Empower Your Fight Against Diabetes

More than 30 million people in the U.S. have diabetes, according to 2017 stats from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Of those, the Diabetes Research Institute believes an estimated 23.1 million people had been diagnosed with diabetes and about 7.2 million people have it but haven’t been diagnosed yet.

Diabetes is a serious condition in which the body is unable to properly produce or respond to a hormone called insulin. Insulin serves as a “key” to open your cells, allowing the sugar (glucose) from the food you eat to enter. The body’s cells convert that sugar to energy.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease and is far less common, accounting for about 5% of all diagnosed diabetes cases. It often begins in childhood or adolescence, can be inherited, and requires lifelong treatment.

Type 2 diabetes is far more common and is often the result of poor diet and lifestyle choices. It can be managed and even reversed with proper nutrition combined with exercise.

Wayne, a 54-year-old EMP180° client, was prediabetic for nearly five years before his condition progressed to an official diagnosis of diabetes.  Wayne was put on two oral medications to manage his condition, but he was finally shocked into taking action when he was told he’d have to either lose weight or start receiving insulin injections.

Wayne was on two diabetes drugs and his A1C blood glucose was 8.4. A1C is a blood test that people with prediabetes and diabetes must periodically get to measure their average blood sugar. For reference, a normal A1C level is under 5.7.

“I wanted to be around for my kids and see them grow up,” says Wayne; and in the fall of 2018, Wayne joined Cōpare. Since graduating from the program, Wayne met his goals of feeling better, having more energy, reducing his joint pain and getting his diabetes under control. 

What Wayne was surprised to learn from his Cōpare experience was the importance of modifying his diet to include the right amounts of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins that worked for his individual body composition. He quickly learned that nutrition — eating the right foods at the right times for his body — was far more impactful than exercise in helping him lose weight and improve his body composition. The majority of Wayne’s weight loss came from body fat, not muscle. Wayne’s most significant realization was that he didn’t know how bad he truly felt until he reached his health goals and felt so much better.

“They actually had me stop going to the gym for a while until we got my diet under control,” he says. “It felt counter-intuitive at first, but monitoring my numbers helped me understand the importance of following the plan. I’d skip a snack for a week, but then discovered my protein levels were off, which really affected my performance.”

As a former wrestler, Wayne had bad knees and was worried he’d need knee replacement surgery. But since losing nearly 40 pounds, he says his knees feel better and he hopes he’s delayed that fate for a long while.

Since graduating from the program, Wayne still comes in every one to two weeks to check in with his “personal coach for life” – and the Cōpare team – to keep himself on track. Today, he is off all diabetes medications and his A1C is 5.3.

“I feel amazing,” says Wayne. “I have to keep learning about nutrition so I can maintain a good level of health for years to come. And it’s worked so well for me, my wife has joined Cōpare too.”

 Wayne’s story is one we hear often at Cōpare. Type 2 Diabetes is one of the most common ailments we see when clients come in for consultations. We have helped hundreds of clients lower their blood sugar levels, in turn allowing them to reduce or even eliminate their medications. Cōpare promotes a low carbohydrate lifestyle which is shown to be effective in reducing inflammation and combating insulin resistance.