{"id":49165,"date":"2018-06-13T09:31:18","date_gmt":"2018-06-13T13:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=49165"},"modified":"2018-06-13T09:50:51","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T13:50:51","slug":"my-experience-with-intermittent-fasting-and-type-2-diabetes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=49165","title":{"rendered":"My Experience With Intermittent Fasting and Type 2 Diabetes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost a year ago, I was lying in a bed in the intensive care unit of my local hospital. The day before, I’d gone to the E.R. because my left shin was hurting and an angry red splotch had developed. It was roughly the size of my palm. The doctor gave me antibiotics and a topical ointment but didn\u2019t take blood, and sent me home. Overnight, the infection bloomed. My white blood cell count was frighteningly high, and if I hadn\u2019t returned to the hospital when I did, you wouldn\u2019t be reading this. All this from a scratch on my leg that my dog licked.<\/p>\n

I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2004 during an annual physical. The doctor prescribed Metformin and told me to have a gastric bypass, which I did not do. I eventually developed neuropathy in my feet and lower legs, so when the scratch on my shin \u00a0became inflamed, I didn\u2019t really notice the discomfort, and wasn\u2019t even aware that my leg was infected<\/a>. I was lucky to get treatment when I did. The infection came close to causing amputation. And, I\u2019m even luckier that it didn\u2019t kill me.<\/p>\n

I was athletic and healthy through most of my life. At 35, I was 6\u20192\u201d, 203 pounds and doing two-hour aerobic workouts. Three years later, a career change had me traveling up to 300 days a year and eating every meal on the company\u2019s dime. I ballooned up to 300 pounds. Being away from friends and family, emotional eating, and free food all took a toll on my body. But the job kept me very active and I was still able to do strenuous work that my thinner friends couldn\u2019t do because of their inactivity. I thought I was heavy, but healthy.<\/p>\n

In my 20s and 30s, I tried a variety of healthy diets, from vegetarian (four years), to lower calories and more exercise. The second one worked for me when I was only 30 pounds overweight, but I\u2019ve since learned that a person with 30 pounds to lose is far different from someone who needs to lose 90 pounds or more. It\u2019s not as if you just need to stay on the diet three times as long. The reasons for that much weight gain can differ dramatically and those reasons aren\u2019t necessarily being addressed just by lowering calories and increasing exercise. Different problems require different solutions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Intermittent Fasting and Type 2 Diabetes<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n

My wife she recently reviewed a book<\/a> called The Diabetes Code<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>by Dr. Jason Fung. Dr. Fung is a Toronto, Canada-based nephrologist. After writing his first book, The Obesity Code<\/em><\/a>, Dr. Fung realized the need for a follow-up book on diabetes. His current and historical research is thorough and his course of action for solving the diabetes code is working for his patients. I read it, too, and I\u2019ve decided to become one of Dr. Fung\u2019s followers and test out his intermittent fasting eating protocol. In the case of intermittent fasting and Type 2 diabetes, Dr. Fung has shown you can\u00a0<\/em>heal yourself.<\/p>\n

As a busy person, I\u2019ve never minded when an event or activity was cancelled, because that was just one less thing I\u2019d have to fit into my schedule. Well, here\u2019s an eating plan that works the same way. Instead of complicated plans of food preparation, or eating replacement meals, bars or shakes, Dr. Fung presents an eating plan with less\u00a0<\/em>to do. Don\u2019t eat. Much less food prep is involved, and when you do eat, you may be quite happy to prepare it since you\u2019re only dealing with one or two meals a day instead of the standard \u201cthree with snacks\u201d mentality.<\/p>\n

Dr. Fung learned through studying various types of bariatric\/weight-reducing surgeries that symptoms of diabetes were eliminated. This inspired him to seek ways to reduce and eliminate symptoms through fasting and without\u00a0<\/em>surgery. The theory is that, by not eating, you lower your glucose, so the body\u2019s insulin levels are also lowered because there\u2019s no need to produce it. If your body, for a time, is running off of stored energy in fat, insulin isn\u2019t involved in that process. After allowing your system to rest when you are fasting and by eating a low carb+higher protein+healthy fat protocol, you will be improving the body\u2019s response to insulin and keeping your glucose numbers in the normal range.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s what I\u2019m doing. My wife gave me Dr. Fung\u2019s book and I was so impressed with his research, historical examples, and approach, that I decided to commit to improving my diabetes health, losing weight, and sharing the experience. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s going to be easy right off. Luckily, I don\u2019t have a lot of heavy lifting in my line of work anymore, but it will prove a huge \u201cheavy lifting achievement\u201d to get past the first few weeks of sugar detox, creating new habits, and avoiding trigger foods and temptations.<\/p>\n

My goal is to follow Dr. Fung\u2019s intermittent 30-hour fasting plan (there\u2019s also a 36-hour plan) combined with his recommended eating plan. I\u2019ll be logging my experiences, successes and failures, how I felt during the fasts and when eating, and what my numbers were for my weight and glucose readings. I\u2019ll report back with my results after I\u2019ve completed a month on the plan. Wish me luck and fast fasts!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":372,"featured_media":49171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1453],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nMy Experience With Intermittent Fasting and Type 2 Diabetes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I\u2019ve decided to become one of Dr. Fung\u2019s followers because in the case of intermittent fasting and Type 2 diabetes, Dr. Fung has shown you can\u00a0heal yourself.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=49165\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Michael Kelly\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=49165\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=49165\",\"name\":\"My Experience With Intermittent Fasting and Type 2 Diabetes\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=49165#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=49165#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/iStock_EmptyPlateForkandKnife-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-06-13T13:31:18+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-06-13T13:50:51+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/4e3766329558da0d2939b100b8a396f0\"},\"description\":\"I\u2019ve decided to become one of Dr. Fung\u2019s followers because in the case of intermittent fasting and Type 2 diabetes, Dr. Fung has shown you can\u00a0heal yourself.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=49165#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=49165\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=49165#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/iStock_EmptyPlateForkandKnife-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/iStock_EmptyPlateForkandKnife-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1706,\"caption\":\"My Experience With Intermittent Fasting and Type 2 Diabetes\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=49165#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"My Experience With Intermittent Fasting and Type 2 Diabetes\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/\",\"name\":\"ASweetLife\",\"description\":\"The Diabetes Magazine\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/4e3766329558da0d2939b100b8a396f0\",\"name\":\"Michael Kelly\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe01cb691e342257f8762dd0491e995c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/fe01cb691e342257f8762dd0491e995c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Michael Kelly\"},\"description\":\"M.L. 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