- Has your doctor told you you have pre-diabetes, but no one can tell you how to get your blood glucose down?
- Do you have diabetes and want to reduce your dependence on the ever-increasing list of medications and pills?
- Are you concerned about your well-being after seeing your older relatives and friends suffer from a decreased quality of life and complications related to poor metabolic health (e.g., Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart disease, and dementia)?
- Are you concerned that you’re part of the 88% of the population who is not metabolically healthy, and do you want to manage your risk proactively so you can live your life to the fullest and avoid the innumerable complications of poor metabolic health?
We Understand
My quest to optimise nutrition began after Moni and I got married, and we started thinking about having kids. We knew we needed to get her Type-1 Diabetes under control somehow to avoid the extensive list of complications accompanying diabetic pregnancies.
But despite decades of visits to endocrinologists, nutritionists, and diabetes educators, none of the numerous experts could give her clear answers about what to eat or how to optimise her blood glucose levels. Even in the hospital, when she was pregnant, they would tell us that she needed to get her HbA1c lower but couldn’t tell us how.
Instead, they all reverberated the advice of, ‘Just eat like everyone eats and dose insulin for it.’ This left her on a blood glucose-insulin rollercoaster that would leave her with poor energy levels and depression, rocky blood sugar that pushed her to eat out of self-inflicted lows, and an inability to lose weight.
While this early experience was scary, it was also motivating. Little did I know that it would be the catalyst for me to find a better way to help my family and everyone living with diabetes.
Disturbingly, not much has changed in the nearly four decades since Monica developed Type-1 Diabetes. When our son was diagnosed with T1D in 2022, we received the same standard ‘advice’ that we knew would set him up for failure: make sure you eat lots of carbohydrates and try to cover it with industrial-sized doses of insulin!
Luckily, we’d had some experience and knew how to empower him to thrive and achieve normal glucose levels. A year after diagnosis, he set an under-eighteen deadlift world record. Diabetes is certainly not holding him back!
The Type-1 Diabetes Solution
Thankfully, our quest for a better way was fruitful, thanks to some smart men and the Type-1 Grit community.
Dr Richard Bernstein, an engineer-turned-nutrition-centric medical doctor with Type-1 Diabetes, showed us the power of reducing processed carbs to stabilise blood glucose levels and get off the blood glucose roller coaster. At the ripe age of 89, he’s still helping patients today!
As Dr Bernstein teaches, smaller inputs of carbohydrates lead to smaller insulin fluctuations, resulting in smaller insulin doses and, thus, smaller errors, which are easier to correct. This makes it easier for people dependent on insulin to achieve excellent blood glucose control.
Adopting a protein-focused, lower-carb diet impacted both of us. As you can see from the photos below, we both lost weight.
With the change in food and the weight loss, Moni’s insulin requirements halved, and she has maintained an HbA1c in the low 5s for the past ten years.
I often wonder what her life might have been like if her parents had known what we know now when she was diagnosed at ten. I only hope that sharing what we’ve learned might help all the little Monis and everyone else suffering from the fallout of poorly controlled diabetes!
The Type-2 Diabetes Solution
Reducing refined carbohydrates and not fearing dietary fat helps people with Type-1 Diabetes achieve normal blood glucose levels.
But more recently, experts like Professor Roy Taylor and Dr Ted Naiman have highlighted the root cause of insulin resistance and Type 2 Diabetes: energy toxicity. Insulin resistance and Type-2 Diabetes are not just about carbohydrates. Instead, the problem comes from excess energy from carbohydrates AND fat.
Our data analysis highlights that it’s not fat OR carbs that are the problem, but foods and meals that combine both. This combination of fat and carbs is the formula for modern junk food, a hyper-palatable combination that overstimulates your reward system making them easy to overeat!
This diabolical combo fills our glucose and fat stores simultaneously and eventually breaks our metabolism.
For people with insulin resistance or Type-2 Diabetes, reducing carbs to stabilise blood glucose is only the first step. This allows them to get off the blood glucose rollercoaster to stabilise their sugars and thus reduce their insulin doses and compensatory cravings. However, it’s merely symptom management unless they address the root cause—excess energy intake that’s pushed someone over their Personal Fat Threshold.
To address the root cause of insulin resistance, we must find a sustainable way of eating that empowers us to manage our appetite, eat less, and therefore lose weight. Unfortunately, simply trying to eat less of the same foods tends to fail the majority.
While we are told to eat everything ‘in moderation’, this advice is destined to fail when modern processed foods are engineered to drive overeating.
Our research with data from thousands of Optimisers who have participated in our Macros Masterclass and Micros Masterclass over the past five years has shown satiety is critical. To manage hunger with less energy, you can prioritise foods and meals with a greater nutrient density or those that contain more amino acids from protein, essential fatty acids, minerals, and vitamins your body needs per calorie.
We’ve worked to systemise this process to make it as simple (and fun!) as possible to get the results you want.
It’s thrilling to see so many people benefiting from the struggles, mistakes, challenges, and triumphs they experience throughout the process of our programs and getting remarkable short and long-term results along the way.
Food Lists
If you’re looking for the simplest place to start on your Nutritional Optimisation journey towards healthy blood glucose levels, reverse insulin resistance, and optimised metabolic health is with a simple food list.
- Our Low-Carb & Blood Glucose Control food list will help you stabilise your glucose into the normal healthy ranges and quickly get you off the rollercoaster. This is ideal for people managing T1D and T2D or those looking to stabilise their glucose without losing weight.
- Once your glucose is under control, you can transition to our Blood Sugar & Fat Loss food list. Focusing on these foods enables you to dial back dietary fat and dial-up satiety to address the root cause of insulin resistance and Type-2 diabetes: energy toxicity.
Recipes
But we don’t just eat individual foods. We combine them into meals.
To help people get results fast, we created a series of NutriBooster recipes tailored to different goals designed to optimise your nutrients.
You can download samples of our Low Carb & Blood Sugar NutriBooster Recipe Book or our Blood Sugar & Fat Loss recipe book to get the ball rolling.
Articles
If you like to read, we have a range of articles that detail our unique approach to reversing insulin resistance and diabetes management that we’ve included below:
- What Is Insulin Resistance (and How to Reverse It)?
- Insulin is NOT Making You Fat (and Here’s Why)
- The Personal Fat Threshold Model of Insulin Resistance, Diabetes & Obesity
- Blood Glucose Spikes: When to be Worried and How to Prevent Them
- Reactive Hypoglycaemia: Symptoms, Causes & Dietary Solutions
- Turning the Tide on Type 2 Diabetes: Real Stories of Reversal
- Carbs OR Fat vs Carbs AND Fat
- Oxidative Priority: The Key to Unlocking Your Body Fat Stores
- How to Optimise Type-1 Diabetes Management (Without Losing Your Mind)
Courses
When you’re ready to take the next step, we have some courses that may interest you.
Data-Driven Fasting
In our most popular program, our Data-Driven Fasting Challenge, we walk users through how to use their blood glucose to guide when and what to eat. You can familiarise yourself and get our DDF app with our free DDF 101 course here.
Learn more about our Data-Driven Fasting Challenge here
Macros Masterclass
In our Macros Masterclass, we will guide you to dial in your balance of protein, carbs, and fat to stabilise your blood glucose and address the root cause—energy toxicity—at a sustainable rate.
Learn more about our Macros Masterclass here
Got Questions?
If you’ve got any further questions or want to learn more, we’d love you to jump into our Optimising Nutrition Community. We have thousands of Optimisers who have taken this journey before you and are eager to help new optimisers find their feet!