How to EAT LESS and FEEL FULL

9Vegetables every day 9High protein/low carb No snacks

ARE you or someone you love living with type 2 diabetes? The disease has reached pandemic levels.

All this week in the Irish Daily Mail, in exclusive extracts from my book, Life Without Diabetes, I outline a simple three-stage plan to eradicate it.

Stage one ensures rapid weight loss with eight to 12 weeks of low-calorie meal replacement shakes and soups and a small (approximately 100calorie) daily vegetable or salad plate. Stage two is the gradual transition to real meals, and stage three is a longterm plan to keep diabetes away.

We found stage one was the most effective way to trigger the essential weight loss needed to shift fat from the liver and pancreas to put diabetes into remission. But after you’ve spent

TURN TO NEXT PAGE

FROM PREVIOUS PAGE two or three months without having to think about what to eat, returning to real food can seem overwhelming.

The research volunteers on our many studies told us of the difficulty of returning to normal meals. Some described feelings of panic about going back into the kitchen. They were confused about what and how much to eat, and whether they could drink alcohol again.

It was clear to us that if you’re going to keep your diabetes in remission, then you’re going to have to take the next stage very carefully indeed.

Stage two of our plan is not a half-way house on the road back to former eating patterns. It is, we have found in our studies, a crucial time to train your body and brain to accept smaller portions and healthier options. This isn’t a problem, we decided — it’s a great opportunity.

KEEP BAD HABITS AWAY

YOU can think of your weeks of eating meal replacements as a chance to draw a line under your old ways of eating (and the unhealthy habits which might have contributed to your weight gain).

When you reach your target weight, lose the vital 15kg, or your GP or practice nurse confirms that your type 2 diabetes is in remission, it’s your chance to rewrite your future. The first stage is simple. Just increase the size of your daily vegetable ‘meal’ and add a little protein in the form of meat, fish, eggs or pulses.

You’ll still be starting the day with a breakfast shake, and making yourself another shake or instant soup for lunch. But instead of a third shake or soup plus your vegetable or salad intake, drop that third shake, boost the vegetable dish and call it dinner. We suggest you spend at least two weeks doing this.

If you haven’t made a start on the 1, 2, 3 plan yet, you should nibble on different raw vegetables every day, as the more your tastebuds are exposed to new flavours, the more you will come to like them. Find a broad enough range that you enjoy to carry you through the lowcalorie period of this plan and beyond, including those within the recipes here.

In stage two, your evening meal should be high in protein but relatively low in carbohydrates, packed with vegetables, and contain around 400-500 calories.

The options here are perfect examples of delicious, nutritious, calorie-controlled meals which follow these criteria while ensuring your blood sugar levels remain stable and you don’t feel hungry.

Protein is the most filling part of the diet, and the higher protein levels in these dinners are linked with more successful weight maintenance after a liquid low-calorie diet.

You might notice your portion is smaller than the typical dinners you ate before, but remember, you’ve lost quite a bit of weight and you just don’t need as many calories any more. As a rule of thumb, eating roughly three quarters of your previous food intake is key to keeping the diabetes away in the long term.

Right now, because your main mission is to keep your weight from creeping up, and hold your diabetes in remission, it is best to avoid sweet or starchy foods and avoid alcohol.

NEXT STEPS

AFTER around two weeks of eating two shakes and one healthy evening meal, if your weight remains stable, you should be ready to switch your lunchtime soup/ shake for a real lunch meal.

Again, keep a close eye on portion control. Lunch should be around 400 calories.

Roughly four weeks after you reached your target weight, you should be ready to return to a fairly normal pattern of eating, with a non-liquid breakfast (if you want it), lunch and dinner.

This is the point where you can think about enjoying the occasional alcoholic drink once or twice a week, without the fear of tipping back into dangerous diabetes territory.

In our studies, we have been able to show that by carefully controlling this reintroduction of food — one meal at a time — you can make the transition to normal eating far less troublesome and more sustainable in the long term.