American Diabetes Association CEO Tracey Brown has revealed her personal success with a low-carbohydrate diet in a new interview with the Sisters4Fitness Wellness Show.
Declaring how seriously she takes the responsibility of being “the poster child of how to thrive while living with diabetes,” Ms. Brown tells how reducing her carbohydrate intake has had such a profound and positive impact on her health.
Remarkably, Ms. Brown has been able to discontinue her use of insulin, has significantly reduced her use of prescription medication, and even predicts that she’ll be able to drop her last medication by the end of the year.
You read that right: the first CEO of the ADA with diabetes may be beating her own condition into remission!
Along the way, Ms. Brown makes a persuasive case for carbohydrate restriction that goes well beyond mainstream recommendations to limit only sugars and highly processed foods:
“It’s pretty simple. Elevated blood sugars happen when you have sugars in your body and you don’t have insulin to manage the sugars in your body… Carbohydrates turn into sugar. So I just try to get people to be a little aware of how many carbohydrates you’re actually putting in your body. And carbohydrates come in many shapes and forms, right? Bread is a carbohydrate, pasta is a carbohydrate, actually, fruits … some fruits are high in carbohydrates.”
While she admits to enjoying French fries from time to time, she also tells us that she’ll toss the bun of a fast food sandwich into the trash, that she has stopped eating rice, and happily explains how pleased she has been with discovering a “whole new palette” of low-carb foods. She’s also changed her exercise regimen and devoted herself to getting better sleep and reducing stress. Whatever the specifics of Ms. Brown’s diet and lifestyle changes, they’re obviously working.
She also clearly hopes to inspire others along the way through her own successes: “Anybody can do what I did, and I’m not suffering for it.”
One can only hope that Ms. Brown’s personal journey also inspires some of the experts that work for her organization and help set the guidelines that are so influential in the medical establishment. While the ADA has recently made some baby steps towards an endorsement of low-carb diets, the organization is typically cautious and slow-moving, and has long been associated with high-carb diet advice and recipes. But Ms. Brown is such a singular and dynamic figure that we’ll allow ourselves a little optimism that great changes are now afoot at the ADA. She has already pledged to make the organization more agile and innovative. I wouldn’t bet against her.
We recommend the entire two-part interview, which touches on many other topics beside her own inspirational story. She begins to address her own dietary philosophy at 21:00:
Wow and yet the ADA still recommends 60 grams of carbs…at every meal and more at snacks? Glad Ms. Brown has found personal success while the very organization that she leads continues to push bad recommendations and advice that are largely responsible for creating a populace where most people are now prediabetic or diabetic.
First rate interview. Thank you for making the information so accessible.
Wonderful interview! So informative and inspiring. Great job!