The post some of you have been asking for, “Ben, how did you get yourself out of taking insulin after struggling with your blood sugar numbers?” It wasn’t uncommon for me to test and get numbers between 220 and 380 and that scared me. I felt like nothing I did was helping me get those numbers down, even going to the gym and lifting heavy weights and I would train 2 or 3 times a week.
This answer is going to be controversial and some may even call it extreme. I am here to tell you that it works, and I am proof! The only thing that worked for me, and I believe that if you are a Type 2 Diabetic(T2D) than this can work for you as well. Typical disclaimer, always let your endocrinologist or doctor know exactly what you’re doing before starting anything like this because your medication will have to be adjusted and you’re Blood Sugar Levels(BSL) closely monitored as hypoglycemia is very likely while doing this without the drastic adjustments.
The first thing I did was I stopped poking my fingers with the lancets, squeezing and oozing out a drop of blood to measure my BSL a few times a day. How are you supposed to know if at that moment your numbers are stable, going up, headed down or yo-yoing? Going to a continuous BSL monitor like the 14-Day Freestyle Libre gave me the insight that I needed to know how what I am eating and its effect on me specifically. This monitor can store your results for 8 hours to see a constant graph of how your blood is doing. I will share my very personal BSL’s below with you after I share what I did next.
When I was first diagnosed with T2D over 5 years ago I would constantly bombard my good friend who is also a T2D for longer than I was about the disease. I also did a lot of online research and finally decided it’s time to get a book on the subject. I landed on, “The Diabetes Code” by Dr. Jason Fung, book two in the series starting with the “The Obesity Code”, where he broke down in plain English the causes of T2D and why doctors who prescribe insulin are only treating the symptoms and not solving the problem, addressing the root cause. What makes T2D happen in the first place?
The why T2D happens? Back in the early days of humans when we were cave dwellers, we didn’t have the options that we have today, all these food choices. Food could be scarce at times (think harsh winters). We have evolved a body that wants to keep us alive for as long as possible. When you eat a lower calorie and lower fat diet, your body recognizes that and adjusts your metabolism slowly so that over time, your body is shutting down “none essential systems” to conserve the energy you are getting. However, when you became sick and were unable to eat at all, your body evolved into a completely different solution. One that heals itself and goes into its fat stores to sustain your body until you have healed. If your body started to shut systems down in these periods as it does for lower calorie and fat intake, then when we finally did heal and leave the cave, we would have no energy to hunt for that food. Remember, the body wants to keep us alive.
So, what did I do to get off Insulin already? Well, I took a page from the cave-dwelling ancestors before us and used the oldest diet method in the book. I’m fasting! No food, just water or green tea with no sugars, milk or creamers of any kind. First, I tried the intermittent 16 hours fast, but that didn’t work for me. I decided to up the game to the 36 hours fast every other day. Man, what a dramatic effect on my numbers and honestly what a money and time saver not having to worry about meals on those fasting days too! Now there is a ton more detail to this that’s hard to get into here. The book can be your guide to stopping your insulin as well. Check out my very private numbers here below both before and after starting my fasting regiments. Full disclosure, I stopped taking glipizide completely as well. My metformin went down to just 1 pill a day before I eat my largest meal and not at all during my 36 hours fast. I also take vitamins B-12 and Chromium supplements along with the metformin. Here below are the results from my 14-Day Freestyle Libre App Screen Shots off of my iPhone.
To a medication-free future to you as well!