Diabetes and Diabesity Epidemic: The Deadly Disease Doctors are Ignoring

Do you remember the fitness craze of the 80s? Of course, you do. If you were alive and older than a toddler, you couldn’t escape it. Jane Fonda’s first workout video exploded on the scene in 1982, and suddenly, everybody was working out. Those who sweated and huffed their way through an aerobics or jazzercise class thought they were improving their health, and why shouldn’t they? Less than three percent of the U.S. population had diabetes in the 1980s, adult obesity rates were just 15 percent, and Diabesity wasn’t even a thing. That has changed – big time – and doctors are still just treating it rather than trying to prevent it.

What is diabesity? 

Ethan Allen Sims, MD, and professor of medicine at the University of Vermont, coined the term “Diabesity” in 1972 to describe the interrelationship between type 2 diabetes and obesity. The diagnosis of diabesity does not necessarily mean the patient has type 2 diabetes. Rather, diabesity describes a continuum of diabetes-related conditions, from minor blood sugar imbalances to insulin resistance to prediabetes to full-blown type 2 diabetes.

Dr. Allen was one of many doctors who discovered that obesity and diabetes have a lot in common. Namely, they are both symptoms of the same underlying cause: dysfunction of insulin.

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Since Sims’ research in the early ‘70s, more evidence has emerged proving the interrelationship between type 2 diabetes and obesity. We now know most people — around 90% — who are obese will eventually develop type 2 diabetes. Though researchers have known about the link between obesity and type 2 diabetes for decades, they didn’t know the exact reason why obesity increases the risk for this disease — and vice versa — until fairly recently.

Why obesity increases the risk for type 2 diabetes

Insulin is the key to this link. Insulin is the hormone that takes excess glucose to your cells to be burned for energy or to be stored for later usage. Type 2 diabetes is caused by insulin resistance, meaning the cells no longer respond to insulin and will not easily accept glucose. The pancreas keeps pumping out insulin in response. This results in elevated insulin levels in the bloodstream, making it almost impossible for you to burn any stored fat. Obesity is almost always the result.   

If you are obese, some or all of your metabolic processes cannot do their jobs to regulate your weight, causing an accumulation of insulin in your bloodstream. Elevated insulin levels eventually lead to type 2 diabetes. Can you see how one leads to the other and how they converge to create Diabesity?

But how do you know if you have Diabesity?

Symptoms of diabesity

Making an appointment with your healthcare provider is the best way to find out if you have diabesity, as many of the symptoms can only be discovered through lab tests. The basic symptoms of diabesity include:

• Abdominal fat
• Abnormal cholesterol and triglyceride levels
• High blood pressure
• High blood sugar
• Systemic inflammation

However, if you have full-blown type 2 diabetes, the symptoms are a bit easier to recognize and include:

• Excessive thirst
• Frequent urination
• Blurred vision
• Extreme hunger
• Slow healing sores
• Fatigue
• Frequent infections
• Weight Loss

Diabesity affects over 1 billion people worldwide, including 100 million Americans, half of whom are over 65. It is the biggest health crisis the world has ever known. Diabetes is the perfect disease storm – an even bigger health threat than either one by itself — and doctors are baffled. But it shouldn’t surprise them that it was coming.

Obesity: A growing problem doctors ignored

After all, the warning signs were there. Obesity rates of adults (consider the diabesity numbers in children!) in America have doubled since the 1980s, as they have worldwide, and more than tripled for children. More than 70 percent of adults are overweight or obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control, a condition that can negatively impact their health.

Health Risks of Obesity

Carrying any extra weight increases your risk for Diabesity and other health conditions. But being obese, defined as having a body mass index of 30 or higher, significantly increases these risks. Some of the health problems associated with obesity include:  

• Stroke
• Heart disease
• High blood pressure
• Gallstones
• Sleep apnea
• Asthma
• Some cancers
• Gout
• Diabetes

Diabetes and Health

Of course, if there’s a link between obesity and diabetes, the numbers should reflect that. Right? Oh, they do. The number of adults with diabetes has quadrupled worldwide since 1980 – from 4.7 percent in 1980 to 8.5 percent in 2014.

If untreated and uncontrolled, this disease will eventually kill you, but usually not before it destroys your health a little at a time. Here are some of the health risks of diabetes:

• Cardiovascular disease
• Kidney failure
• Nerve damage
• Blindness
• Erectile dysfunction
• Foot damage
• High blood pressure
• Stroke

Even if you’re on insulin and controlling your blood sugar levels well, diabetes can still negatively affect your health. That’s because diabetes affects every major organ system. The best way to protect your health is to prevent type 2 diabetes from developing.

Preventing type 2 diabetes

Researchers do not know exactly what causes type 2 diabetes. However, they have discovered that genetics combined with poor dietary habits play the biggest role in its development. That is, if your parent or sibling has type 2 diabetes and you practice poor-quality dietary habits, you are at a heightened risk of developing type 2 diabetes. However, studies show a poor-quality diet by itself substantially increases the risk of diabetes.

The type of diet that increases the risk of type 2 diabetes includes overconsumption of refined carbs, starchy carbs, sugar, and highly processed foods. They increase the risk of diabetes because of the effect they have on blood glucose levels. Here’s how the body handles glucose:

Your cells need glucose for energy, but they cannot open up to accept glucose without help from insulin. Think of insulin as holding the key to insulin’s doors. When you consume carbs and sugar, your body converts them to glucose which is then absorbed into the bloodstream. Your blood glucose levels rise, signaling the pancreas to release a sufficient amount of insulin to clear the glucose from your bloodstream.

Insulin travels through your bloodstream to your cells, where it binds with insulin receptors on the cell’s surface, enabling the cell to accept glucose. Your blood glucose levels gradually fall as more of the cells accept glucose.

Healthy Digestion of Carbohydrates

This is the way the body is designed to handle the digestion of carbohydrates. It is an efficient, healthy process — as long as you consume the right types of carbs. The best type of carbs for your blood glucose levels is unrefined, unprocessed foods, preferably non-starchy vegetables. Their fiber stays in your digestive system for a long time. When the body figures out it cannot digest the fiber, it is expelled from your body. Fiber has no effect on your blood glucose levels.

The fiber also slows the absorption of the portion of the carbohydrate that can be digested. This leads to a slow, steady rise in your blood glucose levels. Eating these types of foods fills you up quickly, keeps you full longer, and will not lead to type 2 diabetes. Incidentally, though some of your tissues need glucose to function optimally, your body does not have to obtain it from carbohydrates. If you don’t eat carbohydrates, your body will simply make glucose from protein and fat, a process called gluconeogenesis. So…carbohydrate is not a required macronutrient!

Unhealthy Carbs, Unhealthy Digestion

When you eat starchy carbs, sugars, and other inSANE foods, the process is not so healthy. With no fiber to slow digestion, glucose is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream. This causes a spike in blood glucose levels. The pancreas releases a larger amount of insulin than perhaps is needed to take care of the glucose.  

Insulin is overwhelmed by having to deal with such a large amount of glucose at one time. For your health and safety, it must clear the excess glucose from your bloodstream in a short time, so it takes most of it to your fat cells. Fat cells always open up for glucose! If you routinely eat these low-quality foods, the pancreas continually produces and releases more and more insulin even as your fat cells suck up most of the glucose.

How elevated insulin levels lead to insulin resistance

Weight gain and/or obesity is the eventual outcome of elevated glucose and insulin levels. Plus, your cells become so accustomed to the presence of insulin they no longer recognize it, a condition called “insulin resistance.” This is not such a big deal in the beginning since the fat cells have been sucking up all the glucose. But…eventually, excess body fat causes chronic inflammation that prevents fat cells from accepting more glucose calories.

Your blood glucose levels rise, leading to type 2 diabetes. And, yes, this explains a little more thoroughly the link between weight gain/obesity and type 2 diabetes. This information has hardly been a secret. Indeed, many studies have shown that losing just 10-15 pounds can dramatically reduce your risk of this dangerous and deadly disease, but if you’re obese, does your doctor tell you that when you walk through the door? NO.

What’s a doctor to do about obesity?

Your doctor will probably not mention obesity to you unless you ask. If you can bear to look, you’ll see your weight when stepping on the scale at your doctor’s office. After you leave the doctor’s office, you may read the Summary of Visit Sheet and see a set of numbers with words explaining your state of obesity. But your doctors will probably not discuss these numbers with you.

Why? Because your doctor doesn’t know what to say or do about obesity. Statistics show that medical students get less than 20 hours of very basic nutrition classes during their entire four years of medical school. Even if a doctor does know plenty about nutrition, though, it’s a good bet that they’d tell you to eat less and exercise more to lose weight, the same advice that has proven to fail 95.4 percent of the time.

Give a doctor a disease to treat!

But diabetes? Well, that’s different. Doctors know all about this disease and after all, they are trained to fix problems with pills and scalpels and insulin and stuff. They know your body doesn’t use insulin as well as it should, so they tell you how to eat to regulate your blood sugar levels. If that doesn’t work, they may prescribe medications, including insulin.

Your doctor knows obesity makes it harder for you to control your blood sugar levels, so once you have this disease – now firmly Diabesity — your doctor will finally have “the talk” with you about losing weight.

What do you suppose that advice will be? You guessed it. The same thing you’ve tried over and over and over again without success.

A return to dieting SANEity

If you’ve often wondered if there was a better way to lose weight, there is. It is a scientifically proven solution addressing the underlying cause of diabesity and obesity instead of just the symptoms. You’ll never have to count another calorie, you’ll feel energetic, and you’ll start burning calories like a naturally thin person.

Lose weight and reduce your risk of diabesity

Though calories are a factor in weight gain, they’re not the main factor. We’ve all known people who are naturally thin, those lucky ones who can eat anything they want without gaining a pound. They never even think about calories, let alone count them.

Meanwhile, you can’t lose weight on a measly 1,200-calorie-a-day diet. All you think about are calories in and calories out, and wonder why the math isn’t working for you. Every diet ends badly; you yo-yo so often and so quickly that it makes you dizzy! Like most overweight people, you probably blame yourself and feel ashamed that you’ve not been able to do what they (thin people) do so effortlessly. Denied the lean, healthy body that should be your birthright, you feel desperate and defeated… and, yes, even scared, scared that you may become a casualty of the Diabesity epidemic.

Getting off the dieting rollercoaster

If you’ve often felt that way — or feel that way right now — we have good news for you. Those many weight-loss wars you fought — and lost — were not your fault. You’ve not failed all those diets you’ve tried; they’ve failed you. Nutritionists, dieting gurus, and even the Centers for Disease Control have been “feeding” you weight loss advice developed in the 1960s, advice proven wrong in thousands of research studies.

In fact, this unscientifically supported advice – that losing weight and keeping it off is simply a matter of eating less and exercising more – is what is making you gain weight. This incorrect advice is what leads to yo-yo dieting! There is so much more to sustainable fat and weight loss than that.

Diabesity epidemic: setpoint weight is key

Obesity and type 2 diabetes are both diseases. They are symptoms of an elevated body weight setpoint and an elevated blood glucose setpoint. Your setpoint is the level of stored body fat your body works to maintain regardless of how many calories you take in or exercise off. Your brain, digestive system, and hormones continually talk to each other to stabilize your weight. This weight varies 10-20 pounds of this setpoint, and your body will always try to get back to this weight as long as your setpoint is stuck there.

Much like the thermostat in your home that controls the heating and air conditioning, thereby keeping your home at the temperature it has determined it should be, your setpoint adjusts your metabolic processes in response to how much body fat it has determined you should have. The primary way setpoint does this is through appetite and metabolism. It is fully capable of making you hungry or zapping your hunger. It can also raise or lower your metabolism at will.

How a low setpoint handles excess calories

This is why some people can eat anything they want without gaining weight. The body does not have to hold onto excess calories, storing them as body fat. In fact, a study by the Mayo Clinic showed how the body dispenses with excess calories if you have a low setpoint. Researchers identified these three ways the body could disperse excess calories:

• Increase the daily calorie burn.
• Up the number of calories burned digesting food.
• Increase the number of calories burned via unconscious activity.

This study proved unequivocally that a lower setpoint does all it can to automatically balance more calories in with more calories out by increasing the calories burned as base metabolic rate, digesting food, and through unconscious activity. If you have a higher setpoint, however, the body does just the opposite. It does all it can to hold onto every calorie, doing its best to turn most of the calories you consume into fat.

The body is designed to efficiently balance calories in with calories out, which should guarantee you’ll never have a weight problem. So why are you always struggling with your weight? Why do you have a higher setpoint weight while your lucky best friend has a lower one?

Factors that elevate setpoint weight

There are three factors that elevate setpoint: neurological inflammation, gut dysbiosis, and hormonal dysregulation.

Neurological inflammation

Neurological inflammation refers to the activation of the brain’s innate immune system in response to injury, infection, toxin exposure, neurodegenerative illness, or age. Neuroinflammation is a fairly recent discovery, one that shocked researchers because the brain was thought to be protected from the inflammatory immune response. 

But we now know that the inflammatory response can be activated in the brain and that chronic inflammation of the hypothalamus can lead to weight gain and setpoint elevation.

The hypothalamus is part of the brain responsible for balancing calories in with calories out. It relies on signals from the hormones, particularly leptin, and insulin, to do its job properly. These hormones continually send status reports regarding your fat stores and calorie intake to the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus responds by releasing certain hormones — or increasing or suppressing certain hormones — so as to stabilize your weight.

But when the hypothalamus becomes inflamed, it cannot receive signals from those hormones or interpret them properly. It does not know how much fat you need, so it raises your setpoint and gives you more fat to be on the safe side.

Leaky brain syndrome, neurological inflammation, and diabesity

To be clear, inflammation is not always a bad thing. It is actually an essential function of your immune system. When body tissue is invaded by bacteria, pathogens, toxins, or injury, the tissue(s) send distress signals to the immune system. The immune system sends inflammatory cells and white blood cells through the bloodstream to the site of the infection or injury.

The inflammation that follows isolates the foreign invaders and the injury from healthy tissue. The white blood cells attack and kill foreign invaders, clean up debris from the battle, and promote healing. At a certain point, the immune system releases anti-inflammatory chemicals to reduce and eliminate inflammation. This is the healthy, natural, and life-saving response of your immune system.

Inflammation is only dangerous if it extends for months or years. Chronic inflammation like this damages tissue, leading to many health conditions. Indeed, most researchers believe chronic inflammation to be the underlying cause of most chronic diseases.

But it didn’t occur to them that the brain could fall victim to chronic inflammation. This is because the blood-brain barrier keeps dangerous substances away from the brain. But if the blood-brain barrier is damaged, a condition called “Leaky Brain Syndrome,” these substances seep into the brain’s fragile environment and cause inflammation.

Dangers of neurological inflammation

Research shows that neurological inflammation may be the underlying cause of depression, anxiety, and type 2 diabetes. It even elevates setpoint weight. You see, the hypothalamus in the brain balances calories in with calories out to keep your weight stable. Leptin and insulin — hormones that manage calorie intake, hunger, and other aspects of the metabolism — regulate the hypothalamus. But when the hypothalamus is inflamed, it cannot receive proper signals from these hormones. The result is an elevated setpoint with resulting weight gain.  

Gut dysbiosis

Dysbiosis of the gut occurs when the number and diversity of gut bacteria are out of balance, which has a significant effect on health.

Our gut microbiota (bacteria) has such a huge effect on our physical and psychological health that researchers refer to the gut as the “second brain.” This second brain also called the enteric nervous system (ENS), is composed of more than 100 million nerve cells lining your gastrointestinal tract. The ENS is not only responsible for proper digestion and nutrient absorption, but it also communicates with the brain in your skull.

Research shows gut bacteria may cause feelings of anxiety, depression, and sadness. It also may affect cognitive abilities. And what about setpoint? Well…it affects that, too. Gut bacteria help metabolize the food you eat, extract calories from food, and save calories for later usage.

Studies show certain types of bacteria prefer certain types of foods, meaning if you crave sugar, it may not be you who are craving it. It could be what your gut bacteria is craving! Research also shows those of normal weight have more Bacteroidetes bacteria in their gut, while obese people have more Firmicutes bacteria. These studies show a very definite link between gut bacterial distribution and weight. Creating and maintaining a balance of the proper types of gut bacteria is essential if you want to lower your setpoint, lose weight, and prevent Diabesity.

Hormonal dysregulation

One of the most common reasons people have trouble losing weight and keeping it off is that they suffer from hormonal dysregulation. Hormones are the body’s chemical messengers. They control most of the body’s major system, including the metabolism, hunger, cravings — even where you store your fat!

Hormones that influence setpoint

Many hormones influence setpoint. Here are just a few of the most important ones.

Leptin

Leptin lets the brain know when you’re full. Produced by your fat cells, leptin travels through the bloodstream, continually giving the brain status reports on your fat stores. When your fat stores rise, more leptin is released into your bloodstream. The brain releases or increases levels of hormones that make you feel full. These hormones also make you fidget more so that you unconsciously burn more calories. The opposite happens when your fat levels fall — the leptin levels in your blood fall and you get the urge to eat more and lounge around, so you unconsciously burn fewer calories.

Because leptin is produced by fat cells, overweight people already have plenty of leptin circulating in their bloodstream. The reason overweight people tend to be hungry and overeat is that they are leptin resistant, meaning their brains are not receiving correct messages from leptin due to hormonal dysregulation and neurological inflammation.

Ghrelin

Ghrelin is the “hunger hormone.” When you go on a starvation diet, your brain increases the level of this hormone to try to get you to eat more food.

Insulin

As previously mentioned, insulin is necessary to get glucose into your cells. If you routinely eat refined carbs, sugars, and heavily processed foods, the pancreas keeps producing insulin. When insulin is continually elevated, your cells become resistant to it and will not open up to accept the glucose.

When most of your regular cells don’t accept glucose, insulin takes it to your fat cells. If this happens too often, your regular cells signal to the brain that they are starving. So, the brain thinks you need more fat, and it raises your setpoint.

Cortisol

Cortisol, known as the “stress hormone,” has a huge influence on your setpoint. From your body’s standpoint, stress is a life-or-death situation. So, the body prepares itself for this situation by ensuring that enough energy is available. To that end, more glucose is released from the liver.

Meanwhile, cortisol levels rise, triggering a release of insulin to shuttle that glucose into the cells for energy. During the fight with the enemy, the excess glucose is burned off. When the fight is over, the body’s relaxation response sets in, and the cortisol levels return to normal. This is the way a healthy stress response works.

However, most people today treat every irritation like it’s a life-or-death situation, and their bodies react accordingly. Chronic stress leads to chronically high cortisol levels, which leads to chronically high insulin levels. And since psychological stress does not burn off glucose, your glucose levels are also elevated.

This leads to cravings for starchy, sugary carbs and an elevated setpoint. It leads to an accumulation of dangerous belly fat. It leads to pre-Diabesity, and then full-blown Diabesity.

The hormonal clog

The most common reason for weight gain, or inability to lose weight long term, is because you have become hormonally clogged. When you have a hormonal clog, your hormones can no longer send proper signals to your brain, or your brain cannot receive the signals. The brain becomes confused and gives you more fat (and elevates your setpoint) just to make sure you have enough to survive.

To understand how a hormonal clog elevates your setpoint, think about your metabolism as operating like a sink. If a sink is working properly, whatever amount of water you pour into it drains right out. Even if the water level raises a little bit, it will still drain out quickly. In this scenario, you can say the sink has a low setpoint because it’s balancing the water at a lower level.

A properly operating metabolism works the same way to prevent excess body fat from building up. If you have a hormonally healthy metabolism, it will burn more when you eat more and burn less when you eat less. In other words, it balances you out at a low level (low setpoint weight).

How to fix a  hormonal clog 

The only way a sink does not balance water out at a low level or a body does not balance the weight out at a low level is if it has a clog.

When a clog occurs in a sink, every time you pour water into it the water level keeps rising. There are a couple of things you can do to address this problem. You can keep bailing water out of the sink when the water level gets too high…but do you really want to have to do that forever? It’s a real hassle. Or…you can remove the clog and let the sink automatically balance the water at a low level. Isn’t this the easier option? After all, you never have to think about it or take any special action.

If you have a hormonal clog, you can slash calories, and you will lose weight. But your body fights back against what it sees as starvation. The brain activates hormones that make you feel hungry, weak, tired, and irritable. It slows your metabolism. It sends most of your calories to your fat cells.

The problem with starvation dieting

Starvation dieting also causes the body to raise your setpoint even higher, which is why, as soon as you go off the diet, you gain all the weight back plus a few more pounds. The only way to keep the weight off after a calorie-restricted diet is to keep eating a low amount of calories — forever. And even then, you’ll need to eat fewer and fewer calories each year to maintain your weight. Starvation dieting is just like bailing water out of the sink. It works, but do you really want to go through all that misery of starvation? Do you really want to “diet” forever?

There is an easier way. Simply remove the hormonal clog, and your body will automatically balance your calories in with calories out at a low level.

Lowering your setpoint weight to prevent diabesity

One of the secrets to lowering your setpoint weight and reducing your risk of Diabesity is to focus on eating quality foods, such as non-starchy vegetables. These foods are so filling it’s impossible to overeat them; therefore, you don’t need to count calories.

Science has even shown the quality, not quantity, of foods is what is important in controlling or losing weight. One study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that those who ate lots of vegetables and whole foods while cutting back on processed foods and sugar lost a significant amount of weight – without counting calories or measuring portion sizes.

How to determine calorie quality

Contrary to the calorie-deficit theory of weight loss, a calorie is not the same as every other calorie. Calories affect your body differently depending upon their food source. For instance, refined carbs cause a rapid rise in blood glucose levels, giving you a quick burst of energy. But your energy drops about an hour later, and you’ll be hungry again fairly quickly. Compare this to eating a high-quality piece of protein or a plateful of non-starchy vegetables. These foods are immediately satisfying and keep you satisfied for hours.

Calorie quality is determined by four factors, signified by the letters S, A, N, E.

1. Satiety: Refers to how quickly calories fill us up and how long they keep us full.
2. Aggression: Refers to how likely your body is to store these calories as fat.
3. Nutrition: Refers to how much nutrition — vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, etc. — these calories provide.
4. Efficiency: Refers to how easily these calories can be converted into fat.

Satiety

Calories vary greatly in how filling they are. Nutrient-dense protein, for instance, is a high-Satiety food because it quickly satisfies you and it keeps you full for a long time. Compare that to low-Satiety foods, such as potato chips or pretzels. You have to eat a lot of these foods to feel full, and in a short period of time, you’re hungry again!

Aggression

Calories also vary in how likely your body is to store them as fat. This is because calories impact your blood sugar and hormones differently depending upon the source of those calories. Aggressive calories have a bigger impact on your blood sugar levels and hormones than do non-Aggressive calories.  Aggressive calories, such as those in refined carbs, pour glucose into your bloodstream quickly, resulting in these calories being stored as fat.

Nutrition

Three hundred and fifty calories of a piece of cake are not the same as 350 calories of a piece of steak. Calories are certainly different at providing the amount of nutrition we need to burn body fat, lower setpoint, and avoid Diabesity. So what is nutritious? The key to nutrition is quality — which differs greatly from the quantity that we are shown on nutrition labels on food.

The information on food labels tells us only half of what determines food quality: the quantity of nutrients in the food. But talking merely about the quantity of nutrients in foods leads to a very fattening view of nutrition. After all, a high quantity of nutrients combined with low-quality calories is not nutritious. (Think of those sugary breakfast cereals advertised as “healthy” because they are “whole grain.”)

The other half of what determines Nutrition quality is the amount and characteristics of the calories we are getting along with the nutrients. We have to consider nutrients relative to calories.

Determining nutrition quality is easy. Simply take the nutrient quantity information provided on nutrition labels and divide it by the number of calories in a serving of the food. This provides the food’s nutrition per calorie. Many nutrients per calorie — provided by non-starchy vegetables, seafood, high-quality meats, nuts/seeds — means high nutrition quality. Few nutrients per calorie, provided by starches and sweets, means low nutrition quality.

Efficiency

Last but not least, the body varies greatly in how much — if at all — it can store things you consume as body fat. For instance, your body cannot store fiber as fat. You can say your body is inEfficient at storing fiber as body fat. On the other hand, your body can easily store starches as body fat. In this instance, it is efficient at storing starches as body fat.

Water, fiber, protein

The best way to lower setpoint and defeat Diabesity is to eat high-Satiety foods that are unAggressive, Nutritious, and inEfficient. The great thing about eating a SANE diet is that you don’t have to spend a lot of time trying to decide whether a food is any of those 4 things. All you need to remember are these three words: water, fiber, and protein.

The more water, fiber, and protein a food contains, the higher its quality. Foods that contain high amounts of water, fiber, and protein lower your setpoint weight and defeat Diabesity. The 4 SANE food groups are loaded with setpoint-lowering water, fiber, and protein.

The SANE food way to avoid diabesity

The SANE way of eating is simple and enjoyable. You’ll fill your plate with such healthy, delicious food that you wouldn’t think of reaching for a candy bar or junk food. When grocery shopping, pick foods as close to their natural state as possible. Here are the main SANE food groups.

Non-Starchy Vegetables

Fill half your plate with non-starchy vegetables, eating at least 10 servings per day. Generally, non-starchy vegetables are ones you could eat raw if you wanted to.  (Think salad vegetables.) Since vegetables are loaded with fiber, which fills you up quickly, it’s almost impossible to overeat them.

Examples include:

• Kale
• Broccoli
• Carrots
• Celery
• Asparagus
• Tomatoes

Nutrient-Dense Protein

Fill a third of your plate with nutrient-dense protein, eating three to six servings per day. (A serving is about the size of a man’s hand.)

Examples of nutrient-dense proteins include:

• Salmon
• Cottage cheese
• Tuna
• Egg whites
• Chicken
• Lean beef
• Liver

Whole-Food Fats

Fill the rest of the plate with whole-food fats, eating three to six servings per day.

Examples include:

• Flax seeds
• Coconut milk
• Chia seeds
• Olives
• Avocado
• Macadamias

Low-Fructose Fruits

You can have a small amount – about one to three servings – of low-fructose fruits per day if you choose.

Examples include:

• Orange
• Strawberries
• Blueberries
• Grapefruit
• Cherries
• Lime

The SANE smarter exercise way to defeat diabesity

Improving the quality of your exercise routine is just as important as improving the quality of your diet. Traditional exercise has a few drawbacks when it comes to defeating Diabesity. The first is that traditional exercise often causes injury because of the speed or intensity of the exercise. The second is that it is not that effective at burning fat. The third is that intense exercise performed for a prolonged period of time can actually raise setpoint weight because it triggers a release of cortisol.

There is a better way; it’s called eccentric exercise.

You see, traditional resistance training exercise has two types of contraction: concentric, which usually occurs as you lift the resistance toward you, and eccentric, which usually occurs as you lower the resistance.

The Power of Eccentric Exercise

Though all the bodybuilding magazines focus on the concentric action of lifting weights, studies show the eccentric action of lowering weight yields better results. In fact, you’ll use up to 40% more resistance when you slowly lower the resistance than when you lift it. This increased resistance means you’ll activate more total muscle fibers, trigger more setpoint-lowering hormones, and develop more metabolism-boosting muscle.

Eccentric exercises are intense but brief, so they don’t trigger the same cascade of cortisol as traditional exercise. And because they activate all your muscle fibers, you can only do them once or twice a week for just 10-20 minutes.

To perform an eccentric exercise, simply concentrate on the lowering portion of any regular exercise. For instance, if you’re doing a dumbbell curl with your arms, slowly lower the weight to a count of 10, and repeat it 6 times. If you’re performing a squat, slowly squat to a count of 10, and repeat 6 times.

Setpoint lowering nutraceuticals

Eating SANE foods and practicing smarter SANE exercises are two great ways to lower setpoint weight and defeat Diabesity. If you want to speed up the setpoint-lowering effects of SANE diet and exercise, however, you might want to consider adding nutraceuticals to your program.

Nutraceuticals are natural compounds found in foods that are concentrated down to therapeutic and pharmaceutical-grade levels. They include vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and other nutrients. Nutraceuticals are natural substances that work because they are required by the body to make the setpoint-lowering changes you need. But they will not work by themselves. They will work only when combined with SANE eating, sleeping, lifestyle, and exercise plan.

Here are a few nutraceuticals that will help lower your setpoint and defeat Diabesity.

• Inositol: Vitamin-like nutrient that assists in fat transportation and metabolism.
• Choline: B-vitamin that optimizes fat burning.
• Betaine HCL: A derivative of choline, it supports a healthy gastrointestinal tract, which helps heal gut inflammation (a factor in an elevated setpoint).
• Biotin:  B-vitamin that helps regulate insulin, blood sugar, and the metabolism of fat and protein.
• Vitamin B-12: Enhances energy. Also helpful in preventing brain inflammation.
• L-Carnitine: Ensures more efficient fat burning.
• Chromium Picolinate: Helps the body better process carbohydrates while combating insulin resistance, helps balance hormone levels, and improves blood sugar levels. It also helps the body burn fat.

SANE success stories

More than 100,000 people are living a SANE lifestyle and loving the results. Christine dropped over 100 pounds without starvation, dieting, or punishing cardio workouts. Jay lost 97 pounds and no longer has pre-diabetes! His high blood pressure also came back down to normal. Cristina credits SANE eating with healing her diabetes, lowering her cholesterol, and her weight loss of 58 pounds. She also became pregnant after five years of trying.

Next step: end diabetes and diabesity with SANE

Ready to finally break free from the yo-yo dieting rollercoaster by balancing your hormones and lowering your body’s setpoint weight?

Want to know the exact foods and serving sizes that are scientifically proven by over 1,300 peer-reviewed research studies to boost metabolism, burn fat and enjoy virtually effortless weight loss like a naturally thin person?

Download the free SANE metabolism boosting food list, cheat sheet, and “Eat More, Burn More” weight loss program by clicking here .