Sugar is everywhere
When, just over 2 years ago I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes I was already on a trajectory to lose more weight and had achieved almost my current 40% reduction from the worst point of my weight gain. This was not enough and I needed to do more.
My early readings from people that claimed to have reversed type 2 diabetes suggested that had done this by cutting out sugar and carbohydrates. Where I live in UK, we are surrounded by sugar laden food stuffs everywhere we go and I have seen similar in other countries.
The problem is that you have to replace carbohydrates with something. The prevalent advice today is that fat is bad in all circumstances.
I was forced to reason that sugar was going to do more damage than increasing my fat intake so I decided to take this risk.
But this means that for the most part, buying food has to exclude anything pre-packaged as almost all such foodstuffs contain sugar and carbohydrates. If your out and about, buying a coffee or looking for food on the go, pretty much nothing is available that doesn’t contain sugar and carbohydrates.
As fat is seen as making you fat, you cannot easily buy convenience foods that are fat rich. Our whole weekly shop had to change to include whole foods exclusively. I already cooked from scratch but now I had to cook from scratch every day.
I had to explain to friends that I could not eat in the same way as everyone else and this was not straight forward as mostly I don’t think people think that there is a problem with sugar and carbohydrates. Its on the TV and media in for the form of baking competitions and advertisements that regularly sell to us sweet foods and drinks. It is you could say ‘baked into’ our culture.
Some foodstuffs are easy to discern as containing sugar. However others are less so. Over time I became aware that some foods are converted by the body to sugar almost as quickly as if they were sugar in the first place. So cutting out obvious sugar is not enough. Food suppliers and manufacturers cleverly use foods that they can claim to be low in fat and sugar when in-fact they quickly metabolize to sugar and carbohydrates in the body when you eat them.
With such foods being the norm the outcome is that your body consumes calories faster than if it were eating fat, you get hungry sooner and you eat more. The food makers are happy because they can sell you more. As foods they make are more processed they can reduce the quality and increase the quantity of what they sell.
Cutting out sugar is not easy as it is everywhere.
So, what happened when I cut out sugar and increased fat intake ?
I got less hungry, therefor I ate less. When I did eat I was fuller quicker and for longer. My weight fell again and my blood sugars lowered.
Over a year has passed before I got to the levels I am at now. There were no quick fixes however I did notice a marked improvement in energy levels and mental clarity. This came about in the first few weeks.