Reversing Diabetes - Letter to my Aunt, Part 1
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Image by Tesa Robbins from Pixabay
This is the first half of a copy of a letter I sent to my 80 year old aunt on ways to reverse pre-diabetes. Since diabetes runs in the family, she’s done very well to only be pre-diabetic at this age.
Since I’m on my 3rd - and last - round of reversing diabetes, I have consolidated years of research, practice, and experimentation on what worked for me.
However, it occurred to me that a lot of people have issues with diabetes and pre-diabetes. So why not go ahead and put it on my blog, even though this is - technically - outside of my “niche.”
For the record, I have never taken any medications - like metformin or insulin - to manage my blood sugar.
Reversing any chronic health condition is worth writing about. This also applies to cholesterol issues, weight loss, and heart health.
So for any random person who comes to this site, who already has diabetes, or just got diagnosed, here are some helpful tips and advice on today 31st, August 2020 and Wednesday, September 2nd.
Hey Aunt Sally,
Good news is pre-diabetes is much easier to reverse than diabetes.
Bad news is even after you reverse pre-diabetes, your pancreas will never work as well again as it once did.
You’ll have enough wriggle room to be able to have the ice cream again, but not as blissfully ignorant as you once were, or as often. Because there will be consequences if you do.
I speak from experience. Those consequences are why this is my 3rd rodeo in reversing diabetes.
I included copies of my daily fasting blood sugar that I take every morning since early June.
As you can see, the numbers vary even as the blood sugar is coming down. Since I started at 213, I’m ecstatic to be where you’re at now and it took me 2 months to get there.
I’m hoping to hit consistent normal morning blood sugar in the next 2 weeks to a month.
The HbA1C – likely the blood test that determined your diagnosis of pre-diabetes is the sum total of your blood sugar for 2-3 months.
But these are the daily values you can check for yourself.
Normal Fasting (morning) Blood Sugar: less than 100 or 70-99. This is what you want to get to.
Pre-diabetic Fasting Blood Sugar: 101-125. I imagine this is where you are most mornings right now.
Diabetic Fasting Blood Sugar: 126 and up. Where I was 5 years ago when I first found out. I think 196 was where I was at.
Over 200 – that’s bad. That’s where I started on this go round.
1) First thing you’ll need is a glucose meter with lancets and test strips to check your blood sugar daily. Without a prescription, the test strips can be expensive. I heard WalMart has a brand and the test strips are much cheaper. Have your doctor or a diabetic friend show you how to use it.
By “fasting” blood sugar, this is the blood sugar you take first thing in the morning when you wake up.
If you want to experiment, you can also test your blood sugar after eating – about 45 minutes later – to observe how certain foods affect you.
If you think of your body as a science project, this process is actually kind of cool.
Anytime your blood sugar is over 200 – this would likely be if you splurged on some ice cream and cake or even a lot of fruit or sugary fruits - go for a fast-paced walk for at least 30 minutes if you can. If you can’t, your sugar will come down every hour.
Which brings me to…
2) Exercise is your medicine.
Exercise as much as you can within safe and reasonable parameters. For example: a 30+ minute walk every morning before you eat anything and a 30+ minute walk every evening after your last meal.
The reason why is because exercise makes the body more insulin-sensitive, and it helps reverse high blood sugar much faster than diet alone.
Insulin is the hormone secreted by the pancreas to process everything we eat. We count on insulin to push the sugars into the cells for energy. So anything that processes to sugar quickly – like carbs – spike insulin the most.
With a sweets and carb-heavy diet – which most Americans have, the pancreas gets over-worked to exhaustion and the body becomes insulin-resistant. After some time, this leads to pre-diabetes, which eventually becomes diabetes – with insulin-resistance getting worse.
In insulin resistance, the demands for insulin are high and more insulin is produced. But it is no longer as effective at pushing the sugar into our cells.
So the excess sugar stays in the bloodstream and blood sugar goes up. Also, there’s too much insulin in your system, which increases fat storage and affects the “bad” cholesterol.
How exercise affects insulin-resistance is the increased heart rate and circulation of blood and lymph increase insulin-sensitivity, and the sugars are pushed into the cells to be used as energy as they should.
Sounds like walking is your go-to, and you can do that whenever you want. At night, when you’re done eating. In the morning. After meals. Whenever you splurge.
Whatever you do, go at a fast pace to get your heart rate up.
Check out the pics of the mini-trampoline rebounder I also sent. That would be a great way to mix up your exercise, and it’s great for your bone health and immunity.
3) Supplements:
All of these increase insulin-sensitivity and decrease blood sugar. The Omegas and CoQ10 are also good for cholesterol. Deficiency in Vitamin D screws up everything including blood sugar and insulin-resistance, as well as cholesterol.
Chromium Picolinate 300 mg; 2 tablets 2x/day;
Alpha Lipoic Acid 300-350 mg; 2 tablets 2x/day;
Magnesium 200 mg; 1 tablet 2x/day or 2 tablets 1x/day AT NIGHT.
Omega-3 fatty acids 2 capsules 2x/day.
CoQ10 1 tablet 1-2x a day.
Vitamin D – 2000-5000 IU daily.
Keep taking your cinnamon supplement.
You should see a change within a few weeks.
Check back on Wednesday, September 2nd, for specifics on food, water, sleep, and fasting tips. Cheers!