CleanMED Day 15

Oops - missed a day yesterday!

1/18/24:  To say I am happy and ecstatic is an understatement!  I volunteered for this trial because I *knew* I needed to change my diet and eat better. I have wanted to try the Mediterranean diet but never really knew where to start, what to cook, etc.  This trial was the perfect situation for me: the diet provides the food for these 4 weeks (yay), it's for science so I'm not going to take it seriously and not cheat, AND I get objective evidence through my bloodwork of what is going on in my body.

I went into this with an A1c (average blood sugar for the past 3 months) of 5.7, which is in the pre-diabetes range, and I've had a cholesterol in the 200s for probably 10 years by now. And by 200s, I don't mean 200-210.  I didn't like where I was going, but thought I was powerless to overcome my genes and my sweet tooth.  Previous attempts to quit sugar did not go well.

I already started to see changes after one week, but the changes after 2 weeks on this diet have blown me away and exceeded my hopes!  

My cholesterol is under 200, my A1c is now WELL out of diabetes range, and another lab value that was the most worrisome of all, a marker of inflammation, has come down 66% from it's highest! It's still just over the threshold for high, but it's almost down out of that range. 

My poor body has been suffering because of the delicious tasty crap I've been putting into it! It's terrifying and fascinating that food alone can make that huge of a difference.  I'm not exercising more, I'm not doing anything special. I'm just eating a different diet.  It's not an exaggeration to say that this is a life changing experience.  I plan to continue eating this way after the study ends. I just wish everyone struggling with their health, whether diabetes or cholesterol, could have this opportunity. 

I'm not bouncing off the walls with energy or glowing with rainbows or anything, but I do feel good. The scary thing is I never really felt bad before. Or at least not yet. 

Misconception busted: I've always been afraid to eat oatmeal after seeing how it makes my sugar shoot up.  Even eating all these carbs made me pretty nervous because my blood sugar will go way up afterwards. However it comes down much faster and overall, my average is considerably lower than it was before.  So healthy carbs apparently are not the reason people become diabetic.

The things I have NOT been eating: candy, refined sugar, pop, cake, bread, cookies, basically anything sweet. Nothing processed/ultra-processed and no red meat. 

Foods today:

Breakfast: Egg with green peppers and onions, oatmeal, walnuts, apples

Lunch: Cod, brown rice, broccoli, onions, green pepper stir fry

Dinner: Sweet potato & vegetarian chili, grapes, skim milk, side salad (my daily spinach).

Snack: oranges, almonds (I think)