Everyone knows the moment – covering your eyes as you test your blood glucose, terrified of the results. But when Ruth uncovered her eyes, she was in shock – perfectly in range! And when you’ve already had one brush with vision loss, seeing positive numbers can feel like your entire life has changed.
Keep reading to learn about Ruth’s incredible story as she overcame vision loss, rebuilt the pieces of her life, and got serious about her health with incredible results.
A Terrifying Diagnosis
Looking back, Ruth realizes how little she truly knew about food and nutrition, especially when it came to controlling her diabetes. In fact, she was consciously choosing foods that she thought were okay – high-fat options, pseudo-healthy snacks, etc. – without knowing that they were a major cause of her health problems.
Ruth had lived with diabetes for 23 years, but retinopathy and vision loss was a huge wake-up call. Her family and friends were immensely supportive, but going blind was terrifying. She couldn’t cook, clean, or perform basic household tasks. She couldn’t walk her daughter to school.
Life had gotten turned upside down, but Ruth refused to let that defeat her. She knew that she had to find a way to turn this around, and after a successful round of eye surgery, laser eye surgery, and an eye operation she had her vision back. But she knew that in order to keep it that way, she had to make some changes.
Taking Health Into Her Hands
So Ruth started searching, and eventually found Mastering Diabetes on YouTube. From there, she learned about insulin resistance, saw testimonials about how this method could change your life and was definitely intrigued.
Still, she was super suspicious of eating high-carb plants like bananas and sweet potatoes, foods she’d considered boogeymen, but enough people were sharing incredible results that Ruth figured she had to try this new method.
She started small, with one meal a day where she added sweet potato and butternut squash. In particular, Ruth remembers covering her eyes when she took her blood glucose after one meal.
“I thought it would be at 25 mmol/L [a reading of about 450 mg/dL for those who use that measurement], but it was at 7 [a non-diabetic blood glucose level]! I had to check it again to make sure there wasn’t some sort of error, but there it was.”
Seeing those results were a game-changer, and Ruth started taking the Mastering Diabetes method seriously, following the guidance from morning until night for 10 months, and taking the process even more seriously in the last 3-4 months, where she began to see the most dramatic changes for the better.
Seeing Clearly Now
Today, Ruth’s vision has completely returned, and she’s turned her goal to improving her clarity and acuity of vision to better than it was prior to her vision loss. She’s legally able to drive again, active every day, and can see family and friends just like before.
Looking back, Ruth is very grateful that she found this when she did. Without this method, she explains that she wouldn’t have had a clue on what to do, and would have just struggled in fear until she went blind and lost her vision.
Knowing that her diet is the key to being able to see her children, and her dear friends, and do everything in life she loves to do is enormously important to Ruth, who call is a true lifesaver.
And The Lab Results To Prove It
Ruth’s story of success is backed up by the results. Her A1c dropped from 10.8 to 6.6 in just 6 months and asked her if she’d gone all in on the low-carb diet. Imagine the doctor’s surprise when Ruth said she’d been eating high-carb foods, but just choosing to ignore processed food.
When everyone else’s A1c had gone up over lockdown, Ruth’s had dropped significantly, and it wasn’t just her doctor that was wowed. Ruth lost 3.5 stone (50 lbs), which hadn’t been her goal but was definitely a convenient side effect. Even today, Ruth’s weight continues trending in a positive direction as she reaches a healthy weight, and her morning blood sugar is well within a normal, nondiabetic range.
Why Didn’t They Tell Us?
As Ruth reflects on her struggles with diabetes, she’s amazed that more people haven’t learned about this method. She used to be around 17 mmol/L (308 mg/dL) every morning despite doing everything “right”, and that was incredibly frustrating, and really shows how much incorrect information is out there.
Insulin timing, for example. Ruth hadn’t ever been taught about insulin timing, despite having diabetes for 24 years. Something so simple, but it made Ruth go back to step 1, challenge everything she thought she was doing right, and reeducate herself.
After all, when you wake up in the morning and don’t want to do anything, and it takes a titanic effort just to roll out of bed to get coffee, something needs to change. And Ruth just didn’t know it could be different.
From Ruth to You
Today, though, Ruth is full of energy and jokes about how she doesn’t stop even when people around her are getting exhausted. It’s a fantastic feeling, and Ruth recommends that anyone feeling hesitant about trying this method give it a try.
“You’ll feel better and better the more you do it. Before, I wasn’t told how to take care of myself, or how to eat to stop different complications. You get scared not knowing what to do. You feel helpless. But now, I don’t feel like that. I feel like I have control, and I have a plan that works.”
Thank you to Ruth for sharing her inspiring story with us! If you’d like to learn more about the Mastering Diabetes method, and maybe be one of our next great success stories, you can schedule a personalized discovery call here.