Bulletproof >> My Diabetes Story

10 min readApr 21, 2019

I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, at 42 years old, after losing 3 stone over 3 months… With no real warning, my life changed.

The following story is not complete… I am still working on it.

A little background

I haven’t had a ‘normal’ upbringing, but then what is ‘normal’ anyway? Born in Wales, I grew up in Grimsby, with a short stint in Kenya during my teens, followed by studying for a degree in Manchester before starting my career in Aerospace and IT in BAE Systems.

In 2000, I married my amazing wife and over the years we have brought up three outstanding children.

My first ever health check

Vitality healthcare comes with the new role (#lifeatdog) and within the first few weeks, I had my first health check. I have not been very good with going to the doctors. Probably quite a typical thing, particularly for men.

I was not expecting them to find very much at the checkup. Being 173cm tall and 83kg my BMI was a little high at 27.7 with 20% fat. However, I was active with at least 3 gym sessions a week and a regular on Insanity Max 30. Over the last 3 years, I had completed Insanity, P90x3, T25 and Insanity Max30 a number of times and I was not afraid to push my body to the limits.

In August 2018, I had my first health check and they found my cholesterol and blood pressure to be high. They referred me to the GP and a few weeks later, additional blood tests found that my blood glucose was higher than normal.

Further tests were needed.

1kg per week

From September 2018, I found that I was losing about 1kg a week without any additional effort. I was eating and drinking the same and had not increased my weekly exercise regime. At our gym, we have a Boditrax machine, which all of a sudden started to show a dramatic change in my numbers.

I had been to my GP a couple more times and had more blood tests conducted.

I also noticed that I was drinking a lot more water, insatiable thirst and was going to the loo a lot more. I remember one night waking up 6 times.

Every month, we have a whole company get together called DogConf, which often ends with team building and drinks. I found that at the October and November events, I was drinking a lot of soft drinks to try and address the thirst. Fruit juices and fizzy pop; definitely not the right drinks which I found out later.

Diagnosis Type 2 Diabetes

There are two types of blood tests;

Instantaneous: the one where you draw blood from your finger and you can find out your blood glucose as it stands at that moment in time.
3 month average; the one where your GP draws blood and it is sent away for analysis. This provides the blood glucose average over a 3 month period.

To confuse things a little more, there are two scales for measuring blood glucose; mmol/L and mg/dl. I will stick to mmol/L. Normal healthy range is between 4 and 6 mmol/L. This may increase to 7 or 8 mmol/L two hours after eating but it will soon return to normal levels.

Your blood stays in your body for 3 months and by analysing the proteins in your blood, the average blood glucose can be calculated.

Prior to December 2018, I did not know what my instant blood glucose levels were but my average was 11mmol/L. I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

A little bit about Diabetes

There are two forms of Diabetes, Type 1 and Type 2. They are both very different things and its a shame that they are called the same thing. However, they are both connected to Insulin. Insulin is the key in the body that enables glucose from the blood to pass into the cells. If there is not enough Insulin or the Insulin cannot react with your cells, the blood sugar stays in the blood. The more carbs that are eaten, the more glucose is created, the higher the blood glucose levels become.

There are consequences to high blood sugar with low or no transference to the cells.

With the glucose remaining in the blood:

The blood becomes “sweet” and you are more prone to infections
Nerve ending in your limbs become less effecting causing less sensation, particularly to pain
Blood thickens and as a result small capillaries are widened or bypassed by larger ones which affect abilities like sight.

With glucose not entering the cells:

Weight loss is experienced as the cells are not receiving much needed energy from the blood so the body reverts to fat stores
Loss of energy as fat stores are depleted and the body starts conserving fat
Keytones are produced, after a period of time with no Insulin in the body as the body continues to burn fat for energy but starts producing acids that are harmful to the body. This will then affect kidney and liver functions.

It’s because of these that people then lose sight, need amputations, suffer from kidney and liver failures; which in turn could lead to premature death.

Pre-1922, I would be dead already.

There are 2 types of Diabetes

Type 1 Diabetes occurs when your immune system attacks the Pancreatic cells preventing you from being able to create Insulin.
Type 2 Diabetes occurs when the body’s cells are blocked with fat preventing insulin from working effectively. This is called Insulin resistance and as a result the pancreas works harder to create more Insulin, eventually wearing itself out and reducing the manufacturing ability.

Whether insulin producing abilities are terminated (Type 1) or reduced (Type 2), the effects are permanent. Although Type 2 can be put into remission, it cannot be reversed. i.e. Type 2 can be managed with a balance of diet and exercise.

There are differing variations on the above and I have heard and read about ‘Reversing Type 2’ Diabetes but the recent science suggests otherwise. My advice is to consult a specialist who is up-to-date on the research. Prior to 1922, there was no working solution for the management of Diabetes and until recently the management techniques have been less than elegant. As the only dietary disease, knowledge and understanding is still evolving and its going to take many more years to fully understand and address.

Restoring the Insulin producing pancreatic cells and protecting these from future failure will be a significant challenge. With over 400 million people with diabetes around the world with a predicted growth rate, finding a solution will increase in urgency. Until then, Type 2 diabetics can be controlled with exercise and diet and Type 1 diabetics will need to take Insulin.

So, at this stage, I was diagnosed with Type 2. Ok, that’s not so bad; I’ll change my diet… and exercise harder.

800 Calorie Blood Sugar Diet

Michael Mosely wrote the book called the 800 Calorie Blood Sugar Diet. The book is split into 2 parts; part 1, the science behind Diabetes and part 2, a recipe book.

I read part 1 in a day. I was consumed with trying to understand what I had and what I needed to do. I soon learnt that the issue is that carbohydrates convert into glucose and this glucose builds up in the blood.

For Type 2 diabetics the challenge is to reduce weight, thereby unblocking the cells from fat, both subcutaneous fat and visceral fat (fat that sits around the organs) and to then balance the intake of carbohydrates with the body’s absorption rate and level of exercise.

The diet focuses on a Mediterranean-style diet with lots of meat, fish and vegetables (and the occasional glass of wine) with low quantities of bread, rice and pasta.

At 83kg and 173cm, I was a little overweight but nothing I was worried about. I was active, fit and careful with what I ate and drank. Mostly with home cooked food, the occasional meal out and weekend casual drinking. Adjusting to the diet was not too difficult. It was not a revolution, but an evolution of our daily eating. Essentially, I cut out the carbohydrates or reduced them significantly.

I also bought a blood glucose meter and was able to monitor my levels on a daily basis. This improved the level of feedback enabling more data-driven decision making.

During these 8 weeks, which ran across Christmas 2018, I lost 5kg going from 77kg to 72kg with body fat reducing from 20% to 19%. My visceral fat had also reduced from 8 to 7. This was not enough though. My Blood Glucose has not dropped enough. I was still 20+. I thought I was dropping as the readings reduced from 27+ to 22+ but as I was only taking the readings once or twice a day, there were not enough data points to verify this.

I had significantly reduced my carbohydrate intake from 200g+ a day to around 100g per day and increased my exercise. I had gone back to doing Insanity Max 30 4 or 5 times a week.

I was determined to beat this and thinking I had Type 2 Diabetes which could be addressed with diet and exercise, I thought all I needed to do was to reduce my fat mass, particularly visceral fat and reduce the amount of carbs togetehr with more exercise.

This seemed like a simple equation. It was not working!

21 Day Water Fast

I had been doing some reading on fasting over Christmas. Many people have heard of the 5:2 diet which is also written by Michael Mosely and over the centuries many cultures have used fasting for spiritual, physical and emotional restoration.

I decided to take this on and started a 21 day fast on 2nd January 2019. It was not a complete fast but I limited myself to protein shake, milk and a vitamin tablet everyday. Less than 300 calories.

Over the next 3 weeks, I lost another 7Kg going from 72kg to 65kg (BMI: 22), Fat percentage reduced from 19% to 12% and Visceral Fat reduced from 7 to 4.

The good news is, that after 2 weeks my Blood Glucose went down to 6.5 from around 20 and stayed there.

The first few days of the fast were really tough. I felt hungry and the routines of eating were pulling on me. I felt I needed to eat. After 5 days, I started to feel better. The body moved from drawing on food for energy, and muscle and liver stores to drawing energy from fat. This is called Ketosis.

I found a great blog by someone who journaled their 21 day fast. This really helped me and over the 21 days, I experienced the stages mentioned from feeling traditional hunger pains, burning muscle, moving to ketosis and then on to self healing. There is a period after about 14 days where your body preserves the muscle AND fat reserves you have left and starts to look for dead and damages cells to consume as energy. These are replaced with new cells as they are consumed. I had a massive mole on my back and by the end of 21 days, it was tiny, almost gone.

I discovered that there is a science to the tongue and how it shows how the detoxing process is affecting the body. Different parts of your tongue go white depending on which part of your digestive system is detoxing. I was on a serious detox and my tongue was proper white and proper furry and I could see the changes in the tongue and I had an idea which part of my system was detoxing.

Also, during this time, the body focusses the energy on the organs that matter the most. The brain takes up 50% of your energy and my body was becoming more efficient and diverting energy to the brain in preference to other things. I did less fidgeting, my movements were more focus and planned, I slept better, I was ‘balanced’ — Less anxious, more focussed, more efficient and mentally and spiritually more alert.

I lost another 7kg during this time and was 65kg at the end of the fast. 22 BMI, 12% fat…

My Blood Glucose reduced too. It went from around 20 mmol/L to 6.5 mmol/L… after 2 weeks. This was good news. My visceral fat had reduced from 8 to 4 and I felt that my body had reversed the impact of Type 2 Diabetes.

Happy Days?

Type 1 Diagnosis

No.

Not frickin’ happy days.

I started eating again… carefully. Coming out of a fast like this is more dangerous that starting the fast. The digestive system shuts down and re-introducing food needs to be done carefully. Slowly starting the processes of digestion is critical. Stomach aches and associated pains often accompany the re-introduction of food after long fasts.

My re-introduction was careful and I started with simple salads and proteins. I did not experience any pain or discomfort. There have been people who have died after eating after a long fast, but I am still here…

However, eating food had a consequence, my blood glucose started rising again… Back into the 20’s. I had not fixed this. Gutted! Gutted.

I went back to thee diabetic nurse and was referred on to the diabetic specialist. The suggestion was that I was not Type 2 Diabetic, I was Type 1.

What?

As previously mentioned there are two type of Diabetes — very different in cause and treatment.

Meltdown

Special people

Base insulin and exercice

Rapid Insulin and stabilisation

A much needed break

A technology challenge… continuous monitoring

Advice for others