Now that you understand the causes of diabesity and the extent of this problem, the next step is creating a solution—for ourselves, our families, our communities, and our society.
Eat better and exercise more. This is what we are told by doctors, nutritionists, and government agencies. How has that advice worked for you so far?
The Blood Sugar Solution is based on an entirely different approach—a systems approach—that connects the dots among all your symptoms and health problems. By applying this science, we can correct imbalances in the body and create health.
The secret is that you don’t have to treat diabesity.
You simply have to create health.
We have been going about things backward. As you learn which obstacles stand in your way and the ingredients you need to generate health, you can simply remove the obstacles (toxins, allergens, microbes, stress, poor diet, and others) and add the ingredients (whole, fresh food, nutrients, hormones, sleep, movement, rhythm, relaxation, love, connection, meaning, and purpose). When you do this, your symptoms and diseases will take care of themselves.
Part IV of this book outlines a six-week action plan to get healthy and happy. In Part III, you will find a two-week preparation phase that will provide the foundation for vibrant and sustainable health. It is about celebration, not deprivation, about finding all the delicious benefits that come from eating real food and caring for our bodies and souls.
Over the course of this program, you will slowly and systematically integrate changes in your diet and lifestyle. Along the way I will teach you the information and skills you need to safely reinvent your kitchen, negotiate your supermarket, optimize your nutrition, add supplements, eliminate toxins, exercise, find your pause button, and more. You will learn how to use medication intelligently, discover natural alternatives for medications, and get started with a meal plan that includes menus, recipes, and shopping lists. Learn more about the online support program I developed at www.bloodsugarsolution.com. It will guide you through the entire program.
We will also explore how, together, as a community, we can create a movement for changing this horrible life-robbing, economy-busting epidemic. Through collective actions, we can Take Back Our Health.
Changing a lifetime of bad habits, learning new skills, and correcting misinformation take time. Two weeks to be exact. So don’t skip this critical preparation phase.
As you move forward on your journey to healing, remember that it is easier to get healthy together than to do it alone. In Chapter 16, you will learn how to harness the power of community, create your own group (even a group of two), and understand why having support is so important to long-term success, health, and happiness.
Social connection, support, and community are critical for long-term success and very powerful in the short term for making and sustaining lifestyle and behavior changes. Friends and community have a powerful influence over us. You are more likely to be overweight if your friends are overweight than if your family members are obese. It is not the genetic threads but the social threads that connect us and that ultimately have the most power to change the obesity, diabetes, and chronic disease epidemic.
Being connected to others is a necessary ingredient for health, just like food, water, air, sleep, or movement. We are hardwired for community and connection. It doesn’t matter what group you belong to, what church, temple, or mosque you attend, what community you connect to—it is no accident that if Facebook were a country, its users would comprise the third largest country after China and India. Create or join a group. It is the most effective way to achieve lasting change.
In Chapter 17, you will learn about getting tested. You will need to collect information about yourself, your story, and your symptoms to get a complete picture of the imbalances you suffer from and the changes you need to make on the program. The quizzes, body measurements, and basic baseline blood and urine tests outlined in this step will help you see where you are out of balance and become a yardstick by which you measure your progress and success.
Let’s get started.
There are five important steps you need to take to prepare your mind, your body, and your kitchen for The Blood Sugar Solution program:
Prepare your mind. Connect to your motivation so you can successfully get on and stay on the program.
Prepare yourself. Commit to the program and plan a start date.
Prepare your kitchen. Clean toxic substances out of your kitchen and stock it with the foods that create health, not disease.
Prepare your inner shopper and inner chef. Learn how to navigate the toxic food terrain in the modern supermarket and develop simple cooking skills that will support your health.
Prepare your body. Get your body ready to heal by taking a “drug holiday” from sugar, stimulants, and sedatives.
Please do not shortcut this process. Setting the stage for success is essential if you are going to make the most of the program.
Are you ready?
Your life is about to change.
You have made a decision to get healthy. But that is only the first step.
The second step is preparing for action.
The third step is acting on what you have decided.
The final step is sustaining healthy changes for life.
When you make a decision to create health, you will face many obstacles. In our fast-paced, media-saturated, overworked, overstressed, underactive, overfed lives, choosing health is a revolutionary act. And it will take a revolution to change all the conditions that lead to illness, obesity, and diabetes. But revolutions start with small changes that are specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely.
First you must identify the obstacles in front of you and get clear about your motivation to change. Overcoming your inertia will require focused intention and a repeated reinforcing of that intention. Journaling, creating a group support system, and my online support curriculum and tools at www.bloodsugarsolution.com can help you overcome these obstacles.
What are your obstacles? They might include:
The biggest belief that obstructs our path to success is the idea that we really can’t change our health that much. We may lose a few pounds, feel a little better, but our health destiny is preprogrammed. Just look at my diabetic father or my obese grandmother or my sister who had that heart attack at fifty-two. What can I really do to change that?
Everything.
There may be many beliefs and attitudes, negative thought patterns and behaviors that prevent you from starting a process of self-care and self-nourishment. Focus on what is important to you. Feeling well? Living a long vibrant life? Contributing to your community? Spending more time with your family? Working through your bucket list? Taking a trip to the zoo with your grandchild? Having sex until you are ninety? Starting a business? Walking in the woods with your loved one? Riding your bike across America at eighty-five years old?
For me, the definition of health is being able to get up in the morning and do what nourishes me—being present with my family, doing a good job at work, climbing a mountain in the winter on snowshoes, playing basketball with my son, learning something new, having the energy and strength to make a contribution to my community and friends. That is what helps guide my choices every day. What is important for you?
Journaling is an excellent way to get in touch with your inner motivations, to break the cycle of mindless eating and activity, to be honest and accountable and present to yourself. We often overeat because something is eating us. We stuff ourselves with food in order to stuff our feelings away. We use food to block feelings, but you can use words to block food. You can write in order to better metabolize your feelings so they don’t end up driving unconscious choices or overeating. A diet of words and self-exploration often results in weight loss. You metabolize your life and calories better.
You will also use the journal to track your food intake every day, your exercise, sleep, symptoms, and your “numbers,” including weight, waist size, and lab tests. Recognizing how you feel and what you experience as you alter your food intake, begin taking supplements, and start to exercise more is like “innercise,” building the self-awareness needed to strengthen your ability to create high-level wellness and wholeness.
Be honest about your food intake; record everything you eat and the amount. This simple act will bring insight into how you care for your body and well-being. In her book The Writing Diet, Julia Cameron suggests you ask yourself four simple questions right before you choose to eat something:
Am I hungry?
Is this what I feel like eating?
Is this what I feel like eating now?
Is there something else I could eat instead?
I also have my patients ask two related questions:
What am I feeling?
What do I need?
You may be hungry and need food, or lonely and need a friend, or tired and need a nap, or angry and need to sort out why. Not all of these feelings need food, although for many of us, that is our default action when we don’t feel right.
As you journal, remember: This is for you. So be completely honest and transparent. This means not only recording what you are eating and how much you exercise, but what you really are feeling at the moment—there are no right or wrong answers.
Do not underestimate the power of this program. Research has shown that keeping track of your feelings, habits, and numbers creates a system of feedback and accountability that by itself is healing and will help you change your behavior. You don’t have to believe it. Just do it.
Take out your journal (or use the course tools online) and respond to the questions below. Think about what depletes your energy and what gives you energy as you record responses:
Each of us has unique reasons for wanting to create change in our health or life. There is no right or wrong reason, just what’s most important to you.
Start by writing a list of your personal goals. Identify what you want and how you will get there. These questions are meant to get you started, but feel free to write whatever you like. Set aside a few hours. Be specific.
If you were going on vacation, you would organize your life to be sure everything was taken care of—the house, work, the kids, the bills, and the dog. You would arrange your travel, buy your tickets, pack your bags, and decide on a date and place to go. You would make a decision and pick a date to begin your journey.
Do the same thing for the most important trip you will ever take—the journey to wellness. Put a date on the calendar by which you will start your journey. Record it in your journal. The date you select will be the day you start the elimination phase of the program outlined in the section titled “Prepare Your Body” in this chapter. This phase will last for one week. When that week is over, you will start the six-week program described in Part IV. At the end of the six weeks, you will learn how to stay healthy for life. Choose the date on which you want to begin this process now.
Your kitchen is one of the most important rooms in your home. It has been hijacked by the food industry. It is time for you to reclaim it, to bring real food in and throw fake food out, to build on traditions of cooking and sharing meals with family and friends. Make mealtime a time of connection and celebration and nourishment for body and soul. It doesn’t have to be hard or complicated. You simply have to get organized.
If you don’t have a nourishing home full of delicious, easy-to-prepare foods, snacks, and emergency meals, you will have a hard time succeeding. Don’t put obstacles in your path by leaving disease-creating foods in your kitchen. Our fat storage hormones such as insulin and stress hormones such as cortisol control our appetite and behavior. If they surge and you have a big chocolate cake in the fridge, there is no way you can overcome the reptilian part of your brain that controls feeding behavior. We have hundreds of genes that protect us from starvation, but very few that protect us from overeating.
Here is how to get your kitchen ready for your journey.
Take an afternoon to hunt and gather in your kitchen. Be merciless. If it is not real food, throw it out. You will restock your pantry and fridge with real food in Week 1 of the program.
I’ve outlined below my top 10 rules for eating safely for life. If you read these rules and think there will be nothing left to eat, then you have been eating in exactly the way that will make you sick and will keep you that way. The good news is that if your diet is all sugar, flour, and processed foods, you have the biggest gains to achieve.
These rules are mostly about what not to eat. You should follow them forever. We will get to all the wonderful foods you can eat later in Chapter 19.
Ideally have only food without labels in your kitchen or foods that don’t come in a box, a package, or a can. There are labeled foods that are great, such as sardines, artichoke hearts, or roasted red peppers, but you have to be very smart in reading the labels. There are two things to look for: the ingredient list and the nutrition facts. Watch my video on how to buy food with labels that is safe and review how to interpret nutrition facts at www.bloodsugarsolution.com. Where is the primary ingredient on the list? If the real food is at the end of the list and sugar or salt is at the beginning, beware. The most abundant ingredient is listed first and the others are listed in descending order by weight. Be conscious, too, of ingredients that may not be on the list; some ingredients may be exempt from labels. This is often true if the food is in a very small package, if it has been prepared in the store, or if it has been made by a small manufacturer. Beware of these foods.
If a food has a label, it should have fewer than five ingredients. If it has more than five ingredients, throw it out. Also beware of foods with health claims on the label. They are usually bad for you—think “sports beverages.” I recently saw a bag of deep-fried potato chips with the health claims “gluten-free, organic, no artificial ingredients, no sugar” and with fewer than five ingredients listed. Sounds great, right? But remember, cola is 100 percent fat-free and that doesn’t make it a health food.
If sugar (by any name, including organic cane juice, honey, agave, maple syrup, cane syrup, or molasses) is on the label, throw it out. There are 39 teaspoons of sugar in the average bottle of ketchup. The same goes for white rice and white flour, which act just like sugar in the body. If you have diabesity, you can’t easily handle any flour, even whole-grain. Throw it out.
Throw out any food with high-fructose corn syrup on the label. It is a supersweet, super cheap, subsidized liquid sugar that is in nearly every processed food. Some high-fructose corn syrup also contains mercury as a by-product of the manufacturing process.1 Many liquid calories, such as sodas, juices, and “sports” drinks, contain this metabolic poison. It always signals low-quality or processed food.
Throw out any food with the word hydrogenated on the label. This is an indicator of trans fats, vegetable oils converted through a chemical process into margarine or shortening. They are good for keeping cookies on the shelf for long periods of time without going stale, but these fats have been proven to cause heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. New York City and most European countries have banned trans fats, and you should, too.
Throw out any highly refined cooking oils such as corn, soy, etc. (I will explain which oils to buy in Week 1 of the program.) Also avoid toxic fats and fried foods.
Throw out any food with ingredients you can’t recognize or pronounce, or are in Latin.
Throw out any foods with preservatives, additives, coloring, or dyes, “natural flavorings,” or flavor enhancers such as MSG (monosodium glutamate).
Throw out food with artificial sweeteners of any kind (aspartame, Splenda, sucralose, and sugar alcohols—any word that ends with “ol,” such as xylitol or sorbitol). They make you hungrier, slow your metabolism, give you bad gas, and make you store fat.
If it came from the earth or a farmer’s field, not a food chemist’s lab, it’s safe to eat. As Michael Pollan says, If it was grown on a plant, not made in a plant, then you can keep it in your kitchen. If it is something your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food (such as a “Lunchable” or “Go-Gurt”), throw it out. Stay away from “food-like substances.”
You will find a complete list of foods to avoid and more tips for cleaning out your pantry on my website—www.bloodsugarsolution.com. Also check out the Center for Science in the Public Interest’s website for further information and updates at www.bloodsugarsolution.com/center-for-science-in-the-public-interest (click on Chemical Cuisine). And you can also watch my video on how to clean out your kitchen at www.bloodsugarsolution.com.
Before you start changing your diet, you need the right tools to support your journey to optimal health.
Kitchens are often bereft of even the most basic tools for preparing and cooking food. I’ve listed below the basic tools I feel are needed for the care and feeding of a human being. Invest in the highest-quality tools you can. Good kitchen equipment will last a lifetime.
Before you start the program, make sure you have most of the following:
You will find further resources and product recommendations at www.bloodsugarsolution.com.
Let’s face it. You are a hunter and gatherer. You may carry a credit card instead of a spear, but make no mistake—you are on a mission for survival. Unfortunately our food landscape is a nutritional wasteland, consisting of supermarkets, convenience stores, fast-food outlets, restaurant chains, train stations, airports, highway rest stops, and your own kitchen.
We have no wisdom keepers who pass down the gathered knowledge of the ages of what to eat and what to avoid. Will this mushroom kill you or fill you? Will this fish heal you or paralyze you with a nasty fugu toxin? It’s time to learn how to hunt and gather in the modern food desert. Buried in the mountains of sugar, fat, and salt in the average supermarket are nourishing foods. The American supermarket is a drug store—containing dangerous disease-promoting addictive drugs disguised as food as well as healing medicinal foods made by nature. The worst offenders are on the end caps of the aisles and in the middle of the shelves. The beans, salsa, and whole grains are hidden way down on the shelves or so up so high you can’t see them. Yet once you become a skilled hunter-gatherer, you can emerge with real, whole, healing foods for your family.
While you won’t be shopping for the foods in the meal plan until just before you begin the program, it’s important to learn how to become an effective shopper during the preparation phase so you can be ready for that experience. I have created two short videos to give you a guided tour of the American supermarket. These will help you to safely navigate what can be a dangerous place. See Supermarket Savvy: The Bad Stuff and The Good Stuff at www.bloodsugarsolution.com.
I encourage you to make a shopping list every time you go to the supermarket and stick to it. You will save your money and your life.
Not everyone likes cooking. That’s okay. Not everyone likes school, or exercise. But it is an important life skill unless you have a personal chef or a spouse or partner who is happy to cook for you. When I was a boy, my mother told me, “If you can read, you can cook.” You don’t have to be Julia Child or Mario Batali, but you can learn how to create nourishing, delicious, and healthy meals quickly and inexpensively without enrolling in cooking school.
I know this may seem like a lot to do when you already have a busy schedule. But the average American spends more time watching cooking on television than actually cooking. Learning to cook is worth it. So many people say they don’t have the time or energy to cook, and I get it. I am very driven and have many “careers”—doctor, author, chairman of a nonprofit, volunteer, and educator as well as father, husband, son, brother, uncle, and friend. I have the energy to do all these things because I take care of my body and mind. I sleep 8 hours a night, exercise 4–6 times a week, and cook and eat good food. I have become an expert in instant (meaning quickly prepared) food. I can go into a fridge and pantry and prepare a delicious hot, fresh, whole-food meal in less time than it would take to bake a frozen pizza or order takeout.
Give me 15 minutes and I can feed my family and myself. You can do it, too. You just need to plan ahead a bit and get your kitchen ready for the week.
If you are resistant to cooking or think you don’t have the time, the following journaling exercise may help.
Take out your journal and answer the following questions:
You do have to learn how to put a meal together if you want to be healthy. Here are some easy ways to create simple, delicious meals.
I have provided a complete two-week set of menus, recipes, and shopping lists at the end of this book, and I will give you my Nutrition 101 course in Week 1 of the plan. But as long as you understand some basic nutritional principles and learn a few simple cooking techniques, you don’t need to follow the meal plan. You can make a protein shake or have a couple of poached omega-3 eggs for breakfast or a bowl of brown rice, veggies, and protein for dinner. And you can learn to make some quick, easy, delicious, nourishing meals.
Here’s what a very busy day’s meals might look like for me and how much time it takes me to make great food. I sometimes do use things with cans and labels. But only real food with one or two ingredients I can recognize like “navy beans” or “artichoke hearts” or “wild salmon.” I can make 3 meals in 30 minutes total. I work fast so it might take you a little longer. It won’t be fancy, but it will be delicious and satisfying.
Breakfast shake: Protein powder (rice, soy, hemp, pea, or chia), frozen berries, unsweetened hemp milk, 1 tablespoon omega-3 oil, and a small handful of walnuts or almonds. Toss in a blender, blend, and drink. Time to make and consume: 5 minutes.
Lunch: Prewashed arugula or mixed greens, a can of rinsed white beans, a jar or can of artichoke hearts. Extra virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, a little salt and pepper. Combine, and eat. Time to make: less than 5 minutes.
Snacks: Raw almonds or cashews. Time to make: 0 minutes.
Dinner: Prepare a pot of short-grain brown rice ahead of time (it lasts 3–4 days in the fridge). Simply add 2 cups of water to 1 cup of rinsed brown rice, bring to a boil, cover, and then simmer for 45 minutes. I then take the rice, put some in a bowl, and heat it in the microwave (not ideal, but you do what you gotta do!) or sauté it in a nonstick pan with a little olive oil and salt (it tastes better this way). If I’ve sautéed it, I put the rice in a bowl and use the same pan to cook some prewashed spinach or other dark chopped green leafy veggies like kale, collards, chard, or some broccolini or asparagus. I add a little olive oil, some precrushed or prepeeled garlic (I told you I am very busy!) to the greens, and quickly sauté at medium heat in the pan. I add a little wheat-free tamari or salt and a few tablespoons of water to prevent it from sticking. I then put some canned wild salmon in the bowl with the rice. I put the greens (a large amount because they are filling, full of nutrients, and contain very few calories) on top of the fish and rice. And I have a delicious meal. Time to cook: 15 minutes at most—I do it in under 10. Imagine what you could do in an hour!
For more variety, you can use the same basic set of steps above and simply change the ingredients or the order. Use frozen blackberries and nut butter in your shake one day, blueberries and walnuts the next. Add canned salmon or sardines to the mixed greens for lunch. Try the navy beans at dinner or sauté a chicken breast to go with the brown rice and veggies (or dice it for chicken veggie stir-fry). Don’t care for rice? Try quinoa or buckwheat instead—all are wonderful whole grains that can be cooked in advance.
You need to learn basic cooking skills in order to heal your body. The kitchen is where it all begins. Medical clinics of the future will include teaching kitchens where patients will learn basic cooking skills and food selection and preparation. Wouldn’t you rather learn how to make food your medicine, than take a bunch of medications that don’t work half as well and have only bad side effects?
Experiment with food, seek out local cooking classes, have a friend teach you how to cook. It’s well worth the effort. You can also watch some cooking videos I have created at www.bloodsugarsolution.com.
One week before you begin the program, you will start your “drug” holiday. The four top-selling items at supermarkets are all drugs: sugar, caffeine, alcohol, and nicotine. These drugs boost our energy or mood, or “relax” or calm us. But in the end they are false aids that deplete our energy and our health. A quick fix of sugar or caffeine gives you a brief boost, then you crash and crave. Not a good cycle. Alcohol is just sugar in another form, and it impairs your impulse control, so you will consume more. Once you get off these drugs, you will realize just how much they were robbing you of your energy and health.
Smoking is hard to quit. Seek help from your doctor or try hypnosis, acupuncture, or medication. I can get you off the other drugs without too much suffering.
One week before the program, cut out all of these addictive substances from your diet and your life:
Do not underestimate the power of eliminating these addictive substances that drive cravings and imbalances in your blood sugar. If you do nothing else in this book, these steps can change your life, boost your metabolism, balance your blood sugar, and help you lose weight.
Take the following steps to minimize your withdrawal symptoms as you eliminate addictive substances from your diet.
10 Tips for Cutting Your Cravings
1. Balance your blood sugar. Swings in blood sugar are the major driver of cravings, so keep your blood sugar stable. Eliminate sugar and artificial sweeteners 100 percent and your cravings will go away. Go cold turkey. Eliminate refined sugars, sodas, fruit juices, and artificial sweeteners from your diet, as these can trigger cravings. Combine good protein (fish, organic eggs, small amounts of lean poultry, nuts, whole soy foods, and legumes), good fats (fish, extra virgin olive oil, unrefined coconut oil, olives, nuts other than peanuts, seeds, and avocados), and good carbs (beans, vegetables, whole grains, and fruit) at each meal to balance your blood sugar.
2. Don’t drink your calories. Liquid calories drive up your appetite and your waist size more than anything else. You will pour on the pounds!
3. Eat a nutritious protein breakfast. Studies repeatedly show that eating a healthy protein-containing breakfast helps people lose weight, reduce cravings, and burn calories. Good proteins are eggs, nuts, seeds, nut butters, or a protein shake (see my UltraShake recipes here).
4. Have small, frequent, fiber-rich meals throughout the day. Eat every 3–4 hours and have some protein with each snack or meal (lean animal protein, nuts, seeds, or beans).
5. Avoid eating within 3 hours of bedtime. It drives up insulin before you sleep, which makes you store more belly fat. Belly fat drives cravings through inflammatory and hormonal triggers.
6. Manage your stress. Anything stressful can trigger hormones that activate cravings. If you have the urge to eat, ask yourself two questions: “What am I feeling, and what do I need?” Is there something else besides food that will help you get what you need? Adopt a daily stress management program that includes deep-breathing exercises, meditation, and other relaxation techniques. (See Week 3 here for specifics on how to do this.)
7. Find out if hidden food allergies are triggering your cravings. We often crave the very foods we are allergic to (which is why I recommend stopping gluten and dairy for the first six weeks of the program). Getting off them is not easy, but after two to three days without them, you will have renewed energy and relief from cravings and symptoms.
8. Get moving. Exercise helps control and regulate your appetite. (See Week 4 here for tips on how to exercise.)
9. Get 7–8 hours of sleep. Not getting enough sleep drives sugar and carb cravings by affecting your appetite hormones. (See here for tips on how to sleep better.)
10. Optimize your nutrient levels:
When I was in medical school, everybody drank coffee, so I started drinking my daily cup of joe. I noticed I got very sleepy in the afternoon and needed some more caffeine or sugar to perk me up. I realized that coffee was the cause, so I stopped drinking it and my energy came back. I see many of my patients getting trapped in this cycle. Most also get too little sleep. But caffeine cannot compensate for lack of sleep.
When you eliminate caffeine, you will be more tired for the first few days. You may even get a headache. These withdrawal symptoms are a sure sign of addiction. But when you finally do get off caffeine, you will have more energy than you did when you were on it.
Here’s how to end your addiction as painlessly as possible.
Cut your dose in half every day till you are down to one-half cup of coffee a day. Then stop.
Drink plenty of water.
Take 1,000 mg of vitamin C a day.
If you get a headache, go to bed, or if you have to, take a couple of Advil.
A nice glass of red wine with a meal, a cold beer on a hot day, or a shot of tequila at a party are some of the sweet pleasures of life. But as a daily habit, alcohol can do more harm than you realize, especially if you have diabesity. It may raise triglycerides, elevate blood pressure, impair gut function, interrupt sleep, increase cancer risk, impair liver function, act as an additional calorie source, and prevent you from achieving a healthy weight. It is best that you avoid all alcoholic beverages while you are on the program.
Consider this: If you drink two glasses of wine a day, you will consume about 72,000 extra calories a year. If you don’t reduce your food intake (which you won’t because alcohol reduces your inhibitions around food), you could gain an extra 20 pounds a year. And these liquid calories go right to your belly.
Stop for six weeks. See how you feel. Then, if you want, enjoy one to three glasses of wine or alcohol a week (a “glass” is 5 ounces of wine, 1.5 ounces of distilled spirits, or 12 ounces of beer).
Remember, if you do nothing else recommended in this book, eliminating sugar, refined carbohydrates, processed food, trans fats, caffeine, and alcohol will have profound effects on your weight, energy, mood, and health in just a few weeks. So take that drug holiday. It will be the best vacation of your life.