Pre-Diabetes

[Robinsonisracin]

My name is Matt and I live, work, exercise, and screw around in Northern California. I have been working out pretty regularly at the greatest gym in the world for the last 18 months (crossfit, free weights, Olympic lifting, conditioning, and cycling) and lost an inch or two off my waste, but my weight stayed within 5 or so pounds of normal, which was ~220 lbs (I am 6'3" so not too heavy). Anyway, I went in for a physical and my blood work came back saying that my glucose levels were high and I had what is referred to as "pre-diabetes." I also had 21% body fat. Naturally, this scared the piss out of me and I immediately knew that it had to be diet. Even though I worked out daily, I couldn't shake my penchant for goldfish crackers, frozen yogurt (non-fat my ass), lunch meat, and Skinny Cows. Once I got my test results, I cut out most of that stuff and switched to a mostly vegetarian diet (with the exception of fish) which meant a lot of brown rice, pasta, wheat bread, etc. I immediately lost 15 lbs in three weeks, but noticed that I was also getting weaker due to the lack of protein and fat in my diet.

A friend of mine linked to an article on Nerd Fitness and I stumbled across Mark Sisson's Blog and here I am. I started easing my way into an eating plan loosely based on the Paleo diet late last week. I say easing because I drank a bunch of beer over the weekend (brewing beer is a hobby). So far, I feel much better and I am not down to 200.6 lbs. My goals for the immediate future are as follows:

1) Get my glucose level down.

2) Maintain a weight of 190-200 lbs while losing fat and gaining muscle.

3) Increase strength (Snatch 80 kg, C&J 105 kg, and Deadlift 185 kg).

4) Ride my bike 50 miles.

5) Compete in some sort of fitness challenge.

I look forward to the encouragement, debate, and advice.

Thanks,

Matt

['Roos]

Good luck with your goals! In my experience with wacky glucose levels (mine is more congenitally induced, but same difference) high protein is the way to go. Even though I'm still in the 'overweight' category, diet has done wonders to getting my blood sugar cooperating and I'm now in the 'normal' category for everything. Let us know how we can help!

[spatzcat]

have you heard of cinnamon therapy to stabilize blood sugar levels? it's actually quite amazing.

edit: see 'blood sugar control' section

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=68