Eat to Live: The Amazing Nutrient-Rich Program for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss (29 page)

Type II diabetics adopting this approach can become undiabetic and achieve wellness and even excellent health. They can be diabetes-free for life! Almost all my Type II diabetic patients are weaned off insulin in the first month. Thanks to their excellent nutrition, these patients have much better (lower) blood sugars than when they were on insulin. The horrors of diabetes about to befall them are aborted.

I have also observed patients who came to me with diabetic retinopathy and peripheral neuropathy gradually improve and eventually resolve their conditions. Dr. Milton Crane reported similar findings in his patients: seventeen out of twenty-one patients who adopted a plant-rich vegan diet obtained complete relief from their peripheral neuropathy.
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Insulin works less effectively when people eat fatty foods or gain weight. Diets containing less fat improve insulin sensitivity, as does weight loss.
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An individual who is overweight requires more insulin, whether he or she is diabetic or not. In fact, giving overweight diabetic people even more insulin makes them sicker by promoting weight gain. They become even more diabetic. How does this process work? Our pancreas secretes the amount of insulin demanded by the body. A person of normal weight with about a third of an inch of periumbilical fat will secrete X amount of insulin. Let’s say this person gains about twenty pounds of fat.
His body will now require more insulin, almost twice as much, because fat on the body blocks the uptake of insulin into the cells.

If the person is obese, with more than fifty pounds of excess fat, his body will demand huge loads of insulin from the pancreas, even as much as ten times more than a person of normal weight needs. So what do you think happens after five to ten years of forcing the pancreas to work so hard? You guessed it—pancreatic poop-out.

The pancreas begins to secrete less insulin, in spite of the huge demands of the body. Eventually, with less insulin available to move glucose from the bloodstream into the cells, the glucose level in the blood starts to rise and the person gets diagnosed with diabetes. In most cases, these individuals are still secreting an excessive amount of insulin (compared with a person of normal weight), just not enough for them. When they eat a less taxing diet and lose weight, they don’t need the extra insulin to control the sugars.

What this means is that typical Type II diabetes is caused by overweight in individuals who have a smaller reserve of insulin-secreting cells in the pancreas. In the susceptible individual, even ten to twenty pounds of excess weight could make the difference. Losing the extra weight enables these individuals to live within the capabilities of their body. Most Type II diabetics still produce enough insulin to maintain normalcy as long as they maintain a thinner, normal weight.

Following my program is the most important thing a diabetic individual can do to extend his or her life span. It has been known for years that intentional weight loss improves diabetics’ blood sugars, lipids, and blood pressure. One study documented a significant increase in life expectancy, with an average of 25 percent reduced premature mortality when diabetic individuals dropped their body weight. Other studies have come to similar conclusions.
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Imagine the results when a program of nutritional excellence achieves the weight loss.

Insulin is a dangerous drug for Type II diabetics
. These are people
who are overweight to begin with. Insulin therapy will result in further weight gain, accelerating their diabetes. A vicious cycle begins that usually causes patients to require more and more insulin as they put on the pounds. When they come to see me for the first time, they report their sugars are impossible to control in spite of massive doses of insulin, which they are now combining with oral medication. It is like walking around with a live hand grenade in your pocket, ready to explode at any minute.

As my patients begin the program I usually cut their insulin in half. The insulin is then gradually phased out over the next few days or weeks, depending on their response and how advanced their condition was when they started. Most patients can stop all insulin within the first few days. The warning I give to patients and their physicians adopting this program is not to underestimate how effective it can be. If the medications, especially insulin, are not dramatically reduced, a dangerous hypoglycemic reaction—driving the blood sugar level too low—can occur from overmedication. It is safer to undermedicate and let the glucose levels run a little high at first, then add back a little medication if necessary. This will minimize the risk of hypoglycemia. Since this diet is so powerfully effective in reversing diabetes and other diseases of nutritional neglect, it is essential that you work closely with a doctor who can help you adjust your medication dose downward in a careful fashion.

I typically continue or begin Glucophage (metformin) or other similar drugs. The newer medications that do not interfere
with weight loss are safer than the older oral medications diabetics used in the past. Eventually, as more weight is lost, these patients can have normal glucose levels without any medication. They become nondiabetic, though diabetes can recur should they adopt a more stressful and girth-growing diet.

Gerardo Petito’s case exemplifies the outcome I see with other diabetic patients on a regular basis. Gerardo stated that his main reason for coming to me was that he wanted to control his diabetes better. On his first visit, on January 18, 2000, he was taking three medications: Accupril 20 mg for blood pressure and two medications for diabetes, Glucophage 500 twice daily and fifteen units of insulin twice daily. He had been on insulin for seven years. His fasting glucose in the morning had been running around 175 with this regimen. His blood pressure was 140/85 and he weighed 256 pounds.

After a lengthy discussion, Gerardo agreed to follow my dietary advice. I instructed him to cut back his insulin dose to ten units the evening of the visit and to five units the following morning; after that, he was to take no more insulin.

When Gerardo came back for his second visit two weeks later, he weighed 237, a loss of nineteen pounds in just two weeks. His glucose in the morning was averaging 115, and his blood pressure was down to 125/80. Other than checking his blood test and doing an EKG for the record, I made no changes in his program. He was enjoying the diet and following my advice to the letter.

At Gerardo’s third visit the next month, he weighed 221, a loss of thirty-five pounds in fifty-two days. He had just returned from a cruise, where he continued to follow his healthful diet. His morning glucose was averaging around 80 (completely normal), so I stopped the Glucophage. His blood pressure was 88/70, so I discontinued the Accupril.

Ten months after Gerardo’s first visit, he weighed 190, a loss of sixty-six pounds, his cholesterol was 134, and his blood pressure was 112/76. His hemoglobin A1C, a measure of diabetic control, was 5.3, in the nondiabetic range. He was on no medication.

Rather than controlling his blood pressure and diabetes, he chose to follow my advice and get rid of his medical problems altogether.

The general advice given in this book is sufficient for most diabetics. The most important goal is how much weight you lose, not whether your glucose is a little higher or lower in the short run. Follow my guidelines for aggressive weight loss in the next chapter. If you follow my program to the letter, it will not be necessary to make your diet complicated by following diabetic food exchanges and counting calories. Most people do not have to measure portions, either. Your goals are the same as the patient with coronary artery disease: get thin and aggressively treat your risk factors. With time, your body will normalize your numbers. Keep the following guidelines in mind:

1. Refined starches such as white bread and pasta are particularly harmful; avoid them completely.
   

2. Do not consume any fruit juice or dried fruits. Avoid all sweets, except for fresh fruit in reasonable quantities. Two or three fruits for breakfast is fine, and one fruit after lunch and dinner is ideal. The best fruits are those with less sugar—grapefruit, oranges, kiwifruit, strawberries and other berries, melons, and green apples.
   

3. Avoid all oil. Raw nuts are permitted, but only one ounce or less.
   

4. The name of your diet is the “greens and beans diet”; green vegetables and beans should make up most of your diet.
   

5. Limit animal-food intake to no more than two servings of fish weekly.
   

6. Try to exercise regularly and consistently, like dispensing your medication. Do it on a regimented schedule, preferably twice daily. Walking stairs is one of the greatest exercises for weight loss.
   

As the information in this book becomes your prescription for health, you can avoid heart attacks and strokes. If this diet were adopted by the general public, these illnesses would become rare and diabetes would practically disappear from our society.

Some physicians and nutritionists believe that individuals suffering from obesity, diabetes, and elevated triglycerides may have good results in losing weight and controlling their high triglycerides and elevated glucose with a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet. They believe this because it has been observed that high-carbohydrate diets can raise triglyceride levels.

I agree that a diet high in
refined
carbohydrates is not advised and will worsen this condition. However, I want to make it absolutely clear that these patients can achieve spectacular results without the added dangers of a diet high in animal protein and saturated fat. They merely need advice on how to modify the plant-based diet for their condition. They do so by eating a relatively high-protein plant-based diet that reduces the amount of low-fiber carbohydrates. The diet is heavy in beans, raw vegetables, and cooked greens. The results are invariably impressive.

It’s almost incredible to believe, but almost all patients with headaches and hypoglycemia get well permanently following the formula for health in this book. I believe it has very much to do with
detoxification
.

The body can heal itself when the obstacles to healing or stressors are removed. The reason people can’t ever make complete recoveries is that they are addicted to their bad habits and unhealthful ways of eating and drinking.

Imagine if you were drinking ten cups of coffee daily. If you stopped drinking coffee, you would feel ill; you might get headaches,
feel weak, even get the shakes. Fortunately, this would resolve slowly over four to six days, and then you would be well.

So, if you were this heavy coffee drinker, when do you think you would feel the worst? Right after eating, upon waking up in the morning, or when delaying or skipping a meal?

You are correct if you answered either upon first waking up or when delaying or skipping a meal. The body goes through withdrawal, or detoxification, most effectively when it is not busy digesting food. A heavy meal will stop the ill feelings, or you’ll feel better if you just drink another cup of coffee, but the cycle of feeling ill will start all over again the minute the caffeine level drops or the glucose level in your blood starts to go down.

Delaying a meal brings about symptoms most people call “hunger.” These symptoms include abdominal cramping, weakness, and feeling ill—
the same as during drug withdrawal
.

This is not hunger. Our dietary habits, especially eating animal-protein-rich foods three times a day, are so stressful to the detoxification system in our liver and kidneys that we start to get withdrawal, or detoxification, symptoms the minute we aren’t busy processing such food.

Real hunger is not that uncomfortable. True hunger is mediated by the hypothalamus in the brain. The hunger-related activity of the hypothalamus correlates best with an increased sensation of need in the mouth and throat area.
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You could feel better by drinking a cup of coffee every three hours, evenly spaced out, to keep your caffeine blood levels constant. Or you could take medications such as Fioricet, Cafergot, Excedrin, Esgic, Fiorinal, Migranal, Wigraine, and others whose active ingredients are narcotics, barbiturates, ergotamines, or caffeine; or you can just get some amphetamines or cocaine from the alley behind the liquor store. Either way, I hope you understand that temporarily feeling better does not mean getting well. Putting toxic drugs in your body can only compromise your health and lead to further dependence and suffering. In order to detoxify, you need to feel worse, not better; then after the withdrawal symptoms are completed, you will truly become well.