pasta with brown pasta. The lack of sugar in my diet became very apparent to me on my birthday in the middle of March, when as a treat I had sushi, and the white rice gave me a sugar rush;heart palpatations, sweating etc etc. It made me realise that the medical advice was right about all these hidden sugars in plain sight. If you have to eat potatoes, then the less they are cooked the better. Boiled is OK. Do not eat roast or baked.
4. I gradually got into exercise. Not much at first. You body has to adjust. But slowly gradually building up. I went to an expert. Medical knowledge on this subject has exploded in the last 5 years. Basically I exercised gentle low intensity exercise before eating in the morning, as your muscles are depleted of glycogen, and your body will then burn fat, as it has no other fuel source. For full on exercise I gradually introduced High Intensity Training (HIT), which has recently been shown to speed up how quickly glucose enters your cells and tissues (you want that to happen quickly-if you are Insulin Resistant then glucose takes its time entering your cells and tissues resulting in sugar entering your bloodstream). In fact some medical research is now looking at reversing full diabetes by very high intensity short training. Anyway for me I'd do a 15 minute circuit 3 times a week. Nothing too time consuming but hard work while doing it. (Don't do HIT on an empty stomach, and eat some protein within 20 minutes of finishing to prevent muscle depletion).
5. I drank 2-3 litres of water a day, and ate small meals regularly. I had a bottle of water on my desk all day at work. Fruit seems to create controversy. Apart from avoiding stuff like watermelons, whenever I was hungry I ate apples, oranges, pears, bananas, strawberries. I know some people get worked up about eating too many bananas or oranges, but for me it was fine. I'd eat a breakfast, lunch and dinner with some protein, some healthy carbs, and some veggies/fruit. (the protein and veggies are easy for lunch-buy a tuna/chicken salad, for the carbs have a piece of high fibre pita bread for example). I didn't get too worked up about red meat, although I did cut down a bit. I was never hungry. I never calorie counted. I ate whenever I was hungry. Having enough food was never an issue.(also dont cook with extra virgin olive oil- not related to Insulin Resistance, but it degrades at high temperatures which is bad for you-use rape seed oil or something similar instead)
6. I got to bed earlier. Funnily enough I was more tired in the evenings so rather than getting to bed at Midnight I'd go to bed at 10pm.
7. I drank tea and coffee. You have to have some vices. But I gave up fruit juice, and I even avoided diet soda. Not sure if it does fool your body into producing an insulin response, but I avoided it anyway. If water doesn't do it for you, then lime juice in soda water is a good substitute. Cut down on full fat milk. It has lactose. I just went to semi skimmed.
8. Finally. Get more active during the day. Just walking for an extra 30 minutes will add up over the week. Walk to work or to the next bus stop. Go for a walk at lunchtime. Have a meeting with someone while walking around the park. These little things I found really helped.
I can honestly say it was not that hard. I got all the side benefits; reduced cholesterol, improved LDL/HDL ratio, lower blood pressure, improved liver function etc etc. But most of all I got my blood glucose under control. My doctor in Brussels told me I am vulnerable however to this coming back if my lifestyle reverts, so for me while I am relaxing some aspects of my diet, my days of munching on french bread baguettes are a thing of the past.I also still have another 30 pounds to lose.
I sincerely hope that this helps some people. I was able to get extremely good advice, and if my experience can help anybody else, I would be over the moon. I know it is disturbing when you get that first diagnosis. But if you can grasp the opportunity, it can become a life changing empowering experience. My cousin is a full Type 2 diabetic. He was totally unaware that he should avoid things like french bread, which is truly worrying. The level of medical advice in the Uk ranges from the truly great, to the truly awful, and forums like this are fantastic for disseminating relevant useful information. I wish any of you all the very best of luck, and If anyone would like to ask me any questions then please feel free.
I am a 45 year old man. 6'. On 1 January this year (2012) I weighed in at 300 pounds.The heaviest I had ever been. I was not sleeping well. Sweating a lot, lethargic and generally knew that I was overweight and needed to change. I had tried diets before, generally calorie counting but it never lasted long, and the weight came back. This time however I took a good friends advice, and decided to have a full medical. I went to a well known centre in Brussels for a battery of tests, and I unsurprisingly had many many issues, all weight related. The most pressing however was a mmol/l of 6.9. Basically as close to being diagnosed as a full diabetic as you can get.
Today I was re-tested. I have lost 60 pounds this year so far, I completed a 5k last Saturday ( I would have had trouble driving 5k back in January) and my mmol/l was 3.9. It can be done. Here is how I did it, and I sincerely hope it can help some people to motivate themselves to reverse Insulin Resistance, if they get diagnosed with it.
1. You have to give up alcohol. Alcohol provides your body with Acetate, a fuel that the body will burn before it burns fat. You have to lose weight. Burn fat. Give up alcohol. It can be temporary, but trying to lose weight while drinking even a moderate amount is very very hard. Don't compromise. Getting lashed up on a Saturday night will mean that your body will be burning Acetate all the next day and not fat. Not even considering the empty calories you are taking in.
2. For the first 3 months I gave up bread entirely. No sourdough. No Rye. No bread period. I have gradually introduced high fibre bread in the last 2 months, but initially nothing. If you cant do that (bread was my real vice) then Pita bread, especially wholegrain is excellent. Waitrose sell high fibre Pita which is ideal.
3. For the first 3 months I gave up potatoes, white rice and pasta. I replaced white rice with Basmati rice and pasta with brown pasta. The lack of sugar in my diet became very apparent to me on my birthday in the middle of March, when as a treat I had sushi, and the white rice gave me a sugar rush;heart palpatations, sweating etc etc. It made me realise that the medical advice was right about all these hidden sugars in plain sight. If you have to eat potatoes, then the less they are cooked the better. Boiled is OK. Do not eat roast or baked.
4. I gradually got into exercise. Not much at first. You body has to adjust. But slowly gradually building up. I went to an expert. Medical knowledge on this subject has exploded in the last 5 years. Basically I exercised gentle low intensity exercise before eating in the morning, as your muscles are depleted of glycogen, and your body will then burn fat, as it has no other fuel source. For full on exercise I gradually introduced High Intensity Training (HIT), which has recently been shown to speed up how quickly glucose enters your cells and tissues (you want that to happen quickly-if you are Insulin Resistant then glucose takes its time entering your cells and tissues resulting in sugar entering your bloodstream). In fact some medical research is now looking at reversing full diabetes by very high intensity short training. Anyway for me I'd do a 15 minute circuit 3 times a week. Nothing too time consuming but hard work while doing it. (Don't do HIT on an empty stomach, and eat some protein within 20 minutes of finishing to prevent muscle depletion).
5. I drank 2-3 litres of water a day, and ate small meals regularly. I had a bottle of water on my desk all day at work. Fruit seems to create controversy. Apart from avoiding stuff like watermelons, whenever I was hungry I ate apples, oranges, pears, bananas, strawberries. I know some people get worked up about eating too many bananas or oranges, but for me it was fine. I'd eat a breakfast, lunch and dinner with some protein, some healthy carbs, and some veggies/fruit. (the protein and veggies are easy for lunch-buy a tuna/chicken salad, for the carbs have a piece of high fibre pita bread for example). I didn't get too worked up about red meat, although I did cut down a bit. I was never hungry. I never calorie counted. I ate whenever I was hungry. Having enough food was never an issue.(also dont cook with extra virgin olive oil- not related to Insulin Resistance, but it degrades at high temperatures which is bad for you-use rape seed oil or something similar instead)
6. I got to bed earlier. Funnily enough I was more tired in the evenings so rather than getting to bed at Midnight I'd go to bed at 10pm.
7. I drank tea and coffee. You have to have some vices. But I gave up fruit juice, and I even avoided diet soda. Not sure if it does fool your body into producing an insulin response, but I avoided it anyway. If water doesn't do it for you, then lime juice in soda water is a good substitute. Cut down on full fat milk. It has lactose. I just went to semi skimmed.
8. Finally. Get more active during the day. Just walking for an extra 30 minutes will add up over the week. Walk to work or to the next bus stop. Go for a walk at lunchtime. Have a meeting with someone while walking around the park. These little things I found really helped.
I can honestly say it was not that hard. I got all the side benefits; reduced cholesterol, improved LDL/HDL ratio, lower blood pressure, improved liver function etc etc. But most of all I got my blood glucose under control. My doctor in Brussels told me I am vulnerable however to this coming back if my lifestyle reverts, so for me while I am relaxing some aspects of my diet, my days of munching on french bread baguettes are a thing of the past.I also still have another 30 pounds to lose.
I sincerely hope that this helps some people. I was able to get extremely good advice, and if my experience can help anybody else, I would be over the moon. I know it is disturbing when you get that first diagnosis. But if you can grasp the opportunity, it can become a life changing empowering experience. My cousin is a full Type 2 diabetic. He was totally unaware that he should avoid things like french bread, which is truly worrying. The level of medical advice in the Uk ranges from the truly great, to the truly awful, and forums like this are fantastic for disseminating relevant useful information. I wish any of you all the very best of luck, and If anyone would like to ask me any questions then please feel free.
