How pandemic made us enter prediabetic condition
Working in IT sector for last 5+ years and I have come across frequent news on cardiac issues among youngsters with age range of 30–40 years. Covid vaccination is held responsible mostly but we might be missing other factors too which many of us are quite negligent about. We will first discuss what went wrong , understand type II diabetes and then how to cure it — Yes, you heard it right. It is curable. Sit tight as this might hold you for long.
What went wrong?
The covid period of 2 years was a test phase of our health and immunity as it was linked directly to our survival chances in covid illness. Some of us focused on improving our immunity by engaging into daily home exercise, popping vitamin pills and some of us didn’t pay attention due to busy lifestyle. Eventually slim to weight gain transformation was visible among many of our office peers. Lockdown phase took a pause, gyms reopened, new form of Instagram influencers increased in numbers — Dieticians, Nutritionists etc. But “What went wrong with me in covid?” went unanswered. Let’s see those “What”:
No limit on working hours
The work from home enabled us with of work...take..rest…open Youtube..open Instagram..work…take rest option, extending official 9 hours worktime to 12 hours or more. Half of the day went sitting on office chairs.
Fact #1 - Prolonged watch hours in front of TVs make us fat and laptops/desktops count in too.
Fact #2 - Prolonged sitting is the new poison.
In short, prolonged sitting causes our body to become immobile thus reducing our body metabolism. Since there is no morning rush for going/coming to/from office or long walk hours with peers post lunch, your metabolic rate decreases as a result of reduced necessity.
Food was happiness
In lockdown, biggest dopamine kick factor was none other than food. Sources of entertainment stopped like weekend outing with family, hopping into street food plaza or long bike rides etc. came to a halt. Food recipe YouTube channels got spike in subscribers as people found it entertaining to try out the recipes in the lockdown situation.
In the same period, viral recipes like Dalgano Coffee, Pizza in Mug, Cake in Mug etc. came out.
With increased sugar intake and reduced daily mobile activities, the health issues got cherry-on-cake results.
How it all started?
Before correcting the mistakes we made in pandemic days, let’s understand the root cause — Diabetes Type II.
What is Diabetes Type II?
In early days, diabetes was diagnosed by doctors with sweet taste of blood and urine. Diabetic patients' urine/blood used to attract ants and this is how it got the name in Hindi “madhu-meh” (sweet blood).
Why would urine taste sweet?
Carb gets converted to glucose(biological sugar) in body. Glucose(chemical name of sugar) gets converted to glycogen to be utilized by body cells for its energy needs .
Glucose , if not utilized gets converted into fat (starting with liver), fat deposition under skin (reason why you start looking fat),triglycerides ( type of fat found in your blood). When your body gives up with fat depositions it tries to discharge excess sugar via urine ( this is why diabetic patients run for toilet more often) and diabetes is born.
Why did I have diabetes in the first place?
You are insulin sensitive — hyperinsulinemia
A concept of insulin resistance is revolving around globe after Jason Fung’s “The Diabetes Code” which states it as a biological condition where muscle cells become resistant towards incoming glucose for consumption. Insulin is secreted from pancreas gland whenever body detects presence of sugar in food intake. Insulin’s job is to push glucose into body cells to be utilized for energy needs. Insulin hormone is the catalyst to pushing glucose inside muscle cells hence the name — insulin resistance.
Some people easily gain weight as they are more sensitive to insulin than others and this condition is called hyperinsulinemia. Such people should be careful about their carbohydrate intake.
Daily life stress
Many a times a diabetes specialist would ask about your mental stress condition as it plays an important role in developing and worsening diabetes. Studies suggest that a little stress is good for body but…Overstress enables a mechanism in our body which is a part of our body evolution process.
When you overstress your mind, it makes you subconciously think that you are in a danger and there could be a possibility of food scarcity(a gift of evolution dating back from cavemen days). Your body starts storing glucose from food in form of fat to be utilized as stock of energy when needed. Today’s lifestyle resembles this state almost everyday.
Prolonged sitting hours
When you sit continuously in a 9–5 job, you emulate a condition similar as above. You are hardly mobile and make you body believe that you don’t need to burn energy would like to be in energy saving mode.
Your body accordingly reacts by slowing down your metabolism and adjusting your blood circulation(slowing it down too). In simple terms, your body is good in adapting to environment you put yourself into.
IT jobs emulate similar condition and with higher paychecks comes prolonged working hours. With it comes work deadline stress followed by rewarding yourself with delicacies and confectionaries on work completion.
Right from getting up in morning, sitting in car to office, sitting on chair for work, stuck in traffic for hours and back to home with much needed sleep, you are nowhere utilizing your immensely loaded inputs from your daily food intake.
Is diabetes curable?
Pretty much yes.
Jason Fung’s “The Diabetes Code” claims it straight forward that diabetes is curable. A study on diabetic patient was made who got his all fat removed via surgical process. As a result there were no signs of high sugar level for many days until he put on weight again. But surgery is not a long term solution as it is expensive and your memory cells can’t remember the sudden change in body.
How is it curable?
The medicines suggested by doctors are not meant to cure diabetes. The job of diabetic medication is to reduce sugar level but not the cause of rising sugar level. Diabetes II is a dietic issue and it can only be cured by taking care of body in the most natural way. The cure lies in these three methods:
Carb deficient diet
Asians rely a lot on rice and wheat based diet. Cutting carbs starts from your staple diet. You can try out these two methods and see which one works for you:
Half-plate meal and half-plate salad method
Take you regular meal plate, reduce your regular meal to half and put other half with salads like cucumber, beetroot, tomato, radish etc. Consume all salad first, this would make your stomach feel half filled already and then consume your regular meal. For best results follow it in your 3 time meal lifestyle.
This way you ingest daily needed vitamins, mineral and fiber ( most of which gets destroyed while cooking) and control your carb intake too.
Eating two times a day || Intermediate fasting
You might have come across the term the “Intermediate Fasting”, a method of dieting which spread like wildfire after Jason Fung’s book on diabetes. In indigenous terms this can be translated to “Eating two times a day” .
Eating 3 times a day was never a habit in our evolutionary period. It came recently as a result of abundant food resources and now a days with doorstep service options like Zomato or Swiggy. In colonial period, bureaucrats often showed eating 3 or more times a day a sign of wealth. This explains why eating 3 times a day was never a part of our evolutionary process.
How eating 2 times a day helps?
Eating 2 times a day makes a good recovery in insulin resistance as suggested in the diagram below.
Continuous elevated insulin level is the root cause of diabetes. You should give you pancreas some rest and reduce insulin secretion if you want to avoid insulin resistance development in your body cells.
Water Fasting
This is the most natural yet most difficult way to cure your body from obesity or diabetes. Why is it so effective? Because it is most natural thing about our body is part of our evolutionary process.
Our ancestors were never had myriad food choices. Food scarcity was always to be dealt with. Infact, looking for food or hunting was a matter of life or death. Given this fact, they mostly relied on the fat stored from the last food intake. They went places in search of food and until then they had to survive via fasting. Our body has evolved from the above stated evolution process.
This method might be difficult gives you the best results . More details on this method is a topic for another article which I will cover and convince you at the same time on why this should be made as your lifestyle.
Bibliography
If you want to get deeper analysis into above statement you need to follow these to experts — Jason Fung and Dr. Pradip Jamnadas.
If you follow the lecture videos and novels written by them not only you would become conscious about health but your thought about a healthy lifestyle would take a big leap. Please find link to their Youtube channels and novels below:
