Managing Diabetes vs Reversing Diabetes
The statistics on type 2 diabetes are staggering and unfortunately getting worse instead of better. From 1980 to 2012, diabetes has quadrupled. According to the CDC’s Diabetes Report Card, “If this trend continues, as many as one out of every three adults in the United States could have diabetes by 2050”.
All of this is nothing short of alarming and should elicit a massive effort to get to the bottom of the crisis. Conventional approaches look at type 2 diabetes as a disease that is progressive and lifelong. Alternative medicine like us at Innovative Health & Wellness Group look at type 2 as an injury that can be rehabilitated and healed. There is a drastic difference in these two outlooks.
Lifestyle Choices
The evidence is clear that lifestyle choices can prevent diabetic conditions and most of those in the medical field will tell you that. Once someone is diagnosed, however, they are funneled into the medical treatment model and they are now labeled a diabetic for life. The so-called “treatment” of diabetic symptoms are merely management or in other words, keeping someone diabetic. There is no goal of coming off of medications and no goal of reversing it.
Diabetes
If you look at the most popular and trusted organizations for this condition, you will see things like “eat balanced meals”, “eat a moderate amount of carbohydrates”, “limit fats”. “exercise more”. None of these mantras have made a difference. Most diabetics are shocked to learn that there is hope not only to improve the condition but to obliterate it all together.
Diet
Diabetes.org recommends eating “breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks”. The problem with this is several-fold. Most Americans eat way more food than they need. Overeating leads to increased blood glucose levels, storage of fat and hormone dysregulation (especially leptin and insulin). When it comes to diabetes, including complete reversal, don’t snack, eat much smaller portions, eliminate grains and sugars and even skip meals (intermittent fasting). After a short transition period (usually about 10-14 days) they stop experiencing cravings and hunger between meals.
Most medical educators recommend that 40-50% of calories should come from carbohydrates. This is a major problem considering this amount of carbs is a causal factor in the development of this disease. This is the equivalent of adding fuel to the fire. The single most impactful nutritional change someone can make to prevent or reverse diabetic symptoms is to cut down on their carbohydrate intake. Carbohydrates include things like sugar, grains, potatoes, fruit, dairy, legumes, and vegetables. Americans have a toxic love affair with sugar and grains.
Sugar & Carbs
People think they need sugar or carbohydrates in their diet or that our body NEEDS glucose for energy. What most people don’t know is that your body can make all the glucose it needs on its own from (gluconeogenesis) AND your body can adapt and use ketones for energy instead of glucose. This is the lifestyle change that has become so famous recently called the “ketogenic lifestyle”.
This lifestyle (ketogenic) is perfectly safe because there are no diseases attributable to lack of sugar or grains in our diets. In fact, the results of these eliminations are nothing short of amazing. The body starts to heal and regulate hormones, lose weight if need be, and it happens fast.
These nutritional changes can elicit massive results with regards to diabetes and when combined with metabolic exercise training it has been shown to outperform the diabetes drug Metformin by 3:1.
There is hope. Give us a call at 214-972-0302 and we can help you get started.