With Type 2 Diabetes, your body becomes inefficient at burning sugar for energy. The hormone insulin, that shuttles sugar from your blood into your cells to be used as energy, stops working. Either your body resists the effects of insulin, or the pancreas doesn’t produce enough. It all starts at the pancreas, in the beta cells that produce insulin, something causes damage here, and insulin dysregulation begins. While many see this as a roadblock in life, we at Wild Women Wellness know you can reverse your insulin resistance.
The First Step is to Uncover the Underlying Cause:
What caused the damage to the pancreas and insulin producing cells to start with? What else contributed to blood sugar dysregulation? There are a number of causes that can trigger the onset of insulin dysregulation such as:
- Food allergies/sensitivities
- Dysbiosis, leaky gut and gut microbiota
- Food additives – like aspartame or high fructose corn syrup
- Oxidative stress – from inflammation
- Mitochondrial dysfunction – dysfunction in the energy centres of the cells
- Toxins- like pesticides on your veggies or plastics in from your water bottle, heavy metal in your teeth and seafood.
- Obesity
- Stress or adrenal fatigue
- Lack of sleep
- Hormone imbalances
- Infections – such as residual viral infections
- Nutrient deficiencies
- Rx Drugs (Statins and DM)
- Genetic predispositions/SNP defects
- High sugar/carbohydrate diet
Insulin resistance and diabetes are also linked to a host of other health conditions such as PCOS, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, cancer, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, hypothyroidism, elevated liver enzymes (ALT/AST), and obesity. The insulin resistance often starts before the weight gain and lab results indicate HbA1C above 6.0. If your fasting blood sugar is above 90 or HbA1C is above 5.5, you will want to dig deeper to investigate if you are having early blood sugar dysregulation. Other clues are weight gain, arthritis, metabolic syndrome, weight around the midsection. You should know however, 60% of people at risk of diabetes are not overweight! If you feel sleepy after meals or irritable between meals this can be an indicator of blood sugar dysregulation. If you believe that you may be suffering from insulin resistance, you need to consult a functional medical or naturopathic doctor and work towards a diagnosis.
Diagnose Appropriately
In order to be diagnosed appropriately, I suggest an initial laboratory evaluation, which can include:
- Adiponectin
- Pro-insulin, C-Peptide
- Glucose tolerance test
- HbA1C
- NMR lipoprotein profile
- Fasting Comprehensive Metabolic Panel
- GGTP
- Uric acid
- Methane breath test
- Comprehensive stool test looking at the microbiome/flora
Choose Individualized Treatment Plan
Where we see the most success in treatment plans are changing dietary habits. The Westernized Standard American Diet is high in saturated and trans fats, salt, refined grains, and sugars, which can cause imbalances in our bodies and more specifically our gut microbiota. Implementing whole food, which is fresh, unprocessed, organic, colorful, and high in fiber will help work towards decreasing insulin release, modifying the gut microbiota, and increasing your cellular responsiveness to insulin. If it doesn’t look like a plant or piece of meat, then don’t eat it!
Foods to Avoid:
- Fruit juice and dried fruit
- High fructose corn syrup
- Gluten
- Refined foods – pasta, bread, cereal, baked goods, pastries, packaged food
- White foods – white rice, white bread, white potatoes, white sugar
Foods to Enjoy:
- All vegetables (except white potatoes)
- Free range chicken, fish- salmon, grass fed lean meats 1-3x week, eggs.
- Fresh or frozen Berries, bananas, apples.
- Good fats: olives, olive oil, avocados, coconut, nuts and seeds, nut butters like almond butter.
- Fermented foods- like Kimchi
Meal Structure:
- Make breakfast and lunch your largest meal
- Keep dinner light
- Intermittent fasting: 12-16hrs of fasting in 5 days per week, this can be done by not eating after dinner, and keeping dinner 12hrs before breakfast.
- Avoid snacking
- Eat protein and good fat with every meal
A structured sleep schedule is very beneficial in your treatment plan. Get your sleep, with a regular bedtime and wake time. Ideally to bed before midnight and getting 8hrs/night. Your body repairs itself in your sleep, so it’s important to make sleep a priority to help maintain your health.
Come work with us at Wild Women Wellness and we will help you establish a healthy foundation through your diet, address the underlying cause, set you up with a targeted supplement program and rebalance your microbiota so you can rely less on medications, feel better, and prevent serious complications down the road.
Take charge of your health, book your free 15 minute phone consultation here or give us a call at (650)-271-9453