My old lead trainer, Phil, and I used to joke that we could cure everything that ails people if we could just air drop them into the Australian Outback a thousand miles from anywhere. Our imagined travel itinerary for the sick included lots of physical work, food they could catch, kill or find and lots of sleep because there is nothing to do when it gets dark but tell stories and sleep. This is the expurgated version for those of you with salacious imaginations.
In our more humane moments we envisioned teaching them survival skills before the drop; we left this detail out depending on how frustrated we were with our diabetics failing to take simple care of themselves by eating well and exercising properly.
OK, this part is simple. Don’t make it complicated by looking for loopholes, tricks, substitutes, the latest ‘miracle’ food, additive, supplement, or drug.
I’ve used this diet for over a decade in hundreds of people and it has never, never failed to lower triglycerides, insulin, fasting glucose, A1c, to raise HDL, to improve inflammatory markers and clotting factors. It is simple, not to say easy, and when followed works. Now I never start anyone on this or any other diet without ruling out everything from Celiac Disease to iron storage disorders and various forms of dyslipidemia. Hidden in this simplicity is the right mix of fats, amino acids, fiber and micro-nutrients. We’ve measured almost all possible end effects from B-12 levels to vitamin D to inflammation besides the obvious already mentioned.
Of course if you have nut allergies or whatever don’t follow this diet. We used to call this ‘Step One’ because there are several different forms for certain sub-conditions or needs but this is the basic diet:
Strict Step One Diet
General principles:
• Eat Whole Real Food: as near as possible to as it was pulled from the plant, cut from the flesh, plucked from the ground
• Eat for what you are going to do and not for what you did; in other words most of the food/calories in the first half of the day
Five rules:
1. Eat every three hours; no snacks or grazing between times. DO NOT SKIP.
2. Eat protein at each snack or meal time and rotate between:
• Nuts and seeds
• Grass fed beef and full fat dairy- this includes cheese like farmer’s cheese, paneer is an example, and ghee- also omega three eggs
• Free range poultry and game
• Wild, not farmed, small bodied fish; for example salmon or if you like tuna one of the small bodied variety. Farmed trout the exception
3. Make 3/4’s of each snack or meal vegetables or the allotted fruit; preferably not root vegetables.
4. NO: alcohol, starch (pasta, rice, bread, cereals, grains, potatoes) or sugars.
5. Limit fruit to Northern fruit like berries, apples, peaches, pears to a maximum of 1/2 cup per day. Zero for the first 4 weeks.
All of this is conceptually simple but practically hard because it is new. Think. Simple examples: celery and peanut butter, egg and tomato, apple slice and cheese.
This is the stripped down clean out the system diet. We add things back in but only against a very careful initial calibration and patient perceived needs or wants that we can quantify and track.
Now clear your head, focus, forget cinnamon for this or glutathione for that. You can add any spices or herbs as this is not in principle a Spartan diet. Never use artificial sweeteners as, besides they are bad for you, one of your most important goals is to change your palette, what tastes good to you, so that you crave the right things rather than the wrong things. The palette is like an exotic plant; it needs to be nurtured and trained.
Measure everything first!!
God Speed, Bon Appetit and Smile,
Dr. Mike
