How I Fought Type II Diabetes Without Drugs and Won
Step 2. I Changed My Relationship With Food
After a few months of walking and a LOT of reading (in which I did not lose a pound), I was ready to make a dietary change. I know that diet is probably one of the most loaded subjects there is. People have strong, deeply held views and they do NOT want to be told what to eat. This is merely my experience in reversing diabetes. What you take from it is totally up to you.
I changed what I ate
It made sense to me that an overabundance of carbs—particularly processed carbs—were what was driving up my insulin levels and my blood sugar. I figured I’d try it for a month and see what happened. At this point, I didn’t care about weight, it was the blood sugar.
I dove in like a new convert. Out went all foods with added sugar (candy, ginger ale, ice cream, caramel sauce, jam) processed carbs (chips, snack foods, crackers, pasta, bread), rice, potatoes, corn, most fruit, juice, honey, and syrups.
At the same time, I embraced fat, contrary to every bit of dietary guidance I’d been given since childhood. The low-carb literature and websites stressed the importance of eating fat to increase satiety. I wanted to believe it, but it was a hard mental shift.
I won’t lie. Getting rid of processed carbs was hard. I LOVE buttered toast (especially cut in strips to dip into the runny yolk of a soft boiled egg) and the occasional cream cheese danish. Quite honestly, the Keebler Club Cracker is the devil’s work. The sleeve of those crackers emptied like magic. They were my go-to comfort food when I was sick.
I had classic withdrawal symptoms and relapsed on a few occasions in the first 6 months. Had it not been for the sword of diabetes hanging over my head, I probably wouldn’t have done it, but I was at the metabolic breaking point and didn’t see a choice. Limb amputation, blindness, and kidney failure are incredibly powerful motivators.
With time, it got easier. In the early days, I’d plan in a cheat day, maybe once a month, when I could have some bad carbs. I’d literally dream of scarfing down biscuits and gravy and maybe a cream cheese danish. Maybe just a foot-tall stack of buttered toast. I probably drooled in my sleep when this happened—just sayin’—and it’s possible that my foot twitched like a sleeping dog. Luckily, my husband sleeps soundly. There were no witnesses.
The funny thing is … when the long-planned day finally arrived, I’d find that (after a bite or two) I didn’t want that stuff and I’d push it aside (cue the choir of angels)! There is light at the end of the tunnel of cravings.
If you are thinking smugly to yourself that this was “Move more, eat less,” you’d be wrong. I ate more. I had two yummy meals a day (lunch and dinner) that focused on meat, fish, and vegetables, supplemented by butter, bacon, nuts, seeds, eggs, and full-fat dairy.
Hello, roasted Brussels sprouts and bacon with lemon zest.
Surprise, a cheeseburger salad is just as good as a cheeseburger with a bun.
I even had a little red wine, berries, and super-dark chocolate. Food was fresh and unprocessed and very often local.
I became completely sold on the joys of grass-fed butter. Kerrygold, if you’re looking for someone to walk in a parade, waving a shiny gold package, I’m your gal.
I changed when I ate
I stopped snacking and ate between noon and 7. The rest of the time was a break for my system. Grazing throughout the day was something that I had for years been assured was necessary for steady blood sugar. Pffft.
Setting a hard stop on nighttime eating eliminated all the ridiculous bargains I used to make with myself about how one bowl of ice cream or cookie or bowl of popcorn couldn’t hurt. As an added bonus, it made heartburn a thing of the past.
To make this sustainable, I let myself be flexible. My husband likes to cook breakfast on the weekend, so I skip lunch. Otherwise, breakfast is a cup of coffee. On occasion, I do one-meal-a-day (OMD in the lingo), and I’m intrigued with the idea of a multi-day fast, but not enough to actually do it yet.
I made friends with hunger
Surprisingly, unlike the other times I’ve changed my diet (limiting fat and consciously cutting calories), my every waking moment did not center around food. I wasn’t ravenous. In fact, my portion sizes got smaller as they became more calorie-dense and they were based on hunger instead of rationing. The only restriction was the number of net carbs per day (net carbs=total carbs-grams of fiber). I start with a small serving knowing I can have more if I’m truly hungry. Forget about what your mother told you about cleaning your plate. It was nonsense.
I also took the advice of Dr. Jason Fung who is a big proponent of intermittent fasting. Intentional hunger is not to be feared*. We eat for so many reasons—stress, boredom, pleasure. It’s good to get in touch with what hunger really is and to learn how to eat only when you are hungry.
*I stress intentional as people who face hunger from food shortages beyond their control are a completely different story and no one should have to be hungry from a lack of available food.
I tracked what I was doing
The low carb/keto community stresses that it is often not necessary to track your macros (grams of fat, carbs, and protein), that just eliminating the sources of carbs will be enough for most people to lose weight. I believe them, but tracking is so ingrained in my psyche that I couldn’t stop doing it. I figured it would be useful data when I tried to figure out what worked and what didn’t for me.
I kept my net carbs (total carbs-fiber) under 50 grams a day to start and eventually dropped into a comfortable range of 20 to 30 grams per day. Sometimes I sink into classic keto territory (less than 20 net grams), but not all that often. Calories were tracked merely as a data point. I never tried to limit them. Frankly, tracking them would have been too hard a habit to break.
If I was hungry, I ate more; if not, I ate less. I had no expectations about how fast I should lose weight, or even if I would. I was fixing my diabetes. That made the whole thing much less stressful.
I averaged 1,400 to 1,700 calories per day, which is amazing given that past attempts at dieting had worked (temporarily) only when I dropped below 1,200 calories or lower, making my metabolism even worse. With low-carb, the weight just came off, averaging about a pound a week for a year.
More important to me were the changes in my blood sugar. The drop in blood pressure was an added bonus.