Stephen is a 49 year old man who came to our clinic seeking help for his diabetes. He had been diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic four years ago; although Stephen thinks he probably had the disease for a lot longer than that because he had been tired and experiencing blurry vision for a long time.

Stephen weighed 240 pounds and needed to lose approximately 45 pounds to fit into the healthy weight range. All his weight was around his abdomen, which is typical of type 2 diabetics. Stephen is self employed and runs a very busy company that employs 15 people. He used to really enjoy exercising and found that it helped him cope with stress. Unfortunately, in recent years, he is just too tired to exercise and he suffers with a lot of aches and pains which makes exercising unpleasant. Stephen has sleep apnea. He hates his CPAP machine but does use it. Unfortunately he still wakes up feeling exhausted each morning.

The only medication Stephen takes is metformin for the diabetes and Paxil for depression. He checks his blood sugar at home a few times a week and the first morning reading is usually around 126 or 144 mg/dL (7 or 8 mmol/L). An ideal blood sugar reading is between 65 and 97 mg/dL (3.6 to 5.4 mmol/L).

As usual, I asked Stephen to tell me exactly what he eats for his meals and snacks. This was a typical day:

Breakfast – A bowl of cereal with non-fat milk, plus a glass of orange juice.
Snack – A piece of fruit and a tub of non-fat yogurt.
Lunch – A sandwich on wholegrain bread with meat and salad. Stephen didn’t put any butter on the sandwich.
Afternoon snack – Stephen became very hungry in the afternoon. Some days he ate a bag of nuts; other days he ate several cookies.
Dinner – Steak and salad or a pasta dish, or sausages with potatoes.
After dinner – Some evenings Stephen snacked on non-fat yogurt while other days he had ice-cream.

Stephen was trying his hardest to avoid fat in his meals, but this was leaving him feeling excessively hungry, and causing his blood sugar to rise. I explained to Stephen that his high carbohydrate diet was fueling the diabetes and excess body fat. He needed to reduce the carbs while raising protein, vegetables and healthy fats. The orange juice had to go. The eating plan I asked him to follow is in our book Diabetes Type 2: You Can Reverse It.

Recommended supplements

  • Stephen really needed magnesium. It is a wonderfully relaxing mineral that helps to improve sleep quality and would make him feel much more awake in the mornings. Although Stephen was taking Paxil, he still struggled with anxiety, and magnesium is wonderful for that.
  • Berberine helps every facet of type 2 diabetes. I recommended it to Stephen to help get his blood sugar into the healthy range more quickly and to make weight loss easier and faster.
  • Stephen works long hours and often doesn’t have the time to prepare healthy meals. I recommended the Synd-X Slimming Protein Powder to him because it’s a quick way to make a smoothie for breakfast or an afternoon snack. He often ate breakfast in the office and the idea of making a smoothie appealed to him.
  • Because Stephen rarely gets outside into the sunshine, I assumed his vitamin D would be low. Sure enough, his blood level was only 18ng/mL. Being low in vitamin D worsens insulin resistance and makes weight loss more difficult. Interestingly, Stephen recently had some bowel polyps removed. Correcting his vitamin D level should help to reduce the risk of further polyps in the future.

I plan to see Stephen again in another four weeks. He seems very motivated to change his diet and improve his health and I look forward to monitoring his progress.

The above statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat or cure any disease.