Allot of people will comment and post about the diet part, I will post about the exercise. The only part I will note, is that your main port of call on diet should be testing after eating as mentioned by others. Some people on here are extremely sensitive to carbs and can’t handle things like whole grains. I can, at least at the moment with my levels not rising significantly eating beans, lentils, bulger wheat, etc.. So all I will say is eat and test to see where you fit in, I will eventually go LCHF if my levels start going up but this will be a last resort for me, not my first point of call.
So exercise:
I also had fatty liver that was moving into scarring, perhaps not to the levels you may be experiencing but it was likely due to long term high blood glucose levels.
For diabetes you need a good mix of resistance exercises working your largest muscle groups a couple of times a week. This can be at the gym lifting weights, squats, deadlifts, bench press, pull downs etc – I use a system of increasing weight, decreasing reps. (So 8, 6, 4, 4, 6, 8 reps) but starting with a lighter weight on the 8 reps, then adding a bit down to the 4’s, then taking it away a bit as you go back to the 8’s. Allows for a good increase in weight, while also allowing a pace to keep the heart rate up – better over all then lifting the heaviest thing you can a few times.
If you can’t get to a gym, the alternative are body weight exercises that do the same thing, dips on a chair, push ups, pull ups, squat jumps, burpees all give a very good mix of cardio and resistance.
It is well noted that "interval" type training is excellent for management and improvement of Type 2 Diabetes. The diet part is very important, but the exercise can also significantly help in different ways. The idea with interval training, is to train as hard as you possibly can for a short period repeatedly. So, if your running outdoors or on a treadmill you sprint in “chased by a bear” mode for 30 seconds, or 60 seconds – so hard you couldn’t talk if you needed to. Then do 1 to 1.5mins of recovery (walking, or slow jogging) then go again. 5 to 10 sets.
Same for on a bike, or simply doing running on the spot, star jumps, squats etc.
You get a much better benefit to overall cardio performance doing say 10mins interval compared with 10 or 15mins of a steady run (even if you over the same distance).
Aside from the improvement to fitness, you also burn much more glucose in your body which helps clear out all your cells leaving room for more to be used from your blood stream. In addition, if you do a steady run, your body has time to convert normal fat stores into fuel (which is fine for weight loss), but when you work in intervals your body cannot produce enough energy quickly enough so it goes for the fat and other products sorted in your liver as they can be converted quickly. This can significantly reduce the time it takes for fatty liver disease to reverse and helps the liver to heal which is supposed to also improve insulin.
Things like circuit training classes are fantastic examples of organised interval training if you can get to one, I do a couple of different classes where your moving station to station. 45seconds of “something” then 15 seconds of body weight exercise (start jumps/squats etc), 15 seconds of rest as you move onto the next station. You can soon do the same thing at home with a very limited amount of equipment if needs be.
