Whether you were just diagnosed with diabetes [mellitus] or you have carried the diagnosis for years, you are in a position to reverse, and even put into remission, your diabetes. As you may well be aware, the ADA (American Diabetes Association), as well as many other “authorities” and researchers, wants you to believe in their grim perspective that diabetes is a “progressive disease”. It’s an awful, defeatist position for an organization that claims to “lead the fight against the deadly consequences of diabetes and fight for those affected by diabetes.” If you follow the standard dietary guidelines that led you to develop diabetes in the first place or the dietary recommendations that these organizations continue to advocate, it will be a progressive disease. I would hope that the diagnosis of diabetes, however, would serve as an impetus to re-evaluate the conventional nutrition dogma.
It’s not very complicated…dietary carbohydrates are digested into sugar, which is then absorbed into the bloodstream – a process that increases your blood glucose. If eating carbohydrates results in elevated blood glucose levels, and if diabetes [mellitus] is a disease defined as an abnormally elevated glucose, then simple logic dictates that the treatment for diabetes is to stop eating carbohydrates.
Here are my recommendations to reverse diabetes:
1.) Stop consuming sugar.
Sugar is toxic, whether it’s labeled “natural” or not. Sugar comes in many forms, and the sugar industry doesn’t want you to avoid their products. Thus, you must be aware of the various terminologies for sugar.
2.) Restrict carbohydrate intake.
Carbohydrate restriction is the most effective treatment for diabetes, a disease of carbohydrate intolerance. If you had lactose intolerance or gluten intolerance, you would logically avoid lactose or gluten, respectively. Why, then, does the medical establishment not advise avoiding carbohydrates in individuals with carbohydrate intolerance (aka diabetes)?!?
The more you restrict your carbohydrate intake, the better response you will have. I suggest that you restrict your carbohydrate intake to the lowest amount of carbs possible. Aim for less than 50 grams of carbohydrates daily. Below that level, you will notice rapid improvements in your glucose levels, and your body will be reversing the insulin resistance that caused your diabetes. Restricting your carb intake to that level is not as hard as you think . . . there are plenty of healthy, tasty foods to replace the glucose-laden carbs that ruined your health in the first place. Again…the lower the carb intake, the better.
This compelling video provides a very effective framework for reversing diabetes. “Stop using medicine to treat food!”
3.) Eat REAL food.
Stop eating processed food. Period.
Don’t eat anything that comes in a box with a nutrition label. For the most part, you should avoid anything with a label, but there are exceptions to this rule, such as cheese, butter, bacon, cans of tuna, etc. If there is a label, there should be minimal ingredients. For example, when buying butter, there should be a maximum of two ingredients: cream and salt.
Do not eat wheat. In fact, do not eat any grains. Read Wheat Belly by William Davis, MD, if you question this point.
4.) Incorporate `Intermittent Fasting’.
I recommend starting with a very simple fasting regimen – skip breakfast. There is no evidence to support the notion that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Our bodies store fat in order to accommodate periods of fasting. Just like the bear that fattens up in the Summer and Fall in anticipation for torpor (not true “hibernation”) through the Winter, we store fat when carbohydrate-rich food (i.e. berries for the bear) is present in abundance and we are able to live off our fat supplies when there is a shortage of carbohydrates.
Dr. Jason Fung has had great success treating type 2 diabetes with intermittent fasting. This video is well worth the time, explaining how diabetes can be reversed.
5) Exercise, preferably resistance training.
The goal with exercise should be primarily to increase your metabolism, so that your body utilizes available fuel (i.e. glucose) more efficiently. The best way to achieve an increase in metabolism is by performing resistance (weight) training to increase muscle mass which demands more energy even at rest. Low-intensity, steady-state exercise (e.g. walking, running, biking) makes you more efficient at performing that exercise, but there is much less long-lasting benefit than from resistance training.
In the short-term, any exercise will help “burn” some glucose if your glucose is high. Using exercise to treat these high glucoses is far better than using insulin. Remember: insulin + glucose = fat storage.