I started with Newcastle University's Biomedicine diet. The first time I did it, I dropped glucose levels to below 6* and also dropped 40 pounds (18kg) in weight. But I lapsed. It was the bacon sandwich m'lud.
Tried the diet again, lapsed again. Typical yoyo.
Their diet was tough but if I was going to make the diabetes go away long term then I had had a serious chat with myself. And I was going to have to rethink their diet a bit to make is manageable long term. Also I had been diabetic for 6 years, and the University reversal only worked if you had diabetes for less than 10, so there was a clock ticking.
On this occasion, I made the big decision to change for good. It’s all in the mind, it’s the biggest hurdle and it’s finding the courage deep down to commit to yourself. I had to put faith into myself that I would make this monumental lifestyle change. I wanted to switch off diabetes 2 and stop the insulin injections.
Then something amazing happened, having made the decision, the switch off, I surprised myself and discovered unexpectedly untapped determination within myself - which- also as amazing - was raising, everyday, my self esteem was growing. I was creating faith in myself and self respect. I was going to rise above being a walking zombie. The feeling was astonishingly energising and uplifting and suddenly I felt I had new mental clarity about my own body.
Enough, how radical was this change going to be?
Wait for this...
- No flour, nothing made from a grain
- No dairy, milk, eggs, butter, cheese.
- No poultry, meat or fish
- No fresh fruit, no dried fruit, no smoothies
- No vegetables grown under the ground – including potatoes - in any shape or form
- No sugar, honey or sweeteners
- No bread or pastry or pasta
- No alcohol, no diets sodas, only water.
- No fats, butter or oil.
But it’s not forever. This is a diet to wake up the body, clean your tubes out, get rid of the bad stuff out of all your liver, those fine capillaries in your pancreas. This is your 3,000 mile service.
And yes it's difficult - but I'll chat about a mind game you play with yourself to get through it later. The first three days are the worst but one you get through that, things start changing and its pretty easy to manage. My goal was not to loose weight, my goal was to stop being tired and stop the insulin injection.
My diet started with a load of research
The long term diet i now live by is based the Newcastle University Magnetic Resonance Centre diet for Type2 reversal. The centre - with the aid of new scanners - continue researching on the abnormal storage of fat and glycogen in pancreas, liver and muscle in Type 2 diabetics..
- “ The initial study was in people who had type 2 diabetes of up to 4 years. The CounterBalance study now shows that longer duration type 2 diabetes can be reversed. However, after more than 10 years of diabetes - a return to normal glucose control, even with major weight loss, is much less likely.
- It is certainly possible to wake up the insulin producing cells of the pancreas by losing a substantial amount of weight.
- This happens at the same time as the fat content in the pancreas decreases. Previous studies have shown that fat stops insulin release, so it is reasonable to deduce that the removal of fat from the pancreas allowed insulin release to normalise”
Here’s their diet program that I started with – I just changed a few things to make it more manageable and added a few things from my husbands cooking expertise. (That comes later .)
The joint research study into low calorie diets with Newcastle and Glasgow unversities
And there’s different types of research being done at the University of Glasgow’s Institute of Cardiovascular & Medical Sciences regarding metformin and nueropathy too.
So I arrived at my diet by doing research, (I’m a former journalist), self monitoring and a helluva lot of self respect...
Why am i writing this? I just want other people to feel like I do. I'm a different person.
More to come...
Ok, just remember - my DNA is not your DNA, so what I did, the changes I made may not have the same affect on you. And depending on how diabetic you are, then you may have to get a doc’s OK, to go ahead with this.
* measurements are different UK to USA - so in UK 6.9mmol/L is 125mg/dL. Normal is 3.9-5.5 mmo/L (70-100 mgd/L)