Having a proper diet plan and implementing intermittent fasting into your lifestyle significantly helps to prevent and reverse type 2 diabetes. Modern science shows that this disease is not chronic and you can help yourself to treat it with simple dietary changes.
Type 2 diabetes became a worldwide epidemic, mostly caused by a modern diet (1). We eat a lot, we eat everywhere and all the time, we eat highly refined foods. All of this just can not pass by…
You need to pay close attention to your diet, it’s composition, frequency of eating and the quality of food you consume.
Type 2 diabetes is a condition where the levels of blood sugar (glucose) are constantly high due to insensitivity to excessive insulin or in other words insulin resistance (2).
This leads to a number of health complications such as:
Before choosing a diet plan for types 2 diabetes, you should read our article : "Can diabetics do intermittent fasting?"
Insulin is a hormone produced by your pancreas as a reaction to coming food. It works as a “key” and lets glucose and essential nutrients get into a cell.
Prolonged and excessive exposure to this hormone changes the cell's ability to respond correctly to the “key”. They become insensitive and can’t get the energy in and all that unabsorbed glucose flows in your bloodstream.
Having a carb rich diet combined with frequent eating works as a constant stimulus of elevated insulin production that causes insulin resistance. In the end you can develop a state, where your pancreas gets “tired” and is not able to produce enough insulin any longer and you become insulin-dependent type 2 diabetic (4).
Dietary composition plays a big role in type 2 diabetes. Making the right food choices will help you control sugar and insulin levels as a part of your medical treatment.
The more often you eat, the more insulin is produced. Having three meals a day is more than enough for your body to get all essential nutrients. With time, when your body will adjust to a new lifestyle, you can reduce the number of meals (5).
Carbohydrates such as grains, starchy vegetables, flavour products and sweets have the biggest impact on blood glucose and insulin. They spicke them faster and in bigger amounts.
In the ideal situation you’d better count carbohydrates you consume and restrict them to no more than 50 grams a day (6, 7).
Natural, whole foods are full of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients which are essential for proper body functioning. Refined “food-like-substances” such as cookies, icecream, pasta and others don’t give anything but energy, which will be stored in your fat tissue and around your organs, that causes many health problems (8).
The worst choice of liquids is sugary beverages such as sodas, milkshakes, coffees with toppings and so on. Such liquids are absorbed quickly and contain a lot of sugar that skyrockets glucose and insulin levels in the blood (9, 10).
Protein also requires insulin to enter a cell. High consumption of protein, especially lean one, leads to elevated insulin production.
Our body doesn’t have the capability to store protein and only around 5 grams circulate in the bloodstream in the form of amino acids.
Consume 0.8-1.7 grams of protein for a kilogram of desirable body weight (11).
There is no better way to increase your insulin sensitivity than intermittent fasting (12, 13).
You can start with the simplest protocol and have 16 hours fast between your dinner and breakfast and slowly increase this time. In another article “Is type 2 diabetes reversible with intermittent fasting?” we talk about it in more detail.
Talk to your doctor about your intentions, because you might need to adjust your medications if you are fasting.
Eating out or ordering food might be more fun and time saving, but if you want to be in control of the ingredients and their quality, you should cook yourself.
Cooking is an engrossing and creative process. You can cook with your family members and your friends and that will make you closer. But the most important point is that you know what the dish was made with, what the ratio of macronutrients and that is safe in terms of your health conditions.
The best way to start your day is to have a healthy, nutritious meal.
The right meal for lunch will let you keep energised and active for the rest of your day.
Try to avoid late dinners, so your body will be focused on repairing instead of digesting and you will have a good rest.
Following simple dietary recommendations, consuming no more than three meals a day and practicing intermittent fasting are your natural remedies against type 2 diabetes (14).
