Has anybody reversed prediabetes?

[WinnerTakesAFall]

Would anybody be willing to share what they did?

I'm feeling a little overwhelmed & don't know where to start really.

I have an appointment with the GP nurse but not for 5 weeks.

No one is here to judge. Only offer a bit of help 😊Plain popcorn is ok. I mean it won't make you feel full but it's ok. Fizzy pop isn't good at all. Even the diet stuff. The reasons are complicated due to the artificial sweeteners and messages to your brain and insulin issues. Ditching those would be a good start. If you're struggling try cutting them right down.

I hadn’t thought of things that way. Interesting

No, I pay through the nose. Only downside is cost, though.

You asked about diet. This is what I eat:

Breakfast - coffee with almond milk and chocolate protein powder, probiotic juice

Lunch - Huel shake or veg omelette or quark with seeds and goji

Snack - Huel bar

Supper - some kind of protein and veg eg salmon and veg or chicken salad. Sometimes almonds, dark chocolate, fruit.

I’m not strict about it, I eat other things if I’m traveling or visiting. I have birthday cake and all that when appropriate. We go out for meals and I branch out. But that’s my basic diet with emphasis on protein and veg.

I did actually have a pretty healthy diet already, but I was very overweight. It’s the combination with the medicine that made the difference for me.

I found Dr Mark Hyman’s The Blood Sugar Solution very educational. There’s a follow-up diet book as well, with lots of tasty and easy recipes.

Yes with mounjaro

im also in remission for high blood pressure too

I did the Fast800 thing from Michael Moseley. Fast loss of about a stone and it reversed.

You don’t have to go crazy, but you also can’t let the idea of occasional trips to cinema or picnics derail your health - follow proper eating patterns for 80% of the time and you’ll be fine.

Hi OP, I have gone from one 'point' away from full blown diabetes (so well into the pre-diabetes range!) to normal. The time between tests was 12 months and I think the key here is time and not rushing, these will need to be forever changes so don't rush and make gradual changes.

I found the Zoe app very helpful, I did fork out for the works which seemed very helpful at the time but now my diet is permanently changed (4 years on) I don't know if all the initial faff was that worth it. I changed one single thing every week, that was all. I swapped out fizzy water for diet drinks, upped my fruit and vegetables, added pulses as much as I can to everything (handful of lentils can hide in nearly everything if you are careful). Hardest thing now is everything is cooked from scratch but if I eat jar sauces or over processed food I really don't like it anymore so, cooking it is.

That's it really, it's a Mediterranean diet basically, lots of olive oil, garlic and avocados, no processed foods, a lot less sugar and huge amounts of fibre. My fridge is never without 5% fat greek yogurt by the literal barrel and I use soaked cashews to blitz in my curries instead of cream.

Can't think of anything else off the top of my head, feel free to ask me questions if you have any. I've lost weight (started exercise as well) but more importantly to me my blood pressure is good, cholesterol going down and no longer pre-diabetic. Much healthier!

Dr Roy Taylor's work and books on diabetes is very interesting. He has basically shown if you lose weight, your pancreas will recover, and without that all the good habits in the world will not be especially effective.

He recommends a short sharp very low calorie diet to get it done with and moving on just keeping an eye on things and making sure you don't lose your progress.

My DH did, by losing 37kg on mounjaro

I did through losing weight by cutting out sugar completely and exercising but I slacked off, put on weight and at my last blood test was pre-diabetic again. So I'm just going to cut out sugar again and focus on a low carb Mediterranean diet. Portion control and grazing are my other weaknesses so I'm going to try to be more mindful of what I eat. Tbh during summer I don't have a problem sticking to healthy eating and exercise. It's in winter I crave carbs.

@SconehengeRevenge sounds amazing! Any links pls to the threads?

I don't blame you for not knowing, @MooFroo.
I've been on mn (under various names) since 2012, and only discovered this post covid. But BIWI's got entire boards.
There's her bootcamps, which are incredibly helpful and supportive.
But if no bootcamp currently running, you can look up an old one for the "rules".
Plus there's low carb recipe threads.
www.mumsnet.com/talk/low_carb_bootcamp

I forgot to say this before, but before I did my first bootcamp, I ran it past a relative who is an (award winning) dietician, and she 100% approved it.
Other than 1 thing.
BIWI advocates drinking a lot of water, which is a good thing.
But she has this sliding scale, and if you're tall (check) and heavy (check) you have to drink a ridiculous amount. I think i was trying to chug 4l a day, which is bloody hard to do.
My dietician relation said that was ridiculous.
2 - 3l a day is fine and enough.
I imagine in RL BIWI is a shortie!

Good luck.

There is a really good book called the 8-week blood sugar diet by Dr Michael Moseley. Well worth looking into.

Yes, me and partner , doing Keto initially to lose the weight and maintain with low carb and 16/8 fasting window ( basically means skip breakfast). He lost 4 stone, I lost 2 and we have kept it off bar the odd fluctuation, for 5 + years. We do move more now, but just walking and swimming, nothing too full on.

Yes, of course. Do that straight away and it will help a lot.

Yes I went from 45 to 39 by following the Liva app for 9 months also cut out/down on biscuits crisps chocolate etc calorie counting and lost a stone.. you can do it!

Started on mounjaro by the diabetes nurse 17 months ago. My HBA1C has gone from 55 to 35, my weight has gone from 22 stone to 14 stone.

Diabetes nurse has now taken me off metformin. Mounjaro has helped me to make major improvements to my diet:

• reduce portion size
• significantly reduce proportion of carbs in my diet
• significantly increase quantity of veg I eat (now normal for my much reduced meal to be 50% vegetables)

Mounjaro made these easy changes to make. Having my diabetes under control means I no longer feel the urge to reach for sweet snacks.

How did you get a diabetes nurse and how did you get MJ on the NHS? Unheard of! I am just being left to get on with it.

Thank you do much for all of these positive stories.

So great to hear! I'm really glad that I started the thread now. I genuinely didn't realise that reversing it was a 'thing'. I thought that all you could do at this point was stop it progressing as long as you can, but that it wouldn't work for long.

Ineffable23 That's all gone over my head a little, but it's amazing to hear such success stories!

StonehengeRevenge I also hadn't heard of the bootcamps, so thank you for highlighting those. I might take a look but I think I'm going to just get on with it by myself for the time being.

LaurenBacal I'm waiting to hear from one of the regular practice nurses, although I'm assuming she specialises in diabetes or something, hence the 5 week wait.

I last weighed myself in August, I just weighed myself today (diagnosed yesterday) & I'm down from 15 stone to 14 stone 7.

So I'm already taking that as a little sneaky 'win'! As in my head I was careering towards 16 stone now.

Feeling positive after reading all of these posts.

Thank you very much for the compliments @SconehengeRevenge
Re the water thing, I remember you posting about that before. The table in Bootcamp rules showing how much water to drink comes from another website (now defunct, sadly) but also reflects data often given online about how much water per kilo/pound you weigh.

That said, I am a shortie and can appreciate how difficult it might be if you're tall/large to drink huge quantities.

@WinnerTakesAFall The Low Carb Bootcamp topic is here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/low_carb_bootcamp

There isn't a bootcamp running right now, but jump on the latest thread which is a general chat thread for those continuing to low carb. And have a read around some of the older threads to give you an idea as to what it's all about - look out for any threads called 'prep thread' and/or 'week 1' (from any bootcamp) and you'll find a whole load of info as well the rules, and a link to the spreadsheet that we use, which also has loads of useful information in it.

My mum successfully reversed prediabetes by skipping breakfast, aka intermittent fasting, and by slightly reducing her portion size of carby foods. It wasn’t a huge lifestyle change but it brought her HbA1c back into the normal range. FYI you don’t have to skip breakfast every day to improve insulin sensitivity, even as little as three times a week will make a difference.

If you can, I recommend wearing a continuous glucose monitor for a couple of weeks. I was really surprised at which foods affected my blood glucose. For example, doughnut sent it skyrocketing but a piece of cheesecake made hardly any difference. So now, if so fancy something sweet, I know cheesecake is a good option.

As above a CGM can really help pinpoint what food does to your blood sugar, personally, as it really varies from person to person. One thing to get really clear is that all carbohydrates if they are digestible, end up as sugar. Once you have that in your mind, and by using a CGM, you map how you react to different carbs, and see which are more or less impactful on your blood sugar. For example, some people react more/less to potato vs rice and then they can choose accordingly. But refusing potato and rice is also a simpler option.

I reversed prediabetes with low carb, and am still low carb.

Yes.

May 2023, I started the first Couch to 5 K run. Hadn't willingly run in 20 years, since school.

In 3 years I've lost 4 stone, dropped from a size 22 to a 14-16, and ran my first half-marathon last year. Resting heart rate, asthma meds, blood pressure and blood glucose have all dropped significantly.

More protein. I fast for 3 days a week, run 3 days a week and swim once a week.

Plain/paprika home made popcorn, or home toasted nuts are my go to cinema snack. Picnics with the children have more prepared fruit and vegetables, and only 1 treat. Pudding is a piece of fruit.

It is completely doable. Hard work, yes.

I'm type 2 but it's genetic in my case as my Dad, grandmother and great grandmother all had it (seems to hit the 1st born in the family). I managed to improve my HbA1C by massively overhauling my diet, and didn't need medication for around 8 years but as I've got older, I've needed medication and will likely need insulin at some point as my pancreas just isn't working effectively.

I can't eat any form of sugar or starchy carbohydrate. I carb count daily and have to stay around 60g to 80g to keep my BS stable. My diet mainly consists of veg, small amounts of protein and the odd treat of some tasty cheese or some fruit at the weekends. It's a bit challenging to eat out, or go on holiday but I manage. I'd also add that I've lost 5 stone overall and it's not made the slightest bit of difference.

Managing weight when your hypothyroidism isn’t optimally treated is a nightmare / impossible. (Also it will make you feel truely awful) There is an excellent thyroid U.K. forum on healthunlocked which I would highly recommend. I hope you feel better soon.