Borderline Diabetes Diet
Avoid Diabetes Permanently

In researching for this page I was amazed at the vagueness of the diet advice offered.

The reason this amazed me is that I have understood for several years what type of diet is necessary to change a borderline diabetic, to a person with normal blood sugar.

I'm not trying to be proud or arrogant about this, but my husband was diagnosed as "hypoglycemic", which to my understanding, is another term for pre diabetes, or borderline diabetes several years ago.

He is still considered medically obese, but with an effective borderline diabetes diet, and hypoglycemic supplements, he has been able to avoid developing diabetes. So I can speak from experience in this area. I do know what works.

Borderline Diabetes Diet
The Specifics

However, I realize you may not understand that terminology, and if not, that won't be very helpful for you, so, let me explain.

The glycemic index of a food is how quickly, and how high, a particular food raises your blood sugar level after you eat it. For the scientific value, 50 grams of carbohydrates are used to determine the glycemic index. However, for practical purposes just understanding that the higher the GI, the more rapidly the food will raise your blood sugar is enough.

Glycemic load is similar to glycemic index, but it also measures the amount of food eaten, along with the glycemic index to determine how it will affect your blood glucose levels.

In other words, to find the glycemic load, you multiply the glycemic index of the food by the amount of carbohydrates available in 100 grams of the food. This number tells you how quickly and severely the food will affect your blood sugar levels.

So if you choose foods with a low glycemic load, and always eat moderate portions of them, you will be able to balance your blood sugar levels naturally, and avoid diabetes.

You're probably thinking, "Sounds good, but I just don't have the time to do all that figuring."

I do understand. The nice thing about following a glycemic load diet is that it is easy to find tables of most common foods and their glycemic loads. A Google search will give you multiple choices.

It is also important to understand that the glycemic load has a rating scale. Foods under 10 have a low glycemic load. Foods from 10 to 20 have a medium glycemic load and foods above 20 have a high glycemic load.

For a thorough explanation of this diet, read the The Glycemic-Load Diet: A powerful new program for losing weight and reversing insulin resistance by a man named Rob Thompson. You can get it from Amazon by clicking the previous link, or the image to the left. It isn't expensive, but if you can't afford the investment, you could probably get it through your local library as well.

Borderline Diabetes Diet
Practical Example

1. I don't put any sugar at all in anything I make, not even as a spice! Instead I cook with Stevia and Xylitol. My understanding is that Agave nectar is also a low glycemic load sweetener. I haven't used it personally though, so I wouldn't say for sure. If I really need to add something sugar like, I use honey.
   
   
2. I avoid processed foods. If I want to buy some I read the ingredient list checking for High Fructose Corn Syrup, Hydrogenated fats, and MSG or Aspartame. If it has any one of those four ingredients, I don't buy it.

   High Fructose Corn Syrup is worse for your blood sugar levels than sugar.

   Hydrogenated fats are very damaging to the health of your arteries and are implicated in many different chronic health conditions. Since both my husband and I have had cancer, we just don't it it.

   Both MSG (Mono Sodium Glutamate) and Aspartame, also known as NutraSweet, are neural poisons. They also have the nasty side effect of increasing your appetite and making you crave sweets. For some people they have far graver consequences.

   If you don't believe me, check out the book to the right, by a neurologist named Russell Blaylock. I don't have this book in my personal library, but I've read it about twice, by getting it from the library. It is a book that should be required reading, in my opinion.
   

3. I limit starches, in most cases, to one per meal, and try to be sure I serve them with fat to slow down their absorption into the blood stream.

   For example, when I make mashed potatoes, I use liberal amounts of butter, sour cream, and whole milk to lower their glycemic load. If we eat baked potatoes we also eat them with butter and sour cream. If the potato is big, my husband and I will halve it, instead of eating the whole thing.
   

4. My husband loves rolls and breads. I serve them to him, but only 100% whole wheat. If I make homemade rolls, I make them with whole wheat pastry flour, or rye flour instead of regular white flour.

   He likes them, but he doesn't eat as many as when someone serves him white homemade rolls. Then he will frequently eat three or four, which is definitely bad for his hypoglycemia.
   

5. We do eat deserts, cookies, and other sweets, but only those made with Stevia, honey, or Xylitol. Many, you can't tell the difference from the sugar-full variety, but others are slightly different.
   
   
6. When we go out to eat, he eats whatever he wants to. This approach has worked well for us for years now, but we don't go out to eat more than once or twice a week.

   If you only ate at home once or twice a week, this approach would have to be modified so that you ate low glycemic load meals the majority of the time.

Boderline Diabetes Diet
Add Hypoglycemic Supplements

• Chromium Picolinate- This trace mineral helps your body control blood sugar levels naturally and avoid blood sugar spikes. I use 200 mcg. a day, but since my husband is a big man who had blood sugar control problems, I give him 1000 mcg. a day.
  
• Cinnamon- This also helps lower blood sugar. I give him two 500 mg. pills a day in the morning and evening.
  
• N-Acetyl-Cysteine- is an amino acid which acts as an antibiotic in the body. Dennis takes it daily because it helps improve lung function, but the Life Extension Foundation also recommends 400 mg. a day to control hypoglycemia.

There may be other supplements that would help with blood sugar control as well, but these are the ones my husband uses for this purpose. So starting with these should be fairly safe although you will need to adjust amounts depending on your size.

Borderline diabetes Diet
Add Exercise if Possible

In my husband's case this isn't practical since he suffers from severe arthritis. He has already had both knees replaced, and suffers with pain in almost every joint of his body. Water exercise might be good for him, but he hasn't been willing to make the effort to do it, so we've used diet alone to control his blood sugar.

However, if you can exercise, it will certainly help you control both your weight and your blood sugar.

I've exercised regularly for years in order to control my weight, and avoid age related muscle loss.

About a year ago I came across the best exercise plan I've ever seen before. A cardiologist came up with it after studying, and working with his patients, for years. It is called PACE: Rediscover Your Native Fitness By Al Sears, MD. This is another book I don't yet own, but I've read it through the inter-library loan program. I'm hoping to buy it soon, since I'd like to own it as a reference book.

What I love about this program is that it gives you the health benefits of exercise, without having to spend hours sweating to get them. He also recommends a low glycemic load diet, and the book gives a lot of information about how to integrate that into your lifestyle as well.

Borderline Diabetes Diet
Conclusions

Although it may be easier to stick your head in the sand like the ostrich, and pretend diabetes can't happen to you, this approach will almost surely result in the dread diagnosis of diabetes with all its accompanying health challenges within a few years time.

If you are unwilling to make lifestyle changes now to turn your health around, you probably won't make them then either.

Diabetes is a killer. It is a health condition that raises your risk of early death many times, and takes away many of life's joys, from diagnosis on.

The only ones who might consider it a good thing are the medical professionals who will make money, in equipment and supplies, from the day you're diagnosed, until the day you die.

It is far better to learn to appreciate your health now, and change by using a borderline diabetes diet, to provide your body with the nutrition it needs to control your blood sugar, and preserve your health.

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