Diabetes is NOT the Easter Bunny's Fault

Diabetes is NOT the Easter Bunny's Fault

Now time for some practical solutions to the diabetes dilemma. Of course, I need to add the legal disclaimer that this article is not a substitute for professional healthcare advice, and any decisions that you take are best advised to be done so under proper supervision.

One other thing is also worth mentioning: when you do have professional advice, be damn sure that the person you are working with is not just trying to "manage" your diabetes, but is working to reverse as much as the process as possible!

Strategies for Lowering Blood Sugar

1. First, you need to know this: in the words of Nathaniel Branden, “No one is coming to save you.” Not your parents. Not your siblings. Not your spouse. Not your children. Not your friends. Not your colleagues. No one is coming to save you. If you want to make a change, it’s entirely up to you. You may have to do it in spite of your family or friends (which may mean, for a while, that you need new friends or a support network who encourages your efforts). Point being, you can’t “well-wish” things away. If you want to change diabetes, your diet, and your lifestyle, it's 100% your responsibility.
2. Next, you need to know what actually works! Between diet and exercise, when it comes to reversing diabetes the place to start is diet. Exercise facilitates the healing process, but if you’re time-poor, you may not be able to do anything about that yet. So what types of dietary modifications will make the most profound difference:
3.  THESE are the foods that work best to lower blood sugar and may even reduce Type 2 Diabetes. The only exception might be the oats that are normally fine, but I would still give a miss if you are doing the 10 Day Challenge. Zero dairies. Zero processed sugar (including sweeteners like in “Diet Coke” or something like that. Zero pieces of bread, rice, pasta or grains of any kind. And be very careful around sauces also because many of them contain hidden sugar. No excuses, and no “I’ll just reduce my carbohydrates a little bit.” It is essential that there is some carbohydrates/sugar in your diet, but for the purposes of achieving the most significant impact, they are best under 50g per day!
   1. Minimal fruit (especially bananas and citrus fruits). Minimal corn or root vegetables (e.g., carrot, potatoes). All these things produce insulin spikes, and if you want to see the most substantial changes. Even stuff that is "low GI" is not advised at this point ... it's still sugar!
   2. Avoid stuff that says “sugar-free” or “reduced sugar” because the majority of that stuff has substituted sugar for artificial junk that sometimes is even worse!
   3. Nuts, green vegetables, oils (including coconut oil), and meat with salt are all good for you!
   4. Do NOT eat “small frequent meals.” It keeps your blood sugar elevated, which is counterproductive to what you’re trying to achieve. That one I know is VERY contrary to the popular advice, but let's face it: people following "popular advice" aren't getting better!
   5. Mix with intermittent fasting, which research is demonstrating is achieving ridiculous results (!) in reversing Type 2 diabetes. (See Citations 1, 2 & 3) There are many different ways you can do it. Depending on your family and work schedules, find a combination that works best for you.
      1. 5:2 Fasting. Eat normally during weekdays, fast during weekends.
      2. 6-10 Fasting. Eat your first meal at 10:00 am and your last meal at 6:00 pm every day.
   6. When fasting, be sure to drink water. Bone broths are also acceptable with salt. Remember, with any fast it is best done under the supervision of a qualified health professional.
4. If you have a family, all of this is going to be 10x harder … especially if finances are tight or if your kids are fussy eaters and refuse to get on board with the changes you need to make for your own self. … Even if they are the ones you’re doing it for! Remember Rule #1 though: “No one is coming to save you!” Here are a few pretty simple solutions that do not take any extra time or energy:
   1. Dairy Substitute - A no-sugar coconut or nut milk. NOT soy! No, they do not taste the same, and their texture is slightly different but WAY better than the alternative
   2. Pasta Substitute - Fried onion slices with mushrooms or zucchini noodles
   3. Bread Substitute - Iceberg Lettuce Wrap

The 10 Day Diabetes Challenge

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Of course, none of these things mimic the exact taste of the sugars that you are substituting. I won't like to you about that. What they do mimic is the texture, which goes a long way in stimulating those same pleasure centers of the brain.

If I asked you to change everything like this forever, I agree that I’m asking too much. In fact, you can open some of the stricter rules slightly AFTER putting in the initial hard yards ... but only after you've done the work. So instead of advocating change forever, I’m posing you this challenge that I would encourage you to take up with an accountability partner (i.e., someone who wants to do the same thing but also need encouragement).

 Don't blame the Easter Bunny! We are all biologically addicted to this stuff, but for the sake of your life, you need to muster extreme willpower - even for just 10 days - so that the change you want to see can begin. If Easter has passed, so be it.

Whenever you read this email, start immediately - not tomorrow! - and do it for 10 days only. That’s it! Monitor your blood sugar and blood pressure for 10 days, and write it down. Also write down how you’re feeling overall with your energy, other symptoms, etc.

This is why I would advise you do any such cleanse under professional health supervision. It is likely that you will experience some type of detox symptom: e.g., headaches, insomnia, anxiety. These are common responses that should be monitored but usually pass in a few days.

Then after 10 days, go back to eating or doing whatever you want. I would expect that even after that short a period of time that you will have noticed a massive difference in something! Enough that you actually want to continue! If you choose to return to your normal habit, monitor what happens how you feel again over the next 10 days.

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My suspicion is that you will end up feeling quite tired, bloated, irritable, and sick as your blood sugars and pressure rise straight back to where they were pre-experiment. And if you do, you have your answer to why you feel the way that you do.

With something like Type 2 diabetes, which is most commonly lifestyle conditions, you are ultimately the only one responsible for the change. Not your doctor or your family or your friends. The person you will be one year from now will exist because of the choices you make now. So what are you going to choose?

To use the same excuse that you’ve always used, “I’ll start on Monday after this weekend?” Or to make a different choice right now so that on Monday the inflammation in your body has already dropped so appreciably that you can already feel a difference? It's not easy, but worth every effort. I promise you.

Citations

1. Chen WC. Villani V. Buono R, et al. Fasting-Mimicking Diet Promotes Ngn3-Driven β-Cell Regeneration to Reverse Diabetes. Cell. 23 February 2017;168(5):775–788.e12. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2017.01.040 |
2. Wei M, Brandhorst S, Shelehchi M et al. Fasting-mimicking diet and markers/risk factors for aging, diabetes, cancer, and cardiovascular disease. Science Translational Medicine. 15 Feb 2017;9(377):eaai8700. DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aai8700
3. Cheng WC, Adams GB, Perin L, et al. Prolonged Fasting Reduces IGF-1/PKA to Promote Hematopoietic-Stem-Cell-Based Regeneration and Reverse Immunosuppression. Cell. 5 June 2014;14(6): 810-823. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stem.2014.04.014