Mark, I just got back from my endocrinology appointment when I saw the latest contest.

I’m no picture of health yet but things are looking a heck of a lot better than they did before I started on Primal Blueprint.

I’ll start at the beginning. Six months ago my type II Diabetes was completely out of control, I’ll admit I wasn’t taking the best care of myself -moving, starting up a new research lab, you know “life” had gotten in the way of finding time to eat right and exercise. On top of that I was taking medication for high blood pressure and a birth control pill that made me even more insulin resistant and making it so that none of my oral medications for the diabetes worked anymore. In short, I felt like crap and looked it too.

First they put me on insulin -not fun but neither are sugars in the 300 range so it was a necessary evil. But here’s where it got really depressing, I didn’t need “just a boost” of insulin, I needed a ton! Long acting, short acting, I was taking 5 shots a day and my sugar was still sky high. I was seeing the Diabetic educator and she was at a loss. I got sent to the diabetic nutritionist and she (I still want to scream thinking about this!) told me my sugar was high because I wasn’t eating enough carbs. Her advice was to eat between 45-60 grams of carb at EACH meal, oh and most of that should come from whole grain sources! At that point I was taking 1 unit of short acting insulin for every 3 grams of carbohydrate. Do the math and I would be taking 15 to 20 units at each meal. Gee, I wonder why diabetics get fat? I don’t do diabetes research but I know how to do a literature search and quickly found that low carb was the way to go (Duh!) but I had tried Atkins before and frankly, I’d rather be dead. I figured there had to be something that was lowish carb that I would be willing to eat. Yeah, I am a Foodie and dang proud of it! Finding Marksdailyapple.com was like xmas without the cranky relatives.

Fast forward to today, did I mention that I live in one of the foodie capitals of the Midwest? I can trip over grass-fed beef and pastured eggs just walking out my front door. There is a choice of farmer’s markets on the weekend -I can even get elk! Hey, the city even lets you have chickens within the city limits (I haven’t gone there -yet! the dogs would have a field day!) There are even a bunch of restaurants that I can be comfortably primal and no one looks askance. Sorry to say, no miracle occurred, I am still overweight but I have dropped my body fat percentage 2% in the last 2 months alone. I have replaced that fat with muscle so my hips are 3.5″ smaller, my waist is 1.5″ tighter and I can keep up with the 9 year old (actually now she has to keep up with me!) Here is the real kicker though. When I started Primal my cholesterol was at 178, not horrible but not great especially for a diabetic, now it is down to 158. My A1c, the three month average of my blood glucose was 8.9 (yikes!) and is now 7.6. My blood pressure today was 112/78 and -drum roll please! all this with no meds! Yep! I stopped taking the blood pressure med and never did take the statin they wanted me on. Yes, I am still on insulin but less and I am building muscle, which on insulin is really tough.

So how has my life changed since finding MDA? Well, this is definitely a case where the picture doesn’t tell the whole story. Perhaps the greatest testament to the changes in my life are that both my Endocrinologist and my Doctor/Scientist husband are now trying the PB lifestyle as is my sister and even my meat averse diabetic mother. I’ve become like one of those nuts that quits smoking and becomes evangelically non-smoking. I am an evangelizing Primal and thank Grok for it!

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