If you are struggling with high blood sugar, and quite possibly pre-diabetes, this ones for you. I want to tell you about a client I had about a year ago, Annie. She had just been to the doctor who told her she was newly pre-diabetic. She called me frantically needing to get those numbers down. “ Julia, I cannot develop diabetes, and I have 3 weeks to bring my blood sugar down.” Well, you know I was right there to help her, and fast!! Sure enough, 3 weeks later…no longer pre-diabetic and down 8 pounds!

The key to avoiding weight gain, high cholesterol, heart disease, diabetes etc is to eat foods that do not spike your blood sugar and insulin. Think protein, veggies, and good healthy fats. When we eat carbohydrates, especially processed ones, they drastically will spike blood sugar and insulin, which is what we want to avoid regardless of our goals. Annie’s success plan included:

-Eating mostly proteins, veggies and fats at each and every meal. This is the best way to ensure you’re avoiding any big spikes in blood sugar and insulin.

-Stick to low starch veggies like leafy greens, peppers, tomatoes, celery, asparagus, cucumbers, etc, and avoid the higher starch ones including beets, squash, all potatoes, pea, corn, etc.

-Getting daily movement in. Whether it be the gym, a workout class, taking stairs, or just walking for 20 minutes, it was a priority every single day.

-Avoid fruits, sugar in all forms (only a small amount of stevia), beans & legumes, grains, bread, pasta, and alcohol all together for the full 3 weeks. You may be thinking “jeez Julia, that is super strict!” Well, it is. But when it comes to developing diabetes or not, it’s a must!

You may also ask why fruit? Although I am pro fruit, it still will spike blood sugar more than proteins, fats and veggies, so because this was a pretty desperate situation, we went cold turkey. However, for my clients who are just trying to lose and keep off fat, this is not necessarily the way to go. (That’s a whole different topic) If you follow the above steps, you too can successfully prevent diabetes and bring down high blood sugar.

Here’s the key: you MUST, and let me say that again, you MUST follow through with a re-intoduction phase. It is not realistic to eat that strictly forever because we know eventually it will set us up for failure and over-indulging. Guiding Annie on how to re-introduce the foods back into her diet allowed her to maintain the 8 pound weight loss and most importantly, she is now a human with no diabetes!

I also want to mention that doing something like this for 3 weeks is a great way to get off sugar, reduce cravings and jump start weight loss, but it should be TEMPORARY as too strict of eating sets us up for failure. That being said, I am so excited for my online virtual program to launch later this year!! It will outline the exact steps on how to get off sugar, reduce cravings, increase energy, lose weight and keep it off! Stay tuned my friends!