Now, here is the cure. Just follow these three simple rules. If you are taking insulin or other medications, you must coordinate this with your doctor, as dosages will need to be adjusted (downward) so that you don’t die from an overdose.
1. Absolutely no snacking between meals.
This seems hard to do, but really it’s not if you know one secret: Replace snacking with something far more satisfying — fat. That’s right, the government is wrong to recommend a low fat diet. Fat is what makes you feel full until your next meal. Take away the fat, take away the full. Don’t go to an extreme, but do lean strongly toward a high-fat low-carb diet.
One easy way to increase your fat content and quit snacking is to begin your meal by eating an avocado. I and others I know have used this trick to easily quit snacking. Avocados protect you from one of the reasons some dietary research wrongly claims that high-fat diets are bad for you: the danger of gorging yourself on delicious, fatty foods. With plain avocados, there is little danger of gorging. Another danger is clogging your arteries and giving yourself heart disease. But it’s been amply shown that the blame for that falls squarely on trans fats, like margarine. If you see any product with the words “partially hydrogenated” or “hydrogenated” in the list of ingredients, put it back, it’s a trans fat. On the other hand, any fat that comes directly from an animal or plant is not a trans fat and can be safely consumed.
Hint: There may also be benefits to eating the avocado first, as research has shown that the fat literally coats the inside of your intestine, physically blocks other food from being absorbed, and effectively reduces the size of your meal.
Hint: Using more olive oil in your cooking can also increase healthy fat content during meals and help you eliminate snacking, just like the avocado. Butter also works, and it is very delicious, just don’t overdo it.
One way to cheat: Coffee and tea, optionally with a bit of cream — but never with sugar or other sweeteners — can be used as a snack if you are having an especially hard time lasting til your next meal.
2. Limit meal times to 1 hour or less, with at least 12 hours between the end of dinner and beginning of breakfast.
You should have no more than three of these “feeding times” per day. The reason limiting the number and duration of your meal times is so important has to do with staying out of the vicious cycle of increasing insulin resistance. To get smart on insulin resistance — the cause of both type 2 diabetes and obesity — read Dr. Jason Fung’s book, The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss, or watch his free lecture on YouTube.
Hint: If you feel like snacking, just wait a bit and make the snack part of your next meal.
Hint: You never have to count calories again. When you eat, eat until you’re full. I find myself putting down my phone and focusing on the eating. With calorie guilt gone, you can eat what you want and savor it slowly. After years of torturous calorie restriction, eating is really enjoyable again!
The above two rules are the only dietary rules you need to maintain ideal weight for the rest of your life, assuming you apply common sense and avoid extremes. The diet works by building in regular periods of insulin relief, keeping your body from becoming resistant to insulin. Following these two rules, you will maintain your weight and health by never entering the vicious cycle of increasing insulin resistance.
HOWEVER, if today you are not your ideal weight (a BMI of about 22), you are already in this vicious cycle and you need to break out of it. In order to break out and quickly get down to your ideal weight, you need one more rule, the rule of using special tricks:
3. Use additional tricks to accelerate your escape from diabetes and obesity.
Use any combination of the tricks below to accelerate your weight loss and return to good health. If you use all five wisely, you can get to your ideal weight in 6–12 months or less — even if that means losing 100 pounds or more. Yes, think about your weight 10, 20, 30 years ago. Another friend of mine started on this journey last year weighing 270 pounds. He’s in his mid-thirties and about to reach his college wrestling weight class of 197 pounds and just ran his fastest 2 miles ever. He got to this point by following the two rules above and just 3 of the 5 tricks below.
Trick (important): Add a teaspoon of vinegar to your first bite of food at every meal. This lowers your blood sugar by 30%. Most people use apple cider vinegar. If you can’t stomach it, a friend who monitors her blood sugar to control gestational diabetes tells me that 5 gherkin pickles also do the trick.
Trick (important): Cut down on sweets, and if you can, cut them out entirely for a couple months. I still eat ice cream about once a week, and know people who are losing weight on this diet while eating ice cream almost every day. But this probably won’t be the case for everyone. Better to severely restrict sweets for the first few months, and then gradually reintroduce.
Trick (not as important): Exercise more. Regularly giving your muscles a workout has been shown to increase insulin sensitivity. I say exercise “more” because if you’re not getting any exercise at all, you’re not even trying and probably haven’t read this far anyway.
Trick (not as important): Eliminate breakfast. Instead of breakfast, increase the fat, protein, and vegetables you eat at lunch and dinner. I’ve eliminated breakfast while increasing my overall daily calories from 1600 to 2500+, and still lost six pounds in the first two weeks.
Trick (most important): Go for longer periods of time without eating (yes, yes, fasting). Consume water only for days or weeks at a time. Your fat will literally dissolve away, and with it your type 2 diabetes and other ailments. The definitive books here are Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s, Fasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor’s Program for Conquering Disease, and Dr. Jason Fung’s Complete Guide to Fasting. I highly recommend them both; if you’re skeptical, read the testimonial comments on Amazon. I and at least 20 of my friends have tried fasts lasting days to weeks. It works, and it is amazing.