“Thank you for saving my life!”

Before and after

Here’s quite a story – Peter and Sher have transformed their lives with the help of low carb.

The Email

Hello Doctor Andreas,

Prior to finding your site and low-carb, life for me was going downhill fast. A side adjunct to my story is during my time of recklessly eating bad carbs and gaining tons of weight my daughter was eating pound for pound right along side of me. So my bad eating habits not only wreaked havoc on my life but I was taking my daughter down the very same path that was destroying my life.

Years of uncontrolled bad eating habits lead me to being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes back in 1988 and over the course of the next 30 years I would try every diet known to man, lose enough weight from time to time to consider I had shed a small person and yet no matter what I tried conventional dieting always lead to a slight improvement in my diabetes but sooner than later it lead to gaining all the weight back plus 20 or 30 extra pounds (9-14 kg) each time but no one including my family doctor, my cardiologist nor my endocrinologist ever provided me with ways to lose weight, regulate my type 2 diabetes and most of all how to keep the weight off. That is until I found your site. Doctor I want to thank you for saving my life! And I also want to thank you for allowing me to have my daughter tag along with me and hopefully we have prevented her from a fate such as my journey has been over the past 30 years.

Back in November of 2015 I had been nursing a diabetic foot ulcer for the previous 10 months (with little hope of clearing it up) and an A1c giving me an estimated average glucose of 14.6 mmol/L (262 mg/dl) along with a possible foot amputation from a wound that would not heal and an endocrinologist that basically told me if I did not find a way to lose weight I would become an invalid very fast and no doubt spend the rest of my life with trips to the hospital with surgeons amputating various parts of my body until I expired from the planet.

Some pretty scary news, however, it motivated me to go home and get my act together and literally, this time I was determined to find a way to get the weight off and my glucose levels in check. Thank God for LCHF it apparently has done both.

So a little about me: I am a 63-year old male, type 2 diabetic for going on 30 years. As of December 2015 I weighed in at 330 pounds (150 kg) with severe uncontrolled glucose levels and on the following medication regime; 2 injections daily of 20 units of Levemir, 3,000 mg daily of Metformin, 240 mg daily of Diamicrom (Gliclazide) and 100 mg daily of Januvia, this was for my diabetes.

A side effect from not being able to control my diabetes over the course of 30 years, I had developed the onset of peripheral neuropathy in both my feet and hands and this had become so severe it actually took me off work since January 2015 and looks like I will not recover enough to ever return. For the neuropathy I take the following medication 350 mg daily of Lyrica along with 3,000 mg daily of Oxycocet. Not only has my type 2 diabetes taken away most of the use of my feet and hands back in 2002 my type 2 lead me to require Coronary artery bypass surgery (Triple) for which I take 10 mg daily of Altace (Ramipril) and 81 mg Aspirin. And yes the CABG was a direct result of unchecked diabetes!

A little about my daughter: she is a 43 year old female that as of December 2015 weighed in at 278 pounds (126 kg) suffering from severe fibromyalgia on the following medication 150 mg daily of Lyrica and Tramadol 650 mg daily.

Together we decided we could beat the scale and set out on the LCHF diet on Jan 4, 2016. The following are my A1c numbers from onset to current:

• Nov 2015 14.8 mmol/L (266 mg/dl)
• Feb 2016 9.2 mmol/L (166 mg/dl)
• May 2016 6.1 mmol/L (110 mg/dl)
• Aug 2016 6.0 mmol/L (108 mg/dl)
• Nov 2016 5.9 mmol/L (106 mg/dl)
• Feb 2017 5.2 mmol/L (94 mg/dl)

The good news is that I was off all diabetes medications by Feb 2016 and have never needed them since. I have been unable to get off the medication for the neuropathy however it appears that disease is no longer progressing and of course as a preventative measure I am continuing with the Altace and Aspirin for my heart. Oh an did I mention that following the LCHF lifestyle I have lost 115 pounds (52 kg) and am now down to 215 pounds (98 kg) with a goal weight of 199 pounds (90 kg). I have gone from a size 52 waist to currently I am wearing a size 36 pant and shirt size 3XXX to now in a size large.

As for my daughter she is off both of her meds since February 2016 and to date she has lost a total of 118 pounds (54 kg) with a goal weight of 145 pounds (66 kg). She has gone from size 42 slacks to size 28. And I could not be more proud of her!

We found the biggest challenge of the LCHF lifestyle to be the term as you put it, eat when you are hungry and stop when you are full. This is like letting loose a couple of fat kids in a candy store saying don’t eat too much. It took about a month to figure this scenario out. Currently, we start each day with a glass of sole (Pink salt, Lemon juice and water), Bulletproof coffee (½ tbsp butter, ½ tbsp coconut oil and 1 ounce 35% cream) and 1 ounce of pure creamed coconut. This is once we get up for the day. Around noon when we get hungry we will either have leftovers from the previous dinner or scrambled eggs and bacon. By around 6:30 pm we will enjoy a nice dinner (been using the recipes from the site a lot of late and they are very good. We have also from day one taken up Dr. Fung’s fasting plan 5:2 so we are through eating on Friday nights at 7 pm and do not start back on food until Monday noon. Surprisingly we both look forward to not eating on the weekends as it keeps us from engaging in recreational eating at family gatherings or when most people like to go out for dinner.

The only thing I wish is that I had known about this way of eating maybe about 15 years ago and maybe then I would not have had to have coronary artery bypass surgery and maybe just maybe I would never have contracted this wretched peripheral neuropathy!

One final thing is that I am thoroughly disgusted with is the fact the Canadian Medical profession and the Canadian Diabetes Association do not and will not recognize a LCHF lifestyle as a way to control type 2 Diabetes. So much so with the CDA that I am a volunteer teacher with them and I educate type 2 diabetics on the results and progression of diabetic foot care and the people I work for forbid me to talk about how I put type 2 diabetes behind me through this type of eating. When will they wake up, Doctor Andreas?

I am including a picture from Jan 2016 and one from Nov 2016 I do not as yet have a final picture as we are hoping to both be at our goal weight some time in the next 2 or 3 months.

Thank you for saving my life!
Peter & Sher

Comments

Peter and Sher, you are true inspirations! Thank you for sharing your story.

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