Fat man with a big belly, with words stop diabetes

ONE OF THE VERY FIRST THINGS TYPE 2 DIABETICS NEED TO ACCEPT IS that exercise is a must to help speed up the process of reversing this disease. In one of my YOUTUBE videos titled “3 + 2 Is Not the Magic Formula For Weight Loss”, I explain why 80% of American type 2 diabetics are either overweight or obese. The energy from the foods you eat gets converted into a compound called glucose. Glucose goes into your bloodstream, which triggers a hormone called insulin to get it out of your bloodstream and into your body tissues. Glucose can’t stay in your bloodstream or you’ll cause a condition called hyperglycemia, which could cause you to slip into a coma and possibly die. The glucose has to get out of your bloodstream and into one of three places:

GLUCOSE GETS PUT IN 3 DIFFERENT TISSUES

1. The 75 trillion cells that make up your body for immediate energy,
2. Glycogen tanks, which hold “stored carbohydrate” in both your liver and your muscle tissue that are readily available for energy, and
3. Fat cells that store an unlimited amount of energy for use sometime in the future. Most type 2 diabetics don’t use much fat for energy. But we’re going to change that today.

All diabetic experts agree that type 2 diabetes is an INSULIN RESISTANCE problem, meaning that insulin is not working properly to get the glucose specifically into your muscle cells for energy. Your body retaliates to insulin resistance by producing more insulin, which increases insulin levels even higher making your body more insulin resistant. And insulin makes us hungry! According to Dr. Jason Fung (a nephrologist), most diabetics’ glycogen tanks are full all of the time. This means every time these type 2 diabetics eat, the glucose from the foods eaten can’t get into their glycogen tanks because they’re already full. So the only place left for the glucose to go is in their fat cells, making them fatter and fatter.

AND THE PROBLEM WITH GETTING FATTER AND FATTER IS not only aesthetically but fat cells produce inflammatory chemicals like interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor–alpha (TNFa). But it gets worse because TNFa stimulates the production of fat cells, creating a vicious cycle of fat and TNFa feeding off from one another – creating more fat. Fat produces TNFa and TNFa produces more fat, which produces more TNFa allowing your body to get fatter. The more fat your body carries, the more low-grade chronic inflammation your body is producing, which leads to chronic disease like type 2 diabetes. So type 2 diabetes is also an inflammatory disease.

THIS IS WHY EXERCISE IS A MUST FOR TYPE 2 DIABETICS. When you exercise, you’ll help enable your muscles to soak up glucose for immediate energy instead of being stored as more body fat, which will create more inflammation exacerbating type 2 diabetes. Reducing body fat is a primary goal for reversing this disease and its inevitable complications (blindness, kidney failure, amputations, etc.) that worsen with time.

THE BEST TIME TO EXERCISE AND BURN THE MOST AMOUNT OF FAT in the shortest amount of time is to exercise first thing every morning in a fasted-state (on an empty stomach).

WHEN YOU WAKE UP, your body has already burned through all of the energy in your 75 TRILLION CELLS. This made your body go to your GLYCOGEN TANKS for more energy. And as your glycogen tanks depleted, your body had to go to its reserve energy in your FAT CELLS. Your body should be converting fat into energy to help keep you alive at this point. This is prime time to exercise to lose body fat and start reversing type 2 diabetes.

5 TIPS TO MAXIMIZE FAT LOSS:

1. As soon as you wake up, drink at least a liter (33oz.) of warm lemon water for all of its health benefits, including kickstarting your metabolism for the rest of the day.

2. If you have never exercised (or haven’t exercised for a while), walk for 45 minutes – about 2 ½ miles. I prefer to walk my dog in the park by my house. The bonus of walking outside is you breathe fresh, life-giving air. However, some would rather stay in the comfort of their own homes and walk on a treadmill while watching TV or reading the newspaper. The point is, do whatever it takes to get you moving for 45 minutes first thing every morning.

3. If you have been on an exercise regime for a while, try lifting weights to help build more muscle so you will burn even more fat. Muscle is much more metabolically active than fat. Increasing muscle mass will help increase your metabolism leading to burning more fat, even while you’re sleeping!

4. Pay attention to your heart rate. You should be exerting enough effort so that your heart rate is 70%-80% of your maximum heart rate. The general rule of thumb is that your maximum heart rate is (220 – your current age). For example, if you’re 40 years old, your maximum heart rate is (220 – 40 = 180). Take your maximum heart rate and multiply it by .75 (in our example, 180 x .75 = 135 heart beats per minute).

5. Don’t eat anything until noon. The reason you don’t want to eat anything for a few hours after your workout is so that your body will continue to use stored body fat as its main energy source. As soon as you eat something, your body STOPS BURNING FAT and goes straight for the energy from the food you just ate. Type 2 diabetics need to lose body fat to reverse their disease so keep that in mind when you want to eat something immediately after your exercise time.

BONUS TIP

To help give you an energy boost to do your 45-minute exercise every morning, drink one cup of BLACK coffee – no cream, no sugar, no milk as these additions will spike insulin levels that will stop your body from burning fat.

I’ve used this trick to lose body fat for my amateur bodybuilding competitions and underwear modeling gigs for over 20 years. And it works every time! You have to change your mindset that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. In many cases, breakfast is the worst thing a type 2 diabetic can do.

WE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU… If you have any questions that will help you do this one activity every morning, leave it in the comment section below. We learn best from each other. I’m certain if you have a question about the process, odds are that many others will have the same question – so ask.