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MDAE Podcast E34: How to Reverse Insulin Resistance in 30 Days

Article written and reviewed by Cyrus Khambatta, PhD and Robby Barbaro, MPH
Published September 4, 2018
How to Reverse Insulin Resistance

Podcast Transcript

Joaquin Basauri: I had my first appointment three months later. And when I walked in, I had lost close to 35 pounds. And my blood pressure was down, my sinuses were clear. And my doctor was shocked by the transformation in a short period of time. And I would eat a meal of you know, potatoes, and I make beans and rice and I take those to work every day. In the morning, I take raw oats and I put fruit on top of them, and that's what I eat for breakfast, right. So I would eat that until I was full. And I would test my blood and it was like 115, 120, and I was like, wow, right. After a month of eating this way, and the difference in your health, and the way you're going to feel, you're going to thank yourself, and you're going to see that it was well worth it.

Cyrus Khambatta, PhD: Welcome to the Mastering Diabetes Audio Experience, where we teach you how to sit in the driver's seat of your diabetes health for the rest of your life. We’ll teach you how to reverse insulin resistance, achieve your ideal body weight, gain energy and get your best A1c following more than 85 years of evidence-based research in the Mastering Diabetes Program.

Robby Barbaro: Our program teaches you how to reverse prediabetes and type 2 diabetes, and how to simplify your life with type 1 diabetes by maximizing your insulin sensitivity, using food as medicine.

Cyrus Khambatta, PhD: We're on a bold mission to reverse insulin resistance in 1 million people. We're glad to have you joining us.

Robby Barbaro: Welcome back to the Mastering Diabetes Audio Experience. Today we are going to share a really powerful testimonial. So this is the story of Joaquin. We first met him when he attended our retreat. And I vividly remember meeting him right as he arrived, walking him to his room, and talking, getting to know him, and just telling myself, “This guy's absolutely going to be a success story, no question about it.”

And sure enough here we are, many, many months later, and he has totally turned around his diabetes health. So you're going to hear all about it in today's Podcast. I will just highlight that from May 2017 to September 2017, his A1c went from 7.1% to 5.7%, and he has lost over 45 pounds now. And he's going to highlight in his interview that he doesn't have to limit his carbohydrate intake at all, and that is such an important point.

No matter how many Podcasts we make, no matter how many Instagram Stories of my diet that I share, or articles we write, people are still concerned about eating too many carbohydrates. Even from healthy foods, people are concerned about eating too much fruit or too many beans. And we just can't emphasize enough, when you focus on green light foods, minimize your total fat intake, you truly, truly do not need to limit whole carbohydrates. That is in the vast, vast majority of cases, and it works.

So I'm really excited to be sharing this testimonial. I hope you guys get really inspired. And if you know anybody else who can benefit, please, please share this episode. We want this Podcast to grow. We want more, and more people to hear about this option. And know that low-fat, plant-based, whole-food nutrition is the path to reversing insulin resistance. So we're trying to raise awareness for that. And that's it. So I hope you guys enjoy the episode. Let's get into it.

Joaquin Basauri: I wasn't feeling well for some time, and I would not go to the doctor. I had severe headaches, I had a congestion, my toes started to tingle. I got a doctor who'd never seen me before, I didn't have a relationship with her. So, she instead of talking to me, she got into to the medical record, and she noticed that, this was in June of 2017, the previous December, my A1c was 6.8 I think. And then she says, “I need you to go have your blood drawn right now.” And I tried to say, “Hey, you know, I didn't fast”, she says “I don't care, go to it now”. And a day later, I got an email saying it was 7.1, and I was officially diagnosed as a type 2 diabetic.

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And I was sent to have my eyes examined, have my feet examine, you know, and you feel like, you're shocked and you say, you know, I really did at this time, and I need to get treatment. So, at that point, I attended the classes they send me to, which were sponsored by my health plan.

And the initial class, they were talking about diabetes and what to expect, and what to look for. And by then, I had already done some research online, and I came to know the term insulin resistance. And when, during this class, I asked the nurse, because the guy was a RN, I asked him, I said, “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, you know, throw you off track, but my understanding is that type two diabetes is insulin resistance”, and the guy goes, “that's a conversation for another day”. Which blew my mind, right, because how can you talk about what to expect, what I should do, if you don't tell me what my disease is.

And at that time, I started doing research online, that's when I found Cyrus’ recorded YouTube video at a Medical Center in Southern California. And upon hearing him and saying, you can eat fruit, I said, you know, I need to talk to this guy.

So, I went to the retreat and it was such an incredible experience for me, because there was a very nourishing, supportive environment. I made friends that I'm still friends with to this day. And the education that I received during those four days immediately changed the way I live my life entirely. I adopted the diet, the style, you know, I eat primarily Whole Foods. I exercise five to six days a week. You meet everyone, and you are given an outline to know what's going to take place over the next few days. And the next morning, I walked in, and there were buckets of bananas, mangoes, you know, kiwis, and I'm like, “Are you serious?” I go, “I'm gonna love this”, right.

And so you eat healthy, really tasty foods. I didn't taste anything, the entire time, that left me wanting more. Quite the contrary, in the morning I would say “I can't wait to finish this bowl of mangoes, so I can get some more”, and then you finish up going, wait a minute, I'm full, right. You realize that all the fiber, and the water, and the nutrients make it hard to overeat when you're eating fruit. You just stop when you're done.

I was shocked at the level of detail. I've never heard such a, you know, biology, chemistry, cell function. And we started 7am and ended at 10pm every day, right. And in-between there were exercises that, we would exercise until you couldn't get off the ground anymore. And what impacted me the most is that, you know, Robby and Cyrus would say, “listen, look around, where are the weights, where's the gym, you don't need any of that stuff”. I'm exercising six days, five to six days a week for an hour at least, and I don't own dumbbells, I don't own anything, I use my body. The only exercise equipment I purchased was a band that I hang from the door, so that I can do, you know, lifts, push-ups, and sit-ups and stuff. That's it. That's all you need.

People try to overcomplicate how one has to eat to nourish the body, right? It's very simple. You have your staple. You have rice, beans. And the thing that blows your mind is that nobody tells you how to count, you don't have to count calories, you don’t have to do anything. You just have to eat healthy food until you feel satisfied. And when I talked to folks that are trying the lifestyle for the first time, they over complicate what to look for, what to eat. The key here is to just eat simply, add spices if it’s necessary. The book that you walk away with from the Summit tells you everything you need to know.

I had my first appointment three months later. And when I walked in, I had lost close to 35 pounds, and my blood pressure was down. My sinuses were clear. And my doctor was shocked by the transformation, in a short period of time, she actually, eventually, signed up for the Summit that Mastering Diabetes puts up, to find out how different foods were affecting me. How I would actually test throughout the day, and I would eat a meal of, you know, potatoes, and I make beans and rice and I take those to work every day. And the morning I take raw oats, and I put fruit on top of them, and that's what I eat for breakfast, right.

So I would eat that until I was full, and I would test my blood and it was like 115, 120, and I was like “wow”, right. In the mornings I was averaging between 85 and 91. I don't even test my blood anymore, when I run out of my first supply of test strips, I never refilled my prescription because I was wasting my time. My blood sugar is normal in the mornings, throughout the day. The numbness on my feet went away, everything. I just feel fantastic. And I’m not that sick anymore. Like I said, I'll test my A1c one more time when I'm asked to do so by my doctor, but I'm not even concerned about what the results are going to be.

And that's in six months. I've lost close to 40 pounds. And I don't even weigh myself anymore, because it's irrelevant. I feel great. My favorite meal it's rice and beans, I love it. It may be because I grew up eating pizza. But, I get home with a baked potato, rice. It's funny, because all of a sudden, I feel like I'm a little hungry at night and instead of going to grab in trash, I throw a baked potato in the oven, right? Put a little a little pepper on it, a little bit of salt, and I'm good to go, right. And it's satisfying, it’s fulfilling, and I know that is nourishing me and not harming me.

Do this for yourselves, the cost becomes negligible when you see the benefits afterwards. You're not going to spend money on co-payments. You are not going to spend money on going to expensive restaurants that are going to harm you. It's a, I would call it a no brainer, you have to do this for yourself. After a month of eating this way, and the difference in your health and the way you're going to feel, you're going to thank yourself and you're going to see that it was well worth it.

Robby Barbaro: We really hope you enjoyed that episode, you've learned a lot and you're going to now take this information and put it into action. If you are living with diabetes, or you want to make sure you don't develop diabetes, you may want to consider joining our coaching program.

So we have an incredibly robust coaching program at an incredibly affordable price. At the time of this recording, we have a waitlist, so if you want to get into our coaching program, you have to go to www.masteringdiabetes.org, click Coaching in the top navigation bar and get your name on the waitlist.

We offer a lot in this coaching program, the price ends up being less than $0.70 cents a day. And we offer an online course that gives you everything you need to know about how to transition to a low fat, plant-based, whole-food lifestyle one step at a time. And it's only the pertinent information, only exactly what you need. The whole point is to not make it overwhelming. So that's the way we've designed this online course in a step by step manner.

Start with goal setting, you learn some of the science, you start changing breakfast, when you're ready, you start changing lunch, and when you're ready, you start changing dinner, and there's lessons about intermittent fasting all along the way, all the nuances about your blood glucose and what to expect and medications, and all that is covered in the online course.

The second tool we offer in our coaching program is a private community where our coaches answer questions within 24 hours. So every time you make an original post, sharing something or asking a question, one of our amazing coaches is going to reply within 24 hours. This community is on Facebook and outside of Facebook, for those who don't want to use Facebook.

So it's an incredible, incredible resource to get your questions answered every step of the way. We have two people in that group that have completely reversed type two diabetes as our coaches. That's Adam Sud, and Marc Ramirez. And we also have Kylie Buckner, RN, who's a registered nurse as one of our lead coaches in the coaching program. And you also have Cyrus and me chiming in when necessary. So we have you covered on all fronts, no matter what type of diabetes you're living with, we're there for you every step of the way.

People are also sharing lots of food pictures and recipes in the community. We're sharing meal planning tips, our team, we're sharing new recipes, we do challenges together. So the community is a really robust aspect of this program. And really, really important for people to have long term success on our program.

The third tool in our coaching program is twice monthly live Q&A calls. And these are fantastic with the first and third Sunday of every month, we use Zoom Video Conference so you can see us and we can see you if you choose to turn on your camera. Or you could just call in with your phone and we answer questions until everybody's questions are answered. And it's really fun. It's great to have that back and forth communication, and we can cover a lot in a short period of time.

The online community is obviously very helpful, you should get any urgent questions answered right away through the community. But it's also nice to have that dialogue and go back and forth on a video conference call. So that's the other tool we offer. And that's the Coaching Program.

So we have amazing results. I'm sure you've heard them on our podcast, seen our testimonials on YouTube and on our website, we want you to experience the same success, okay, our incentives are so aligned it's not even funny. We want you to have the best health ever so we can show the diabetes community how successfully a low fat, plant-based, whole-food diet reverses insulin resistance. It's a win-finity situation, we want you to succeed so, so much. We all benefit and we work very hard as a team to make sure that you get the results you're looking for. That's our point with the coaching program. So again, make sure to get on our waitlist, go to www.masteringdiabetes.org, click coaching and I can't wait to work with you soon.

Have a great day!

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About the author 

Cyrus Khambatta, PhD and Robby Barbaro, MPH

Cyrus Khambatta, PhD, and Robby Barbaro, MPH are the coauthors of the New York Times bestselling book Mastering Diabetes: The Revolutionary Method to Reverse Insulin Resistance Permanently in Type 1, Type 1.5, Type 2, Prediabetes, and Gestational Diabetes. They are the cofounders of Mastering Diabetes, a coaching platform that teaches people how to reverse insulin resistance via low-fat, plant-based, whole-food nutrition. Cyrus has been living with type 1 diabetes since 2002, and has an undergraduate degree from Stanford University and a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry from UC Berkeley. Robby was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 2000, and has been living a plant-based lifestyle since 2006. He worked at Forks Over Knives for 6 years, and earned a Master’s in Public Health in 2019.