Dr. Topher Fox

Can people with prediabetes eat carbs?

This answer to this question is the source of a lot of confusion, frustration, and misinformation for people who need to control their blood sugar. Let's review what happens to carbs when you eat them and how that influences your "carbohydrate tolerance." Understanding this concept is the key to controlling your blood sugar, improving your health, and preventing diabetes.

Woman 50+? Prediabetes? You want to be healthy, but the world makes it hard to follow through on your good intentions. We can help you. Join Reversing Prediabetes. https://www.ReversingPrediabetes.com

Could you live to be 100 years old?

Let's look at strategies that could help you do just that. Insights from 2 key resources reveal the key actions that have helped others not only live to be 100, but maintain their vigor and vitality along the way.

The New England Centenarian Study:
People who live to be 100 don't live longer after being diagnosed with chronic conditions like heart disease, cancer, or dementia. Rather, they delay or prevent the onset of these conditions. If they are diagnosed with such, it occurs 1-2 decades later in life than the average person. Therefore, we want to live in a way that we can delay or prevent such conditions.

The Blue Zones (www.bluezones.com):
People from 5 cultures where a high percentage of people live to be 100 all tend to have these "Power 9" in common:
1. Move Naturally
2. Purpose
3. Down Shift
4. 80% Rule
5. Plant Slant
6. Wine at 5
7. Belong
8. Loved Ones First
9. Right Tribe

I encourage you to find 1-2 ideas that resonate with you and...

Nutrition for prediabetes shouldn't be hard.

Yet we live in a world and we live with an internet that is full of confusing and often conflicting information. Trying to understand what makes up good nutrition often leaves us confused and frustrated.

Two recent studies by Dr. Kevin Hall are fascinating and provide some great insight into the question "What is the best diet?" and demonstrate why we might focus on one key characteristic of the food we eat. Watch this training to learn about nutrition for prediabetes and that important insight.

The studies:
"Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: An inpatient randomized controlled trial of ad libitum food intake"
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7946062/

"Effect of a plant-based, low-fat diet versus an animal-based, ketogenic diet on ad libitum energy intake"
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-01209-1

Woman 50+? Prediabetes? You want to be healthy, but the world makes it hard to follow through...

Hey Doc, what foods do I need to avoid if I have prediabetes?

What should I eat and what should I NOT eat are two very common questions folks have after a diagnosis of prediabetes.

Available nutrition information on the internet is confusing and conflicting. It labels individual foods as "good" or "bad" and can leave you feeling frustrated, guilty, or bad about yourself.

Let's look at how to improve your nutrition, and specifically what you might want to limit or avoid, as you work to prevent diabetes and ideally reverse prediabetes.

Woman 50+? Prediabetes? You want to be healthy, but the world makes it hard to follow through on your good intentions. We can help you. Join Reversing Prediabetes, your first month is just $1: https://www.ReversingPrediabetes.com

Healthy food that tastes good.

Wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to join a cult to use good nutrition to control your blood sugar, prevent diabetes, and ideally reverse prediabetes altogether?

Wouldn't it be great if you didn't have to commit to overhauling your entire way of eating to be keto or vegan or whatever the fad of the week is?

Wouldn't it be great if you could simply eat healthy food that tastes good?

Well, it turns out a few simple tweaks and adjustments are all most people with prediabetes need to go from stuck to getting results.
In this part 3 for nutrition for prediabetes, let's discuss the 5 steps you can use to build a sustainable healthy nutrition plan that will work for you.

Woman 50+? Prediabetes? You want to be healthy, but the world makes it hard to follow through on your good intentions. We've got a program that will help you. Your first month is just $1: https://www.ReversingPrediabetes.com

Nutrition for prediabetes shouldn't be hard.

The internet is full of conflicting and confusing information about how to use good nutrition to control your blood sugar, but the principles of healthy lifestyle are really straightforward. They're easy to learn.

In this part 1 of a 3 part series, let's learn about the 4 goals that every healthy nutrition plan needs to meet for it to be successful for you.

Woman 50+? Prediabetes? You want to be healthy, but the world makes it hard to follow through on your good intentions. We can help you. Join Reversing Prediabetes, your first month is just $1: https://www.ReversingPrediabetes.com 

What is dietary fatigue?

I've often discussed the difficulty we all have in making healthy choices consistently, and the need to build a personal system that helps you make "the healthy choice" on a regular basis. Without this, most programs rely on willpower, and therefore eventually fail.

On the Sigma Nutrition Podcast, I heard a fascinating discussion with Gregg Slater. He is head of education at Lift the Bar, a company which educates fitness professionals, and a former PE teacher and Physical Training Instructor for the Royal Air Force.

This interview resonated with me as he focused on providing solutions for the decline in adherence, the ability to stick with a program, that invariable occurs over time. For weight loss, he called this dietary fatigue, and introduced the concept that:

• Dietary Performance = Energy Deficit - Dietary Fatigue

That is, the result that you would see with your weight loss program is equal to the calorie deficit you intend to create minus...

My great aunt Barbara is 98 years old. She lives alone, still plays bridge, does her own shopping, and really seems to enjoy her life. She's fairly agile, and one would have a hard time calling her frail. She gets to enjoy 3 generations of descendants in her family. She really enjoys her life.

While none of knows how long we will live, I suspect most of us would agree that we would like to live whatever years we have with a minimal degree of disability, pain, and limitation. We'd like to live our years as healthy as possible.

If that's true for you, you need to know about the Blue Zones.

What are Blue Zones?

I think this research is really cool. Dr. Dan Buettner and his team have identified 5 areas in the world where people seem to live, on average, significantly longer and healthier than the rest of the world, and they have studied what makes these people unique. The story goes that they originally circled these 5 areas on the map in blue marker, hence the name Blue Zones...

Nutrition and Energy

In last week's post, we focused on energy production, and one of the points introduced was this:

• Think about inflammation and healing. Your body works best when its repair system is functioning well, and excess inflammation can impair the healing process. Excess inflammation is associated with many adverse health outcomes including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. Ways you can help:
  • Choose unsaturated fat over saturated fat (there is controversy about saturated fat currently but the scientific literature clearly supports that unsaturated fat has greater health benefit)
  • Choose quality carbohydrates (vegetables, fruits, whole grains)
  • Increase your intake of omega-3 fatty acids

Omega-3 Fatty Acids

I received several inquires about omega-3 fatty acids, so let's take a deeper look.

One way to improve your nutrition, and therefore your health, is to simply start thinking about food quality, and looking for ways to "upgrade" what you eat....

I felt like I'd been unplugged

In 2018 I had surgery to repair a damaged leg artery. I was recovering nicely for the first week, and then something changed. It was like I had been unplugged. For 2 days, I could barely get out of bed. It was hard to keep my eyes open. The trip downstairs to the couch was so taxing I'd nap for hours. I recall wondering if I'd ever get back to normal.

To this day, I don't know what happened. After 2 days, my energy improved and I got back to recovering from the surgery. When I think back, I feel gratitude that my energy was restored and 

But what  if you have fatigue and it's not getting better? What if you're not recovering? I frequently evaluate and treat people for whom fatigue is a daily struggle.

Fatigue

Fatigue is one of the most common complaints that lead people to see a physician. Unfortunately, an explanation for fatigue is not always available, even after thoughtful analysis and testing. If you are experiencing fatigue, I...