How I reversed my diabetes — seriously !!!
By: Locks
Tags: Diabetes Solutions, Cure Diabetes, Diabetes, Health, Positivity

Its one of those news when heard for the first time, shakes you up. Yes I am talking about the same old friend of us Mr Diabetes. The company where I work for offers annual health check up for its employees. Ever since I joined the company, this health checkup was more of a routine where I knew the result even before I wrote the exam. This time too, I assumed the same. Went through the test routine with blood samples given and after 4 hours the report was in my hand. Wait!! The report has multiple numbers in bold this time. Things doesn’t seem normal

This is what the report said:

Glucose Test on Oct 2016

Cholesterol Results on Oct 2016

With this report in hand, went in to see the consulting physician. The physician officially declared “You are diabetic”. With the callous look, doctor continued, “ The numbers are concernedly high. Its not just the fasting and post-prandial but also sugar is detected in urine sample as well. Lets start with the high dosage of medicines. After 6 months, lets review again. Go and meet the dietitian who will explain the new diet.” Still those words of declaration of being a diabetic, went on to meet the dietitian. “No more sugar, no rice, very measured food quantities, no oil. no cheese, …….”

My wife who accompanied me could not hold her emotions and tears dropped down. I could see it but did not know what to say. Said “ It just means no more sweet in my life again”. Rather than consoling, it infuriated her. Well, its justified for that reaction since she always complained about my lifestyle and kept raising warning signals. “ You are eating too much junk food. You dont exercise or walk or jog” with my nonchalant reply “I will eat junk when my body can digest and stop when I am 40”. A wife can remind instances and stories without even saying a word. As usual I was at the receiving end.

Went to the medical shop and bought the silver strip of the glucose control tablets. Ordered glucometer over Amazon. And yeah the feeling was not so good that day. Thoughts of all the food I am going to miss kept crossing my mind. Human mind loves what the body is deprived of.

I started taking the medicines though I desperately did not want to. Till now in my life, I somehow avoided even taking paracetamol during fever. So consuming tablets rest of my life was a nightmare even to imagine. Well, that was fever but now this is diabetes. There lied a big difference. Fever is something I could experiment with by not taking medicines. If the fever doesn't subside within 2 or 3 days, then visit a doctor was a straightforward strategy. But I could not apply this to diabetes since I hardly knew about anything about this. “Ignorance about diabetes is not a bliss”. So this led me to understand what the whole problem of diabetes is about. In summary, I came to know that I am diabetic because of either of the two reasons

My pancreas is not able to produce enough insulin to digest the glucose in my food. My body cells resist the absorption of the insulin secreted by pancreas. Hence the glucose is not digested by the cells and is passed back to the blood.

I read through medical journals to understand more details. The one mentioned in case1 is difficult problem to solve than case2. This is because in case1, you are trying to reverse the situation of pancreas which is more akin to the wear tear of a hardware in your laptop. Most of the times, the hardware issues are hard to repair without the replacement of the unit.

In my case, I did not know which category should my condition fell. After doing enough research over internet, I resolved to give it a try and see if I can reverse my diabetes. I wanted to get to state where at the least I need not consume medicines daily. So I stopped taking medicines after a week and followed the strict regime mentioned below.

1. Early to rise

Getting up early at dawn was an event which rarely happened in my life. However one thing I realized is that when we get up early at sunrise, our body behaves differently. The whole metabolism in the body seems smooth, active and rejuvenated. There is a sense of pleasantness in the mind which in itself is a great medicine.

2. Dose of natural Vitamin D

Vitamin D plays a vital role in calcium metabolism. It was been medically researched that Vitamin D imbalances can lead to lot of health conditions including Type2 diabetes. This was an important step for me. My daily routine never allowed me to expose myself to the sunlight. Hence I ensured I exposed myself to early morning and evening sunlight more often.

3. A walk in the park

I ensured that I walked for 45 minutes to one hour everyday in the morning. I chose a park where I got abundance sunlight to cater to my vitamin D. Walking with spouse makes the walk even better. I also followed that with a stroll at night after dinner for another 30 minutes.

4. No sugar whatsoever

Sounds difficult but its not as difficult as it sounds!! Yes, I just stopped consuming sugar in any form. No just meant no. Sugar readily gets converted into glucose and gets into the blood. I did not want the too much glucose in my blood at a single point of time.

5. No Oil No Junk

Cholesterol and Triglycerides can lead to diabetes. Its very important that they are under check. In my case both of these were beyond the accepted limits. I was a food junkie. Loved fried food in any form. There was this sense of determination running in me my during this period, which was the only reason how I could give up on this. Its not just about the fried food, I also avoided any food with artificial preservatives and chemicals. Gave up all the burgers, pizza, fries…

6. Anything left to eat?

Eating healthy food should be habit irrespective of whether we are diabetic or not. I knew it but never followed it earlier. So I started researching what is the right food to have for a diabetic. The answer lies in the food with high fiber content which can be consumed either raw, boiled or steam cooked. I found that the food I consumed largely made up of either wheat, rice or maize. I found that both these do not help much for a diabetic. Both rice and wheat have very less or no fiber because of excessive removal of outer layers during processing. I needed substitutes for the predominant carbohydrate diet. I found there is a huge array of other cereals called — Millets.

a) Millets: I found some interesting articles on millets and was surprised to see the fibre content in them. Some of the millets had fiber content in the order of 6 times to 8 times more than what is found in rice or wheat. Why fiber is so important? Fiber principally helps in the slow digestion of food and in turn lower rate of glucose infusion into the blood. Of course the other well known benefit being good water absorption. The glycemic index of millets was much better than rice or wheat.

I tried multiple millets — foxtail millet, kodo millet, pearl millet and finger millet. One thing to note is that it took sometime to get adjusted to the new taste.

b) Almonds and walnuts was part of my daily diet. These nuts improve the good cholesterol (HDL). A research paper also states this.

c) Indian gooseberries is an effective traditional remedy to prevent pancreatitis. It is also rich in chromium which helps in carbohydrate metabolism. I started consuming one gooseberry every morning before breakfast.

d)Veggies: My hunger supplements included lots of vegetables. I was careful about the fruits since some fruits are rich in glucose. For example mangoes, bananas, sapota, etc. I stayed away from fruit juices and rather consumed fruits directly when I needed fruits. Citrus fruits formed my main fruit diet.

7. The theory of intermittent starvation

This is the most important aspect according to me. There has been multiple well known theories on how frequently we should eat and how much we should eat. Even I never paid attention to these details until, I had to. I followed one such theory. The theory of intermittent starvation. According to this, we need to provide enough gap between two eats. I provided a gap of 3 to 4 hours between two eats. This was my routine. My breakfast was at 8.30 AM. My lunch was at 1 PM. Very light snacks at 4.30 PM. Then dinner at 8.PM. The intermittent starvation in between this gap helps all the digestive organs including pancreas to get enough rest and rejuvenate. One thing to remember is that our body is just like any other physical machine we see. We need to take care of the wear and tear. We need to ensure the machine is not overloaded and is performing at its optimal load. There has to be enough cooling down period of the machine. That’s all it takes.

8. Theory of Three Forth

As I mentioned in the previous point, how much we eat is a very important step. A theory which I followed was, never eat till full. Stop eating when you are three forth full. The overall idea is that you should give less load to your body machine. There are multiple advantages with this. One advantage with this approach was that it helps in reducing the body weight which is also considered key in diabetic care. The second advantage is that we are more active when our stomach is not full. So in principle we should follow this irrespective of whether we are diabetic or not.

9. Continuous Monitoring

Buying a good glucometer is a very important step. I monitored everyday to understand what worked and what did not. I used to carry the device to my office as well and monitor. I used to check everyday in the morning when I got up. Then I checked after 2 hours after I ate breakfast. One thing I noticed is that generally body metabolism is high in the morning and diminishes as we go towards evening. Hence we also take food accordingly.

Results

After 6 months of practice this was my report:

Glucose Test after 7 months April 2017

Cholestorol Test after 7 months April 2017

Just to note I also lost 22 lbs (10 kgs) during this period.

This journey started in a way to handle and fight diabetes and my reluctance to take medication. But on the way, I learnt a lot about how to lead a healthy life. I now appreciate this wonderful machine ever designed called the human body, its power to heal itself. I realized that the nature of the design is to heal itself and be healthy. All that it asks for is a little cooperation!!