My name is Marc, I’m a 56 year old ex-banker. I was born in London, lived in London for nearly all my life and then moved to France for three years and now live on the South Coast of the UK, near a place called Worthing.
I’d already started googling about diabetes because I thought that was what was going to happen and I found the diabetes.co.uk website and the forum there and I started reading about how other people were dealing with their type 2.
And from what I read, everyone who went on a low-carb diet seemed to have the best success rates. So I thought, “Well, it’s time to give this a go”. The hardest thing in the beginning probably was giving up crusty bread. I’d lived in France for a few years before my diagnosis and used to eat a lot of croissants and freshly baked baguettes.
It was hard to give up, but I realized, “It doesn’t do me any good” and it sets all sorts of triggers for kind of compulsive eating, so I just avoid it altogether now. So I met with a diabetes nurse that told me who I was on the road to having insulin, my HbA1c was going to get worse.
When I went back to see her three months later, she said, “Oh, your HbA1c has come down quite a lot. That must be the metformin doing that.” I was very pleased to tell her that I had stopped taking them after three weeks and hadn’t taken them since and that actually I was completely diet controlled.
And she was sure I was talking rubbish. I thanked her actually, because I said, “You made me so angry when I first met you “that I decided to do something about it myself rather than listening to what you were saying. So it’s kind of partly down to you… what I have achieved”.
My friends and family were a bit stunned when I started losing weight and especially the speed of it, because it was quite quick. And some other friends, in fact we were seeing on Sunday, they’ve started cutting their own carbs down. And I try and evangelize about it as much as I can and it seems that people are starting to listen.
Well, I think, obviously it’s been very good for me and I’ve lost weight and I am healthier. After one year on keto I suddenly got this burst of energy. We were on holiday in the Canary Islands. I woke up and thought, “I want to go the gym.”
And the hotel had a gym and for the first time in 10 years I went on a running machine and ran. My advice for anyone who wants to start low-carb diet is to just do it. It’s not going to cause you any harm and it may do you a whole lot of good.
So I think it’s a great idea for anyone. If they can get their mind around the fact that it’s going to do them good, it’s going to be beneficial to their health, what have they got to lose?
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I can relate to part of your story when your Doctor stated that the success rate you had was put down to the medication Metformin, yet you had stopped taking this.
I also, experienced same situation. When my A1C dropped down 23% in 3 months, I asked if my change of lifestyle, diet and intermittent fasting had contributed in a large way to this, Oh no he said, this was due to the metformin given, which controlled the sugars, when I informed him I decided not to take metformin from day one, and challenged the conventional methods, he was not impressed at my news to him, he just could not relate or even consider that such a reduction had taken place without medications.
Perhaps, all you Doctors out there, who are patting themselves on the back for a job well done by prescribing metformin, to become more open minded, learn from your patients experience, add to your file notes, make use of your patients living proof of what works, and its not always due to medications, rather its called self discipline, determination, and finding websites such as diet doctor who give incentive recommendations, that change of lifestyle, is all it takes, your living proof, I am living proof and I sure thousands more, yet many Doctors, sadly, turn deaf ears wanting to accept this, and more so, do not seem to want to give praise in such situations, why is the million dollar question.
Nice success story, keep up the good work, and good luck.
Jenny