The Cure

I’m no Superman. I don’t think I would have been able to accomplish the physical stuff without changing my thinking and getting those around me (the ones who care about me, at least) to support the changes.

This is Version 2.  Version 1 didn’t have little reminder – Eat, Supplement, Cardio, Assess, Persuade, Educate.  ESCAPE.  This is my ESCAPE Plan from diabetes.  Cute, huh?

Since you’re reading this, you’re starting with the Educate part.  Good!  You don’t have to do everything at once (but it wouldn’t hurt!)

EAT – Choose what I eat 

The quickest way to get control of your blood sugar is to choose what to eat – and what not to eat.

Biggest step:  Avoid starchy foods.  Unfortunately, that means eat damn little white bread, wheat bread, potatoes, pasta and rice.

Count carbs. For me, the recommendation was to aim for less than 60 grams of carbs per meal, and 30 grams per in-between meal.

You probably already know this.  I knew it for years and thought that just cutting back would be sufficient.  It wasn’t.  Here’s why. Not all carbs are created equal. The issue can be simplified by considering the rate of absorption of starchy carbs and some other foods into glucose.  When your blood glucose spikes, or goes high, it messes with your body.

It’s a little complicated, this issue, the “glycemic index” of foods.  Starchy foods, all fruit juices, table sugar, same stuff.  They spike your blood.  Stay away.  No more seductive M&Ms.  Forget you ever heard of ice cream (unless there is a Sub-Zero Ice Cream near you.  They have several no- and low-sugar options).

Good stuff to eat:  Nearly all veggies, eggs, meats, beans (legumes) and limited nuts and fruits.  An apple a day.  You can eat as much veggies as you want, if you don’t drown them in too much sauces and dressings.  There are entire books about how to eat as a person-who-might-have-diabetes.

Snacks.  In-between meals are a good idea for most people trying to cure themselves from evil diabetes.  Why?  Eating smaller meals and snacking in-between helps keep your glucose from spiking up or tanking low.

Candy.  I’ve found several sources for low-glycemic treats.  Some are in the RESOURCES tab of this site.  I’ll add more as I find them.  Chocolate sweetened with stevia is my favorite, followed by chocolate sweetened with maltitol.  Dark chocolate is healthier than milk chocolate.  Recent innovations using the sugar alcohol erythritol have improved or created many low-carb products.

To learn more about how to eat, well, Educate yourself.

Big Trick:  (My kids would call these “cheat codes”.) It’s easy to stick to eating well if you plan ahead.  Have stuff ready to snack on, or you’ll be tempted to eat garbage.  If I don’t have hard-boiled eggs ready, or almonds or nutrition bars, I’ll dig into the stuff my office staff thinks I can’t find, or eat my teenagers’ corn chips.  Having dinner planned in advance, or springing for a (healthy) restaurant meal, has made all this a lot easier.

SUPPLEMENT – Nutritional supplements  

Remember I said my body is like a chemistry set?  So is yours!

Turns out, and this probably won’t be a surprise, the SAD or Standard American Diet (sometimes called the Stupid American Diet) is rich in fats, sugar and salt but poor in fiber, minerals, vitamins and other nutrients.  Which some experts say is partly responsible for the yuuuuge upsurge in the number of people who develop diabetes type 2.

Difference between me, maybe you, and most of these experts is that they believe the solution to the SAD is pills and shots.  They make the big bucks selling us capsules and injectables.  I believe (I have proved) that changing what I eat will change how my body works.

While I believe in eating well, eating healthy foods, that is, I’ve given up believing that this would be enough.  So I buy and eat supplements.  Vitamins and minerals.  The reading I did led me to these supplements.

0. Chromium.   For the first three or four months, I took a separate chromium pill, three times each day.

What’s chromium?  It’s a chemical element, symbol Cr, atomic number 24.  That’s 24 protons, 24 electrons.  Ever heard of someone having an iron deficiency?  Iron – symbol Fe, atomic number 26.  People with diabetes could be said to have a chromium deficiency.

When I supplemented with chromium, I believe it helped me reduce my cravings for M&Ms and other sugary candy.

Early on in my quest for The Cure, I took Source Naturals’ Zychrome, 400 mcg, 3 times each day, for four months.  After my A1C numbers dropped, I changed to the two supplements described below.  These two give me 334 mcg of Cr per day, which seems to be enough.  So I stopped taking the Zychrome.  (That’s why you see the number 0 on this section.)

1. Gluco-Science, also from Source Naturals.  This has 16 vitamins and minerals, plus 25 herbs and unpronounceable enzymes and compounds.  Number 1!

This product contains the often-mentioned Biotin, Vanadium and Thiamin.   This is my second multimineral/multivitamin product, to which I changed after about six months into The Cure.

Various articles and books I’ve read contained references to most of the components of these Gluco-Science tablets, and the product was recommended to me by Rob Pell, author of the Wellness Uprising book (see RESOURCES for more info).  Given that there are lots of sources who backed up Rob’s suggestion, I feel doubly assured.

I take this with breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Three per day.

2. Berberine.

Number 2!  Berberine is a plant extract, not a drug, although it’s positioned as a drug in China.  Research has proven that it’s as or more effective than the most commonly prescribed drug for lowering blood glucose, has the added benefit of lowering blood cholesterol, and has no or fewer side effects (depends on what you read, how much you take, or what you call a side effect.  One source states that lowering blood glucose is a side effect).

I take Berberine GlucoDefense, from Dr. Whitaker, with breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Three per day.

Berberine came The Cure after the first six months.  I think it’s responsible for helping me drop from 6.7 to 6.4.  Can’t explain it otherwise.

A Note about Cinnamon.

Several sources point to cinnamon as beneficial for diabetes treatment.  Starting in May 2015 for several months, I took a couple different cinnamon supplements of both the -verum  and -cassia varieties.

At four months into The Cure, I changed from my previous multimineral/multivitamin, and added the Berberine product, an additional reassurance for me was that each product contained cinnamon.  I stopped the extra cinnamon after switching to the two products, above.

What works for me might work the same for you, or you might need more or less of something I’m using.  You might want to experiment between A1C tests whether you need extra cinnamon, or extra chromium.

CARDIO – Exercise  

Even jocks hate to exercise.  They like to eat and watch TV.  It’s true.I’m no jock.  I have always hated gymnasia, physical education classes, sports.  I don’t even like watching sports on TV, unless you count Shark Tank.

But, remember, I was facing death or worse – achy legs, low energy, feeling crappy all the time, amputations, blindness.  I decided that I would learn to love some kind of exercise.  I also decided I would find something to enjoy.

So here I am, 57 years old, never having had a regular workout schedule before. Two health club memberships purchased and ignored, years ago. Bad memories of middle- and high-school PE.

I kind of like to swim, but I don’t have a pool in my house (can you believe it?) and I didn’t want to take time to drive to one (it’s nine-tenth’s of a mile south of my house!), then take off my clothes, put on trunks, swim, dry off, shower, dress all over again.  I wanted to do something quick and with minimal distractions from life.

Stage 1 – Months 1 to 3 

When I got started I was lucky to have a chance meeting with an expert personal trainer.  I said to him: “I hate exercise. I hate gyms and clubs.  I don’t particularly even like you!”  Fortunately, he thought I was kidding about the last part.  Here is what he told me to do:

“When you get up each morning, drink a large glass of water, whatever temperature you like.

“Then put on your best walking shoes and go for a walk.  Go for 10 minutes away, 10 minutes back.  After a couple weeks, go for 15 minutes out, then 15 minutes back.  Walk fast, but not so that you’re miserable. Start noticing how you feel after you get home. Just do that.”

That seemed reasonable.  I live in a decent neighborhood and, fortunately, I was starting in May, not January.  Weather conditions wouldn’t punish me.  I walked.  First day, 20 minutes, next day, 20 minutes, third day, I think I went for a whole half hour!

And I listened.  Not to songbirds or traffic, but to podcasts.  Sometimes to music.  Some days, a little of both. I might have been the last in my family to learn about podcasts, but I think they saved my life!  Very quickly I began to see my morning half hour as precious and useful.  I looked forward to my time alone.  (If you don’t have a smartphone, you’re missing out.)

Because this new exercise program was 90% enjoyable, and because I did it first thing in the morning, before the phone calls started, before my kids needed something, I was pretty consistent about it.  I walked at least four days every week, sometimes five or six, for months.

Stage 2 – Something happened.  Months 4 to 7.    

And then: September happened.  Instead of finding bright sunny skies each morning, there was fog on gray and cold blowing drops of unwelcome most days. I quickly realized that something had to be done.

I considered moving to Portugal, but knew that someday my wife and kids would find me.  San Diego was next.  Neither of these was to be my solution.

You, on the other hand, might already live in a place that’s perpetually sunny and so need not worry about this.  Or you might want to get something different.  Or go to a gym.  Skip to Stage 3.

Turns out, they make machines designed to go into your house that help people do what they would otherwise have to drive to a health club to do!  You can step onto, or climb into, or sit on them!  Rowing! Climbing! Walking! Running! Ellipticalling! In your own house!

Make a long story short, I decided to do the ellipticalling.  No travel to a gym.  My own TV and shower. Ellipticalling is a third of the way between walking fast, climbing stairs and rowing.  Really.  You use your legs, arms and, I think, your back.  And it’s easy on my knees and shins.

I did research. My wife quickly agreed for us to buy a new elliptical machine AND to let me place it in our family room where I could either watch TV or ignore TV.  I tried several machines at a couple stores and chose a model that fit my body and had enough gadgets to keep me entertained.  I also consulted Consumer Reports, which steered me away from some models and toward certain features.

Four things to know about elliptical machines:

1. You don’t have to buy a new one.  There are always a dozen or so for sale on Craigslist.  But see 2), 3) and 4) below.

2. Try before you buy.  Unlike sidewalks and streets, with which your legs and feet connect in a predictable manner, elliptical machines vary widely in terms of how they feel to walk on.  For example, some machines’ foot pedals are placed wide apart – unnatural for me, someone whose heels often bump each other as I walk.  Some machines have more of a round walking path; mine is a long oval. Handles vary; I like mine, hated others.

This thing becomes an extension of your body.  You have to get on and see if you can maintain a stride that is similar enough to your natural walk that you can expect to be comfortable.  It’s like buying a new suit. There is no substitute for physically experiencing the machine before you bring it home.

3. Prices vary widely.  Part of the difference is the physical quality of the machine itself, which is made up of weights, motors, poles and hinges.  Much of the price is based on the avionics that most come with.  These range from simple displays showing speed and “distance travelled” to large color displays like you’d see in the cockpit of a Boeing 787.  Some come with subscriptions to wondrous programs that show natural scenes around the world, or simulate a group activity.

But you probably don’t need the high-end video programming; you need to get off your butt several times each week.

Spoiler alert:  The most important feature to get, based on what you’ll soon learn, is a visual readout of your heart rate.

4. If you buy a new machine, spring for the extra 10-15% and get a maintenance warranty.  If you don’t, when it needs to be repaired, don’t call me!  These machines take a beating, even if you are the only one who ever uses it.

Stage 2 was getting the elliptical machine and continuing to exercise 4-6 times each week, generally for half an hour.  I did it.  You can, too.

By the way, there’s lots of good stuff on TV, no matter what you hear.  But for me, I find that most days I’d rather leave it off and listen to good podcasts.  They start and stop on my schedule, and I can hit the button to listen at 1.5X speed if I wanna.  (Remember, The Cure is not only about feeling well, it’s about maintaining control of your life!)

But I didn’t know what I was doing, beyond the mechanical instructions booklet that came with the machine.

Important – By the time I learned what I should be doing, I had already dropped my blood glucose average to the Pre-Diabetes level.  In other words, the machine did its part in The Cure before I learned I could do more with it.

Stage 3 – Months 8 and beyond 

I still exercise 4-5 times each week, but now I monitor my heart rate while I do it.

Somewhere around six months into The Cure, I met Michael, the husband of a girl I went to school with.  Well, the girl is a woman now, but I met her when she was a girl.  We’re all about 58 now.  I guess you can’t be a 58-year-old girl.  Unless you’re a woman, then you can call your girlfriend a girl.  But, I digress.

Michael is a retired genius of some sort.  But not a physician or surgeon.  Not even a health researcher.  Still, based on what he told me about his own health issues, and the fact that he looked pretty healthy, I listened carefully.  He said that any exercise is good, but if I want it to make a difference to improve my health and extend my life I would need to do it at least four days per week and get my heart rate up to the right level when doing it.

Why?  To make a long story short, he told me that it’s all in Younger Next Year, a book whose subtitle is “Live Strong, Fit, and Sexy – Until You’re 80 and Beyond”.  The book isn’t mainly about exercise, and it’s not boring, either.  Click RESOURCES to find out why you need this book.

Yes, I used to hate to exercise. Sometimes I still hate it.  But most days I treasure my time on my elliptical machine. It’s my time and I’m getting triple benefits from it.

ASSESS – Test blood glucose and A1C 

This testing business is more psychological than physical.  When it comes to diabetes, numbers are what matter.  You might feel fine, but if you’re numbers are poor, you’re sick.

That’s the negative side.  The plus side is that numbers can encourage you.

Two numbers matter:

1. Immediate blood glucose readings.  Every day.
2. Every three months:  Hemoglobin A1C.  (If you’re reading this in any part of the current or former Kingdom of Great Britain, it’s Haemoglobin.)

Immediate Blood Glucose Readings  

Immediate readings come from your little portable meter.  When I first saw mine I was surprised at how tiny they are.  Mine’s just a little bigger than a disposable cigarette lighter.  It’s a miracle of science. But the meter is only a part of the whole system – you need a little container of testing strip and the thingy that snaps a little hole into your finger to let out the, um, sample.  The “lancing device.”   The whole system, whichever one you get, is still tiny; with case and all it’s smaller than a paperback novel.

When to test:

When you first start the cure, test a lot.  Later on, when you’ve gained control of what you eat and how much you exercise, less often.  Most days now I test only once each day, first thing in the morning.

Test times:

First thing in the morning.

Two hours after you finished breakfast.

Two hours after you finished lunch.

Two hours after you finished dinner.

Whenever you are curious*.

Why not immediately after you eat?  Two reasons:  1) you won’t like the number and 2) it’s not very useful.  When you eat, your blood glucose level is supposed to go up. Up means higher than your average.  The healthier you are, the more likely it is that your number will have dropped back to your average.

At first this might seem like a lotta work.  It’s not.  Takes less than a minute, once you figure out how the lancing device is supposed to work.  (Took me three months to get that right.)  You can set a timer on your phone to remind you.

Many of the new meters keep track of scores or hundreds of tests, including not just your blood glucose level, but also the time of day and whether it was before or after a meal. (Mine asks.)

I made sure to get a blood glucose meter that plugs into my PC and lets me download a week’s or a month’s results in a few seconds.  But you don’t have to do it that way.  Pencil and paper, on lined or grid paper, gives you instant charting, too.

•  My body is like a chemistry set.  I can do experiments with what I eat, get out my meter, and see results.  I ate an apple about half an hour ago.  Just for the heck of it, I decided to do a quick series.  Here are my numbers:
  • 4:38 PM112
  • 5:00 PM130
  • 5:20 PM132

Interesting, huh?

Every Three Months  

In addition to testing daily, I found it useful to look at charts showing changes over time.  Of particular use are those that chart the most important number: Hemoglobin A1C.  (You read about this test in The test you can’t fake out on my home page.)

I don’t do home testing of my Hemoglobin A1C.  Instead, I get an order from my physician and trek to the lab every three or four months or so. My lab posts the results on their system, which I can then access using an app on my iPhone.  Cool.  Especially because the app shows a chart that compares results over the past five years.  Here it is:

Lots more can be told about A1C, more than I can practically or legally offer.  Suffice to say that when contrasted with the data from your meter, it tells how well your body is controlling how it deals with blood glucose.If you’re working towards The Cure for yourself, it’s absolutely worth getting this test.

PROSELYTIZE – Persuade 

This isn’t about the other kind of proselytizing, for religion, political party or even favorite software.

I’m talking about telling people (who I think would care about me) that I’m watching what I eat so I can continue to keep diabetes in the past.  I continue to be disgusted with the way diabetes is considered normal in the United States, that it’s expected that people will progress from not having it, to having it a little, to taking pills, to taking shots.  I object.

To whom do I proselytize?

1. My wife.  She gets it.  And she doesn’t try to feed me mashed potatoes anymore.  Or ice cream. Fortunately, because she sees me taking the bull by the horns, and I show her my A1C results, she’s never once seen the need to complain if she sees me eating a bite of something that maybe I shouldn’t.  On the other hand, she frequently feels the need to remind me about the garage, the gutters, the fence posts, my piles of books.
2. My co-workers.  Got them involved in supporting me.  For example, they hid the M&Ms machine, stopped bringing (so much) candy to the office.
3. Friends.  Especially George, David, Richard, Carol and Shirley, who have this dreaded condition, and Jessie, Jeanette and Felicia, who either also have it or are married to (or act like they are married to) men with it. They seem encouraged by the story of The Cure, my cure, which I hope inspires them to get involved.
4. Strangers.  This now-public message.  Some day I might be spotted somewhere and a stranger will ask me, “Hey!  You!  What’s your A1C?”  I’d better be ready to say 6.4 or 6.2 … maybe better!

I tell people that, for many, Type 2 Diabetes is can be reversed.  That it’s a matter of playing a game with your mind and your grocer, your couch and your body.

Also, I tell them my numbers.  It puts me into the position that I might be asked later, in a few months, how’zit going?  I don’t want to have to report that I’ve fallen down.

So.  I proselytize.  Join with me!  Tell the people the good news about The Cure!

EDUCATE – Educate myself

After making Diabetes Type 2 my part-time hobby, I’ve read dozens of websites, hundreds of articles and several books about diabetes, diets and carbohydrates. Don’t worry, you don’t have to read them all.  Turns out, neither did I.

Three (3) books encouraged me the most.  They filled my mind with stories that illustrated why and how to overcome my SAD (Stupid American Diet) and sloth.

What’s in these books is all I really needed:

Reversing Diabetes, by Julian Whitaker, MD.

Younger Next Year, by Chris Crowley & Henry S. Lodge, MD.

Wellness Uprising, by Rob Pell

Do you really want to read book reviews?  Check the RESOURCES tab for easy ways you can click to learn more and then order these books for yourself.