I wish I can say this post is about photography or about one of my amazing clients. But no, this post is vulnerable… this post is about my journey back to health.

The photos on the left were on 8/13/2021. The photos on the right were on 2/2/2022. But this post is not about my weight loss journey, it is about HOPE.

Fair warning though… this post is long.

Do you know anyone who has reversed their Type 2 Diabetes without having to undergo gastric bypass surgery? If you don’t, you do now. ME.

On September 24, 2021, I got some pretty upsetting news. I had developed full-blown type 2 diabetes. My blood sugar was out of control, close to 400. I was literally rotting inside. My doctor wanted me on insulin right away. I begged him to let me try to control it with diet and exercise. “Diabetes is a chronic and progressive disease, you need medication and probably for life”, he said, and he prescribed me 3 different ones.

My initial reactions were:

• But I’m not that fat! (I was 176 lbs. But newsflash: skinny people can develop diabetes- it is a dietary disease, and if diet doesn’t change, it will catch up. Google “TOFI= thin outside, fat inside.” Just because someone is thin and can eat garbage without gaining weight does not mean they can’t get sick: they can and they will.) And, if your waist circumference in inches is more than double of your height, you’re on your way to develop metabolic syndrome.
• But there’s no diabetes in my family, on either side! (It doesn’t matter, it’s a dietary disease!)
• It’s Covid’s fault! (not true. Yes, I gained tons of weight during covid, but the “sugar bowl” inside my body was already full from years of yo-yo diets and excessive lifestyle. Covid just made it “overflow”)- I’m going to die young from a heart attack (or a stroke, or cancer)- will I go blind?
• Will I need dialysis by the time I’m 50? (most likely. Diabetes destroys organs and nerves)
• Will I suffer from Alzheimer’s? (most likely- Alzheimer’s is now being called type 3 diabetes because the association to high insulin levels)
• Why me? Why f%&*#@g me???

I was terrified. I became depressed. I cried myself to sleep most nights for the first couple of weeks. I was angry at the universe. After I left my own pity party, I began my research on how to improve my condition, and I found Dr. Jason Fung. My hero. He claimed that type 2 diabetes was reversible and curable with the right dietary regime, and he claimed that most doctors treat it wrong – with insulin. I devoured all his books and began my health journey. I threw away the insulin I was prescribed.

What I learned in the process

October 18th, 2 months after my “before ” photos, was my re-birth as a healthy person, and in my education process this is what I learned:

– We’ve been lied to: Obesity and diabetes are not an issue of “calories in, calories out”. They are a hormonal issue and a dietary disease. The body doesn’t count calories, it metabolizes food. If your metabolism is faulty because of years of refined carbs and sugar consumption, you will get sick. I fixed my hormones, and I reversed my diabetes and lost the excess weight.

– We’ve been lied to: They told us sugar and refined carbs were ok, and that as long as you were working out, you’d be fine… “burn those calories, baby!” You can’t outrun a bad diet. You can work out 2 hours a day, but if you keep your insulin high (by eating constantly and eating a high carb/sugar diet) you won’t lose weight. You may lose a bit in the beginning, and then plateau (sounds familiar?) Sugar is poison. Sugar becomes fat. Sugar makes us sick. Sugar is killing us. There’s sugar on pretty much everything that comes in a package, bag, bottle or can, and we’re are eating TOO MUCH OF IT. I stopped the sugar, and I reversed my diabetes.

– We’ve been lied to: They told us in the food pyramid that we had to eat more “whole” grains (all carbs) and less fat. Guess what? Carbohydrates is what BECOMES fat, NOT dietary fat. How can they “recommend” a diet high in “whole grains” and low in fat for diabetics (look it up) when this is what raises blood sugar and insulin in the first place? I’m looking at you big pharma – you need to sell those insulin medications, don’t ya? I stopped the carbs, and I reversed my diabetes.

– We’ve been lied to: They told us that salt was bad. They vilified the wrong white crystal. They blamed salt for what sugar did to our bodies. Our bodies need salt. It reduces sugar cravings, balances hormones, and helps with satiety. If you don’t eat enough salt, you get sick, depressed, fatigued, and then you turn to carbs and sugar because it makes your brain feel better, trapping you in a vicious cycle. I increased my salt intake, and that too helped me reverse my diabetes.

– We’ve been lied to: They told us snacks were good for us. Snacks keep our hunger in check, they say. They told us to eat every 2-3 hours to “keep the metabolism going”. Guess what? It’s A LIE! Snacks are killing us! They set us up for failure. Eating this way IS what damages our metabolism. Every time we put something in our mouth, we trigger an insulin response and insulin is what makes us and keeps us fat!!! Insulin is the fat-storage hormone, and we produce so much of it because we eat all the time, that our bodies become resistant to it resulting in diabetes. We have to stop eating so much. Just. Stop. Eating. SO. DAMN. OFTEN. Stop grazing! STOP SNACKING! I stopped snacking, and I reversed my diabetes.

– We’ve been lied to: They told us to get on a low-fat diet because fat is bad for your heart. THEY LIED! Fat is great for you (good fats that is). A low-fat diet means a high carb diet, and excessive carbs are what cause heart disease, obesity, diabetes, etc, because it causes HYPERINSULINEMIA (high insulin in the blood) and that’s what becomes fat in our bodies, especially visceral fat – the most dangerous of all. Look it up!!! When I began a high fat-low carb diet, I reversed my diabetes and my cholesterol and other blood markers have never been better.

– We’ve been lied to: They told us that to lose weight we need to reduce our calorie intake and that for every 3,500 calories we don’t eat, we lose a pound. Guess what? They lied!!! This doesn’t work. Our body adapts, it reduces calorie expenditure, and as soon as we go back to eating “normal” (ie. more than 1,200-1,500 calories a day), we gain all the weight back and then some! Our body slowed down the metabolism because it adapted (like saying… ohhh… you’re starving me? I’ll show you!)… and we gain all the weight back and we destroy our metabolism in the process. This is why you never saw a “The Biggest Loser” reunion. Almost all of them regained their weight. Most of us have regained the weight back after a restrictive calories diet. We know this all too well. I stopped counting calories and tracking macros, and I reversed my diabetes.

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I can tell you so much more, but by this point, I hope, I really hope, you get the point. We need to educate ourselves about what policies, politics, big pharma, food companies, media, misinformation, ignorance, etc, are doing to our health. No one has our best interest in mind, it’s on US to get educated. Take your health in your own hands.

This is what baffled me the most: Type 2 Diabetes is a disease of TOO MUCH SUGAR in the body, not a disease of not enough insulin, so why do doctors prescribe insulin to type 2 diabetics if it doesn’t get rid of the sugar, it literally just moves it from the blood to the organs and tissue, rotting the body from the inside out? Why prescribe a medication that makes us fatter and does not cure the disease, but just masks it while we’re getting sicker? That’s like wanting to cure alcoholism with vodka. Diabetics on insulin get worst over time. A lot worse. It does not cure the disease, it just gives a false sense of “health” while slowly killing us.

Let me ask you this… If you had a leak in your house, would you just get more buckets, mops, and towels, or would you just look for the source and shut it off? I reversed my type 2 diabetes in 4 months by shutting off the sugar faucet. I ELIMINATED SUGAR AND REFINED CARBOHYDRATES as much as possible and my body responded. My body healed. Our bodies are incredible machines.

And I rid my body of the excess sugar inside of it by adopting a fasting lifestyle. I Iearned that FASTING is NOT a diet, it is a therapeutic treatment. A 100% free treatment. The best medicine available to all. Did I say free? It’s like a gastric bypass, minus the hospital bills, complications, and loose skin.

Have you heard of Autophagy? No? Google it. It’s a true miracle.

Yes, I’m living proof that food can be medicine or poison, but I assure you I’m not the only one. There’s a whole community of people like me that owe our health and lives to Dr. Fung and other experts that devoted their lives to finding the truth. I’m not “keto”, or “paleo”, or “Atkin”, or “whole 30” or “carnivore”. I learned to eat things that I know don’t cause a huge insulin surge in my body (and avoid foods that spike it even if my blood sugar stays low – like artificial sweeteners which I avoid like the plague), and that has made all the difference in the world. I educated myself. But don’t take my word for it. Educate yourself, too. This is the list of books that changed my life, my health, and my future:

– The Obesity Code, by Dr. Jason Fung

– The Diabetes Code, by Dr. Jason Fung

– The Complete Guide to Fasting, by Dr. Jason Fung

– The Keto Reset Diet, by Mike Sisson

– The Longevity Solution, by Dr. James Dinicolantonio

-The Salt Fix, by Dr. James Dinicolantonio

If you think diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and obesity cannot happen to you, think again. Diabetes is not going to wait for you to get ready to change. DO SOMETHING BEFORE IS TOO LATE. You’ll hear more from me.

It’s my personal mission to spread this message. If you want to join my little village where I share what I’ve learned, tips, strategies, recipes, and more, join my Facebook group here!

Love, GG.