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Further Food Summary: Read Tiffany's amazing account of how she reversed her diabetes! Tiffany went from an A1C of 10% to 5.8% in 6 months and has been able to keep it stabilized by radically changing her diet. Read her story below!
In June of 2013, I went into the ER not knowing what was wrong with me, and came out with an unexpected diagnosis: I had Diabetes type II. I was shocked when my doctor told me my blood sugar was almost 400! Normally blood sugar is supposed to be 80 to 100 after fasting, and not get higher than around 150 after eating. I spent the next couple days trying to adjust to the news and the medicine (Metformin), which made me feel really awful!
My follow-up appointment was with a new doctor, not my regular physician. After seeing that my blood sugar was still hanging out in the mid-200s, he doubled the dose of Metformin. When I started to take the higher dose, my system totally freaked out. Everything I ate went right through me and I felt even worse. I also became dehydrated, which made the blood sugar levels go up even more! Apparently, this doctor “forgot” that Metformin takes a couple weeks to kick in. Later, my regular doctor told me that he would have started me on about 1/8th of the amount the other doctor did! Something had to Change: At this point I started to wonder if I could manage my disease with my diet, instead of drugs. Once I read more about it, I found out that you can actually reverse Type 2 Diabetes using diet, but at the time I had no idea. The extreme discomfort I felt with the drugs drove me to check in with my chiropractor and my therapist/nutritionist. My chiropractor placed me on a very strict drug-free diabetes diet, which is designed to detoxify your system and balance body chemistry. For the first few months I followed this suggested diet very closely. For a while I had a bit of a detox crisis (headaches and exhaustion), but that’s part of the process. Miraculously, after two years now, my sugars are down and I feel really great! I also dropped 8 sizes. The diet worked! In that time, I also educated myself on diabetes and nutrition. After 6 weeks I was transformed: After about 6 weeks of my diabetes diet, my old food addictions (to sugar especially) were mostly gone, and I had learned to really enjoy my food. My taste buds changed and I feel full on way fewer calories than before. I hope I can share some of that with you all, and I would encourage you to stick with it long enough to get past your addictions, which in my case contributed to my diabetes. Not being addicted to food has also helped me to be able to live in the freedom that I believe we were all intended for! With Four Kids, I Make Healthy Food a Priority: Now that my diet isn’t so strict I’ve been having fun experimenting with healthy foods and flavors. I have four kids, so I try to transfer the healthy habits I’ve learned from my journey to them. My family eats gluten-free, low dairy, low glycemic whole foods, with lots of veggies and fruit. The kids love our new diet, especially since I haven’t asked them to stop eating dessert, I’ve just found healthier ways to make it! My daughter, Emily, has to be completely dairy-free, so I adapted my baked goods to be dairy-free too, substituting things like butter with coconut oil. Since the changes, I’ve seen a dramatic improvement in their immune systems and overall health! They’ve continued to get colds once in a while, but very rarely have fevers that accompany them. Filling my Soul: While I share recipes, healthy ideas, nutrition facts & philosophies on my blog, I believe that these are not the only way to fill the soul. Throughout my life, I found that no matter how full my stomach was, food never filled my heart. I am a Christian, and my health journey has brought me into a deeper relationship with God. I hope that my story will encourage others on their journey, and can serve as an example of how what might seem to be a devastating diagnosis can actually be a path towards freedom. Here are some of my favorite diabetes-friendly recipes: Zucchini Noodles with Avocado Sauce Avocado Deviled Eggs Broccolada Green Smoothie Want more? You might also like: Living with PCOS or Diabetes II? 12 Habits You Should Live By 3 Days of Eating for Type 1 Diabetes Gretchen Otte How a Stranger Convinced Me My Diabetes Diagnosis Wasn’t the End of The World 8 Essential “Dos” to Beat Diabetes… Without Drugs!
