Contradicting the ignorance and misinformation from doctors, big pharma, and the grain industry
I keep hearing about drugs being sold to address problems that lifestyle can fix, and since I'm in the middle of one of those problems myself, I want to share about a more healthy and less expensive solution that worked for my body.
Ok. Technically, I've not cured my diabetes. I have, however, accomplished the first step; getting off the meds and proving the symptoms can be managed via diet and exercise.
Quick background
I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in the Spring of 2017 while living in Acapulco, Mexico.
It ravaged my system in various ways, including:
- Loss of most of my muscle mass - so yeah weakness and easy fatigue.
- Low energy.
- Nerve damage - about half of the area of both feet were numb and/or tingly, random sparks/tingles of various feelings, including pain throughout the body (felt like insect bites), and numbness in various areas. I started noticing these symptoms in 2016. The only way I could sleep was to use a huge - and increasing - amount of Advil, which barely worked. Eventually I discovered that consuming CBD before bed insured sleep.
- Inflammation - expressing mostly as joint pain. This began in 2008.
- Foggy brain - I didn't even notice until it was not happening. Oh the clarity now!
- Deteriorating vision (including cataracts).
I had felt the approach of these symptoms for about a year prior to the diagnosis and suspected something was up but was afraid to face it.
My diet leading up to the diagnosis was vegetarian plus occasional fish, chicken, turkey, and eggs. I often went a week or more without consuming animal products. I didn't have much of a taste for meat and ate it rarely. I had not eaten beef, pork, lamb, or drank milk in over 26 years. I ate an unrestricted amount of bread and pasta, usually gluten free. I ate an unrestricted amount of rice, too. I didn't know how the body converts carbs into sugars and the load they put on the liver and eventually, the rest of the body. I rarely consumed cheese. Pizza is my demon! Yay cauliflour crusts! Yay the flavor of the sauce at Alamo Drafthouse!
What is autophagy and why does it matter?
There is an important "garbage removal and repair" process our bodies do naturally, if given the chance, called autophagy.
Autophagy is the major eukaryotic degradative process for cytosolic organelles, long–lived proteins as well as misfolded protein aggregates, playing an important role in development, adaptation, starvation, tumor suppression, and aging as well as innate and adaptive immunity. Although mostly referred to strictly as a degradative process, autophagy is also often described as a renewal process; a pathway by which metabolites generated through autophagic degradation are reused either as sources of energy or building blocks for synthesis of new macromolecules.
Important take-away: Autophagy repairs cellular damage. New studies are even showing it can slow or even reverse some of the effects of aging! Important: For it to work, a person needs to give their digestive system breaks. Nothing drastic is required.
You can quickly and easily get into autophagy
A few days into my intermittent fasting (removed breakfast from diet) with high fat, medium/low protein, and very low carbs and I put my body into a state of autophagy. I'm on day 91 now and at least 2-4 times a week I cycle from two meals a day to one. The high fat intake means I have no cravings. Apparently, I've converted my body into a "hybrid" system (it's natural state) that can easily utilize fat and ketones as well as the carbs it has been trained to use for energy.
Where's the evidence this lifestyle is working?
- All muscle, joint, and "phantom" pain gone! I can now dance or do Kung Fu for an hour and have zero joint pain, which is a very new thing for me! I still get muscle pain, but it is the "good" kind because I'm quickly building up massively atrophied muscles.
- I can sleep without drugging myself!
- Dry, scaly skin on my face gone.
- Higher testosterone - more energy, drive, and confidence.
- Some of my nerve damage has gone away, as in I can feel more parts of my feet now!
- Consistently high energy levels.
- An unintended side effect: I lost quite a bit of my body fat. As of today, I've put two new holes in my belt and cut three inches off the tip.!
- Finally, the primary goal reached: March 12, 2019 I stopped taking metformin. March 31, 2019 I got off the glyburide. I'm now off both of those common type 2 diabetes drugs I was prescribed in Spring of 2017 and re-prescribed by a doctor here in Austin in 2018.
I remember my conversation with the first doctor: "But doc, what if I just change my diet and exercise more?"
His reply: "Your blood sugar is far above the norm. This is very bad. You will die if you don't take these drugs (glyburide & metformin)."
The second doctor, over a year later, when asked the same question, gave a similar answer but did concede that he had seen patients cure themselves. "But, that is off the record."
As of today, my blood sugar levels are barely above the normal range; 121 this morning. I'm going to give it a month or more before testing A1C but will keep testing my blood glucose multiple times per day.
What's this system called?
Oh yeah, that diet - really more of a lifestyle - is called Keto, short for ketogenesis. Please be sure to read the caveat at the bottom of this article! Please also study up some on keto in case you bring to the table a belief of the anti-keto grain-n-pharma-industry-perpetuated-myths about things like "eating meats and fat is bad," "LDL causes heart attacks," "coconut oil is bad," "long term effects are damaging," "salt is bad," etc. Follow the money trail.
Here's an article I wrote specifically about those myths:
https://steemit.com/health/@scottermonkey/practical-keto-basics-and-myths
The article also lays out a simple "how to" and links to many products I recommend. Nothing I make money from, if you care.
Please question all information from big pharma-influenced American Cancer Society, American Medical Association (AMA), USDA, and FDA! Big pharma wants doctors prescribing their drugs and they bribe and lobby heavily to keep these agencies under their boots. If you don't know what regulatory capture is, look it up. It's insidious and it's a big part of why regulation doesn't work.
Other benefits?
Many! I can't stress enough that by day 4 ALL my joint pain was gone and I was able to sleep without drugging myself every night! That pain stayed gone - with the exception of twice during this 91 days where I ate too many carbs and the knee pain came back. Both times it took 24-36 hours of getting back on the super low carb train to remove the pain again. Other changes I've noticed include higher and more consistent energy, obvious loss of body fat, and more clarity of thought. Oh and I'm not wasting money or time eating so often, which means I'm getting more done.
IMPORTANT Caveats
- Exercise: I did - barely - step up my exercise during this past 91 days. Cycling between 30 min to 60 minutes of walking, daily. Been getting back into Kung Fu but not as quickly as I'd like because my atrophied muscles are taking time to build up. Learning to not overdo exercises like that which I enjoy so much and to give myself time to recover. Slowly adding in weight training. But the point of this caveat is: I believe exercise as ESSENTIAL for this lifestyle to work well.
- Water: Drink more! Then drink more! And keep in mind that water can wash many important nutrients out of your system, so...
- Make sure you are getting enough of the essential nutrients! Carbs are not essential nutrients! Your body, through a process called gluconeogenesis, makes as much glocuse as you need. Again, refer to https://steemit.com/health/@scottermonkey/practical-keto-basics-and-myths for a list of the nutrients you need most. Potassium and magnesium are high up on the list. Oh and it is best to get them through consumption of whole foods and only through supplements when absolutely necessary. With the current state of soil-for-growing and animal feed, sadly, this is an issue.
Disclaimer
I'm not a doctor or astronaut or oceanographer or physicist or minority or dolphin therapist, so don't go believing anything I say. Don't even follow my advice, which this isn't.