The Beetus Part 3
Where we left off yesterday, I'd finished eight full weeks on 800 calories a day, and another five weeks of 800-calorie days five days a week. At this point, I weighed myself. I'd lost almost exactly 10 kilos (22 pounds). Pretty good, at least for me (people without thyroid problems would lose more), but Prof Taylor's participants had had to lose at least 15 kilos to see a substantial effect on their HbA1c score. On the other hand, they had full diabetes, whereas I was "only" prediabetic. So had this been enough to get me out of trouble?
The HbAic test is an everage of the last three months, so it didn't make sense have a repeat one straight away. I left it another couple of months. Hitting refresh on the lab tests page of my doctor's patient portal, it's fair to say that I was terrified. Had my 10kg loss made a difference? Was I going to be forced to do that pretty tough eight weeks again? Worse, would it simply not work at all?
My test result finally came up. My HbA1c had dropped from 43 (prediabetic) to 38 (normal).
If you heard a strange whooping sound that seemed to echo all around the planet, that would have been me.
The relief has been profound. The unpleasantness of the diet is absolutely nothing compared to the relief from the fear and anxiety that followed my prediabetes diagnosis. I intend to lose more weight in order to get my HbA1c further down the normal scale to give myself some breathing room, but more slowly (and less horribly). After that I'll be monitoring my weight like a hawk so I don't rise above my pancreas's fat point again.
At least having reached normal on the HbA1c, I don't have to face the gruelling eight-weeker again. But if I did ever have to, I'd do it like a shot. I also plan to continue following Jessie Inchauspé's methods to reduce any glucose spikes I might be having even though my HbA1C score is technically normal.
When Prof Taylor first proposed his theory about fat in the pancreas causing diabetes and that diabetes was therefore curable with weight loss, he was regarded as really fringey and out there. Now, some eleven years after his first study was published, his work has moved so far into the mainstream in the UK that the NHS is rolling out treatment based on it. It's no longer some crazy theory. There's enough evidence now to show that this is how diabetes works and that, within certain limits, it's reversible.
Of course, there's also a lot of evidence showing that people find it really difficult not so much to lose weight as to keep it off. In an obesogenic society, that's not a surprise. And if you don't keep the weight off, you don't keep the normal HbA1c. What to do about this is above my pay grade. I do know that there are a lot of people with diabetes who will not feel that this is an approach that would work for them, and that of course is their prerogative. All I can say is that for me, avoiding diabetes is a more than sufficient incentive.
A couple of resources on Professor Roy Taylor's work:
https://www.ncl.ac.uk/magres/research/diabetes/reversal/#publicinformation
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/15/how-to-cure-type-2-diabetes-without-medication
Jessie Inchauspé's book Glucose Revolution is easy to find so I'm not going to link to it, but here's an article about her work:
https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/healthandwellbeing/arid-40907705.html
The HbAic test is an everage of the last three months, so it didn't make sense have a repeat one straight away. I left it another couple of months. Hitting refresh on the lab tests page of my doctor's patient portal, it's fair to say that I was terrified. Had my 10kg loss made a difference? Was I going to be forced to do that pretty tough eight weeks again? Worse, would it simply not work at all?
My test result finally came up. My HbA1c had dropped from 43 (prediabetic) to 38 (normal).
If you heard a strange whooping sound that seemed to echo all around the planet, that would have been me.
The relief has been profound. The unpleasantness of the diet is absolutely nothing compared to the relief from the fear and anxiety that followed my prediabetes diagnosis. I intend to lose more weight in order to get my HbA1c further down the normal scale to give myself some breathing room, but more slowly (and less horribly). After that I'll be monitoring my weight like a hawk so I don't rise above my pancreas's fat point again.
At least having reached normal on the HbA1c, I don't have to face the gruelling eight-weeker again. But if I did ever have to, I'd do it like a shot. I also plan to continue following Jessie Inchauspé's methods to reduce any glucose spikes I might be having even though my HbA1C score is technically normal.
When Prof Taylor first proposed his theory about fat in the pancreas causing diabetes and that diabetes was therefore curable with weight loss, he was regarded as really fringey and out there. Now, some eleven years after his first study was published, his work has moved so far into the mainstream in the UK that the NHS is rolling out treatment based on it. It's no longer some crazy theory. There's enough evidence now to show that this is how diabetes works and that, within certain limits, it's reversible.
Of course, there's also a lot of evidence showing that people find it really difficult not so much to lose weight as to keep it off. In an obesogenic society, that's not a surprise. And if you don't keep the weight off, you don't keep the normal HbA1c. What to do about this is above my pay grade. I do know that there are a lot of people with diabetes who will not feel that this is an approach that would work for them, and that of course is their prerogative. All I can say is that for me, avoiding diabetes is a more than sufficient incentive.
A couple of resources on Professor Roy Taylor's work:
https://www.ncl.ac.uk/magres/research/diabetes/reversal/#publicinformation
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/may/15/how-to-cure-type-2-diabetes-without-medication
Jessie Inchauspé's book Glucose Revolution is easy to find so I'm not going to link to it, but here's an article about her work:
https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/healthandwellbeing/arid-40907705.html