When Weight Loss becomes Necessary

Like most doctors I can be pretty bad when it comes to looking after my own health. Sitting on my desk was a requisition for routine blood work from my family physician, which, of course, had sat there for almost 6 months without me doing anything.
Before the holidays I thought I would finally do it. The results were copied to me and I looked at them, expecting to see no major concerns. Much to my surprise (can we say panic), my blood sugar was elevated! "They've made an error” was my first thought. Soon afterwards I was doing rounds at the hospital and I asked a nurse to take my blood sugar. The number was even higher! And I hadn't even eaten. Now my level of concern was really heightened. I quickly went to the pharmacy and bought a glucose monitor and began taking random checks.
As an aside I should tell you that I have a strong family history of diabetes and heart disease.
Up until I saw the elevated sugar, I had been somewhat loose with my eating and know I had gained some weight in my abdominal area which certainly worsens, if not causes, type 2 diabetes.
Many of the top physicians who have written books on nutrition and weight loss, also had been trending to diabetes and they made their own personal food changes to correct the disease. This includes Dr. Phinney, Dr. Tim Noakes and Dr. Jay Wortman to name a few.
Right away I became much more vigilant on seriously reducing my carbohydrate intake. As you know, this category of food simply raises insulin, increases abdominal fat and this fat worsens the condition of insulin resistance. I also had to become much stricter on reducing or having no unnecessary snacks. Nuts were my unfortunate ‘go to', not that they aren't healthy, but my portions were way beyond any 'hunger' I was having. Ok, let's be honest here, there was no hunger; I just felt like eating something.
The second thing I did was to really ask myself if I was truly hungry at breakfast, or lunch or supper. I began skipping the occasional breakfast, or lunch, or supper. You could call this a 'mini fast'.
Within a week I knew my gut was shrinking a bit, and the glucose numbers overall were much better. It's an interesting personal scientific experiment one can do, because any time I ate carbohydrates at a meal the sugars spiked significantly, but not when combined with protein, fat and very complex carbs such as broccoli.
We know type 2 diabetes can be controlled, maybe 'cured' nutritionally. One has to be willing, however, to significantly reduce their carbohydrates. This is very much a mental game, as our brains may crave carbohydrates, but they are truly not a necessary food group - especially the simple refined ones.
The abdominal fat is very resistant and one has to work hard at understanding what works to reduce it. Certainly a lower carb intake works, but I also think most of us need to become much more aware of hunger feelings, or lack of them. Don't eat just because it's time to eat. Don't be afraid to skip a meal, or two. We want the body to learn to use our fat stores as fuel and there is no better time than in a fasting state.
The purpose of this post is simply to have all of us realize that the food we put in our mouth can be both a powerful medicine, and it can also lead to chronic disease; we must remain vigilant day by day, month by month, year by year.
Learn what works for you. You can do it. Never ever give up trying!
Dr. Doug