[Text from the video (her story, not my story)] So, that was me in 2006. I weighed over 300 pounds. I had triglycerides of 500, and I had just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Now, type 2...
[Text from the video (her story, not my story)]
So, that was me in 2006. I weighed over 300 pounds. I had triglycerides of 500, and I had just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
Now, type 2 diabetes is when your body doesn't use insulin properly, and I like to imagine it as this sugar sludge going through my bloodstream to the soundtrack of "Jaws." Like 29 million other Americans, I was sent home with a diet, a prescription, and a little booklet about my disease. As I dug into it, I learned a dirty little truth – two, actually.
The first says that in America, if you're diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, you carry the same health risk as somebody who's already had one heart attack. The second is that the object of the game, unlike cancer or anything else, is to manage your diabetes, not cure you. So, your doctors will work very, very hard to try to prevent complications that might ruin the quality of your life or kill you.
I knew that this was not going to work for me. I was a hard-charging type-A global executive, and managing my diabetes was not going to be an option. So, I enlisted the help of the people at Canyon Ranch in the medical department, who I knew were a little bit more ambitious.
And here's what we learned on a lesson on a journey that actually took us five years. I learned that even though I was 300 pounds and had type 2 diabetes, my body was absolutely perfect the way it was – for the way I was feeding it, the way I was moving it, and the way I was resting it. Quite frankly, if I wanted a different body or I wanted different health, I had to change the equation somehow.
The second thing I learned was that if I imagined my future healthy self and started living that life now – what kinds of foods I would eat, how many calories I would need to maintain a healthy weight for a lifetime – that would be the way I would achieve my goal. I had to come up with strategies that I could live with for two days, two weeks, two months, two years.
Now, when you do this and you live this way, interesting things happen – like magic. You wake up two years later and you're almost at your goal. I learned that I had to keep track of everything. So, I used iPhone apps like "Lose It!" and I used my UP band to track how much sleep I was getting and how much exercise I was getting along the way. And this really helped me to keep the game kind of rational instead of emotional the way it can get.
This was a big war. I had to break this down to the smallest battle I could win every day because I have a short attention span. I had to take it down to the cellular level – what would make my cells happier and healthier every single day. And with every drop of glucose or every drop of blood I fed into my glucose meter, I could tell immediately if I was moving in the right direction. I became my own science experiment, and I learned a lot.
For example, when I didn't sleep or I jumped time zones or took a red-eye, my blood sugar was 20 points higher the next day and I craved carbohydrates. Well, I didn't need to eat; what I needed was a nap. Portions were always my biggest downfall. I come from the land of all-you-can-eat shrimp and endless platters of pasta. When somebody showed me what a real single portion of something was, it was a huge disconnect for me. So, I needed to really figure out how to do that.
I started eating with smaller plates, eating with chopsticks to eat more slowly, and I promised myself I could have anything I wanted as long as I ate it with a knife and a fork. Trust me, it feels ridiculous to eat a Snickers bar like this, but it helped me be more conscious of what I was eating.
I learned to be in perpetual motion all day, every day – looking for ways to move and to fidget because fidgeting can burn 200-300 calories a day. I counted steps, I got a standing desk, and I learned that my one hour of walking every day was as good for my head as it was for my body.
And finally, life's too short to live without ice cream. When I was first diagnosed, I made a list of all my favorite foods, and I went and did a glycemic index with my glucose meter of each one. Then I went back to each food and I tweaked it, adding a little fat, removing a little sugar, until everything fit in my plan. And now, I plan for a perfect scoop of premium ice cream every day. What I learned is that, given half a shot, your body will recover. It's an amazing adaptive machine, self-healing. Mine did.
I lost over 110 pounds. I now have a perfect lipid profile. I have had a healthy, normal blood sugar without medication for more than five years. I am no longer a type 2 diabetic. [Pause for applause] So, thank you very much.
So, if any of you have a health issue that you need to deal with or a life change you need to deal with, I urge you to imagine your healthy future self and start living that life now. Break your journey down into little battles you can win. Become your own science experiment and come up with strategies that will last for two days or two years. And most of all, you need to start eating like your life depends on it because it does.
(Transcript auto-generated by YouTube. Punctuation and paragraphs by ChatGPT.)
All of this resonates with me. It didn't dawn on me right away that living like I was already at goal weight would result in goal weight in 2-3 years; that realization came later. I kept a higher...
All of this resonates with me.
It didn't dawn on me right away that living like I was already at goal weight would result in goal weight in 2-3 years; that realization came later. I kept a higher calorie deficit, so I lost mine faster, but she's right about the 2-3 year timeframe if jump to the maintenance calculations at goal weight. (For most people with healthy metabolism.)
Like her, I had diabetes type 2 and was losing from a weight of 300 lb. The diabetes has gone away, and I've been free of it for 8 years. I weighed in this morning at 172.
I have a lot of health problems I’m still dealing with right now but one thing I am grateful for is the fact that I never got diabetes. I was borderline pre diabetic for a while but changing my...
I have a lot of health problems I’m still dealing with right now but one thing I am grateful for is the fact that I never got diabetes. I was borderline pre diabetic for a while but changing my diet fixed me up. My entire family had diabetes so it’s a small miracle I don’t have it.
None of this resonates with me. I don't eat large portions. I'm not from the land of all you can eat shrimp. I don't drink sugary soda. I cook all meals myself. If it was just a matter of eating...
None of this resonates with me. I don't eat large portions. I'm not from the land of all you can eat shrimp. I don't drink sugary soda. I cook all meals myself. If it was just a matter of eating normally I'd be skinny.
That sucks. Have you tried counting calories? That's all that has worked for me. I counted calories for 5 years straight, lost 50 lbs in a year or two and held my ideal weight. Then I thought I...
That sucks. Have you tried counting calories?
That's all that has worked for me. I counted calories for 5 years straight, lost 50 lbs in a year or two and held my ideal weight. Then I thought I could stop counting and just rely on my routine and habits. Within 2 years I had gained 30 lbs, now I'm back to counting everything I eat and slowly making my way back down. I think I just have to count forever, which isn't that bad really.
Sometimes there are other factors. CICO is always the foundation (none of us can defy it), but sometimes our "CO" is quite off the norms due to medication or medical conditions (that are sometimes...
Sometimes there are other factors. CICO is always the foundation (none of us can defy it), but sometimes our "CO" is quite off the norms due to medication or medical conditions (that are sometimes hard to find). Sometimes, seemingly, our metabolism follows our CI down in lockstep and we can't lose any weight.
It took me from puberty until I was 51 to find some lasting success.
If it was just a matter of eating normally I'd be skinny.
Not to discount those other possibilities, but I would have said the same thing. I was a 300-lb healthy eater. Until I started weighing my food portions, I figured that my family genes were keeping my body heavy (everyone in my family was/is big). That was one of my unlocking keys, but there are other locks and yours might be elsewhere.
If you'd like to explore this further, I'm happy to help you figure it out if we are able.
[Text from the video (her story, not my story)]
So, that was me in 2006. I weighed over 300 pounds. I had triglycerides of 500, and I had just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
Now, type 2 diabetes is when your body doesn't use insulin properly, and I like to imagine it as this sugar sludge going through my bloodstream to the soundtrack of "Jaws." Like 29 million other Americans, I was sent home with a diet, a prescription, and a little booklet about my disease. As I dug into it, I learned a dirty little truth – two, actually.
The first says that in America, if you're diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, you carry the same health risk as somebody who's already had one heart attack. The second is that the object of the game, unlike cancer or anything else, is to manage your diabetes, not cure you. So, your doctors will work very, very hard to try to prevent complications that might ruin the quality of your life or kill you.
I knew that this was not going to work for me. I was a hard-charging type-A global executive, and managing my diabetes was not going to be an option. So, I enlisted the help of the people at Canyon Ranch in the medical department, who I knew were a little bit more ambitious.
And here's what we learned on a lesson on a journey that actually took us five years. I learned that even though I was 300 pounds and had type 2 diabetes, my body was absolutely perfect the way it was – for the way I was feeding it, the way I was moving it, and the way I was resting it. Quite frankly, if I wanted a different body or I wanted different health, I had to change the equation somehow.
The second thing I learned was that if I imagined my future healthy self and started living that life now – what kinds of foods I would eat, how many calories I would need to maintain a healthy weight for a lifetime – that would be the way I would achieve my goal. I had to come up with strategies that I could live with for two days, two weeks, two months, two years.
Now, when you do this and you live this way, interesting things happen – like magic. You wake up two years later and you're almost at your goal. I learned that I had to keep track of everything. So, I used iPhone apps like "Lose It!" and I used my UP band to track how much sleep I was getting and how much exercise I was getting along the way. And this really helped me to keep the game kind of rational instead of emotional the way it can get.
This was a big war. I had to break this down to the smallest battle I could win every day because I have a short attention span. I had to take it down to the cellular level – what would make my cells happier and healthier every single day. And with every drop of glucose or every drop of blood I fed into my glucose meter, I could tell immediately if I was moving in the right direction. I became my own science experiment, and I learned a lot.
For example, when I didn't sleep or I jumped time zones or took a red-eye, my blood sugar was 20 points higher the next day and I craved carbohydrates. Well, I didn't need to eat; what I needed was a nap. Portions were always my biggest downfall. I come from the land of all-you-can-eat shrimp and endless platters of pasta. When somebody showed me what a real single portion of something was, it was a huge disconnect for me. So, I needed to really figure out how to do that.
I started eating with smaller plates, eating with chopsticks to eat more slowly, and I promised myself I could have anything I wanted as long as I ate it with a knife and a fork. Trust me, it feels ridiculous to eat a Snickers bar like this, but it helped me be more conscious of what I was eating.
I learned to be in perpetual motion all day, every day – looking for ways to move and to fidget because fidgeting can burn 200-300 calories a day. I counted steps, I got a standing desk, and I learned that my one hour of walking every day was as good for my head as it was for my body.
And finally, life's too short to live without ice cream. When I was first diagnosed, I made a list of all my favorite foods, and I went and did a glycemic index with my glucose meter of each one. Then I went back to each food and I tweaked it, adding a little fat, removing a little sugar, until everything fit in my plan. And now, I plan for a perfect scoop of premium ice cream every day. What I learned is that, given half a shot, your body will recover. It's an amazing adaptive machine, self-healing. Mine did.
I lost over 110 pounds. I now have a perfect lipid profile. I have had a healthy, normal blood sugar without medication for more than five years. I am no longer a type 2 diabetic. [Pause for applause] So, thank you very much.
So, if any of you have a health issue that you need to deal with or a life change you need to deal with, I urge you to imagine your healthy future self and start living that life now. Break your journey down into little battles you can win. Become your own science experiment and come up with strategies that will last for two days or two years. And most of all, you need to start eating like your life depends on it because it does.
(Transcript auto-generated by YouTube. Punctuation and paragraphs by ChatGPT.)
All of this resonates with me.
It didn't dawn on me right away that living like I was already at goal weight would result in goal weight in 2-3 years; that realization came later. I kept a higher calorie deficit, so I lost mine faster, but she's right about the 2-3 year timeframe if jump to the maintenance calculations at goal weight. (For most people with healthy metabolism.)
Like her, I had diabetes type 2 and was losing from a weight of 300 lb. The diabetes has gone away, and I've been free of it for 8 years. I weighed in this morning at 172.
I have a lot of health problems I’m still dealing with right now but one thing I am grateful for is the fact that I never got diabetes. I was borderline pre diabetic for a while but changing my diet fixed me up. My entire family had diabetes so it’s a small miracle I don’t have it.
None of this resonates with me. I don't eat large portions. I'm not from the land of all you can eat shrimp. I don't drink sugary soda. I cook all meals myself. If it was just a matter of eating normally I'd be skinny.
That sucks. Have you tried counting calories?
That's all that has worked for me. I counted calories for 5 years straight, lost 50 lbs in a year or two and held my ideal weight. Then I thought I could stop counting and just rely on my routine and habits. Within 2 years I had gained 30 lbs, now I'm back to counting everything I eat and slowly making my way back down. I think I just have to count forever, which isn't that bad really.
Sometimes there are other factors. CICO is always the foundation (none of us can defy it), but sometimes our "CO" is quite off the norms due to medication or medical conditions (that are sometimes hard to find). Sometimes, seemingly, our metabolism follows our CI down in lockstep and we can't lose any weight.
It took me from puberty until I was 51 to find some lasting success.
Not to discount those other possibilities, but I would have said the same thing. I was a 300-lb healthy eater. Until I started weighing my food portions, I figured that my family genes were keeping my body heavy (everyone in my family was/is big). That was one of my unlocking keys, but there are other locks and yours might be elsewhere.
If you'd like to explore this further, I'm happy to help you figure it out if we are able.