Dean’s Road to a Medication-Free Life

Dr Jedha, Host 

Hello, wonderful people, thank you for joining me for episode 31. We love hearing from our members about their progress and it’s great to be a part of their journey over time, and today we’re going to be hearing from Dean with a story that will absolutely inspire and motivate you on your pathway to elevate your own diabetes health. 

Dean first took my T2Diet program and has now been a member with us for the past couple of years, and I’ve had the pleasure of catching up with Dean a few times throughout his journey to check on his progress. So today we’re going to hear from Dean about his journey to a medication-free life after living with type 2 diabetes for over 20 years. 

When I first encountered Dean a couple of years back, he was 62 years young with an A1c of 6.9%. He’d been up around that 7% A1c mark for quite a while and had struggled to get the A1c lower. Dean does have a family history of type 2 diabetes, and Dean took the T2Diet program, as I just said, which, if you follow the initial program, it’s 16 weeks, and after completing the 16 weeks, dean had lowered his A1c by 1.3% down to 5.6%, which had never happened in his long-term history of having diabetes. 

We shared the first part of Dean’s story back in episode 25, alongside other T2 diet success stories and, as you heard in episode 25 and as I just said, Dean lowered his A1c down to 5.6% and he had kept it down in the fives over the course of about a year and his conservative doctor took him off one of his medications, jardiance. As a result of the T2Diet magic and delicious recipes Dean learned to love vegetables and understand how to eat to treat his diabetes. Most importantly, he was really proactive and enjoyed the learning process and he was open to change. If he wasn’t, he never would have tried eating vegetables in the first place because he had never really liked them before. 

When we’re ready to embrace health, having a positive attitude and mindset toward what we do is important because it is a journey, so we do have to be prepared for some ups and downs, which leads us to the next part of Dean’s story. So let’s dive straight in to discover more about Dean’s journey over time.

Dr Jedha, Host, Begins Chat with Dean, 03:52

So I brought you on today just to chat with you and I thought it would be just good today to pick up where we left off, I guess, and check in with you. You know, last we left off, you had gone to the doctor those few times and you’d had your A1c traveling really good. It was 5.6, 5.7, 5.8. And then I think I’m not sure if you had another one after that, like prior to this recent one which we’ll talk about soon. But after you know those last ones, and you were going back to the doctor because I know you had stopped the jardiance and you were almost off that metformin, you were down to that 500 milligram dose and you were wanting to get off that with the doctor at the next appointment. But I think it all went awry right because your doctor left or something. So do you want to update me a bit on the story that happened from there?

Dean, Guest 04:42

Yeah, sure, I mean, basically there was another test in between because it was 5.9 and, yeah, that’s where the. At that point my doctor said, if we can get the next one to stay six or below, then we’ll take off the last of the metformin. And that’s when, yeah, I went to make an appointment back with that doctor three months later and she was gone, so I had to play around to find another doctor, finally found this, this local doctor, and yes, we did the latest blood tests and the HbA1c this time had kicked up blood tests and the HbA1c this time had kicked up into mid-sixes, 6.5. That’s a bit of a mystery to me, because I don’t really feel like we’ve broken the diet too much, but perhaps there’s been a little bit more of we’ve been out and about and we’ve needed to grab something to eat and maybe that thing was enough outside the diet to push it along a little bit higher.

Dr Jedha, Host 05:50

Yeah, I know you think it could be a bit of a mystery, but also I know and from what we’ve been talking about, that you have been under a lot of stress the past few months, which does also impact your blood sugar, so that could certainly be a factor in your case.

Dean, Guest 06:06

Yeah, look, I think you’re absolutely right, certainly has been a lot of stress.

Dr Jedha, Host 06:09

So Dean shared some very detailed personal stuff, so I’m jumping in for a small segway here to share the type of stresses and situation Dean found himself in. Dean and his wife had nursed a family member to passing, had gone through some difficulties with a house sale, and Dean, who was meant to be in retirement, then got contracted back to his job for what he thought was only two months, but that stretched out to six months and he was under extreme pressure to do an incredible workload within a short time frame. So let’s just say there were a lot of stresses and pressures for Dean.

Dean, Guest 06:53

So, yeah, you combine a lot of these stressful things and it has been almost a constant state of stress with not a lot of relaxation in any of that. There’s been no downtime and lots of stress time.

Dr Jedha, Host 07:08

Yeah, and I think the, you know, having to go back to work was pretty much the icing on the cake, perhaps for you too, because you were still traveling along okay, but you’ve probably, like you said, had been under so much pressure to get a lot of work done that your self-care that you had there before probably hasn’t been as good.

Dean, Guest 07:27

Yeah, I think that’s probably right, even though we still try to do regular exercises. But even there we’ve sort of let it drift from time to time because of various things, not the least of which is, I think I must have torn my achilles tendon muscle or at least sort of did some damage to it. There’s been times where I’ve said, oh, my ankle’s hurting too much, let’s not go for a walk, and that might stretch on for a week or two, and so we’re not doing our normal exercise routine.

Dr Jedha, Host 08:03

It’s amazing because all of these things compound and it’s not until we’re noticing things like you go back to the doctor and you’ve had that higher HbA1c that you think, oh right, all of these things might be compounding to add up to a lot more stress than I really thought I was under in the first place, and it really because of the way our stress hormones react and stimulate the higher blood sugar that can certainly have an effect if that’s the type of pressure you’re under all the time.

Dean, Guest 08:35

Yeah. So I mean, it’s kind of interesting to think about it in those terms because, yeah, up until having that latest test, I hadn’t thought about it again. It’s just life, it’s the stressors of life, that’s what you put it down to. But you’re right, when you think back about it you think, wow, that’s been a lot compressed into the last nine to 12 months and that’s not normal life. It’s been a lot more stressful than normal life.

Dr Jedha, Host 9:06

And I think it’s so great, you know, even to hear of these things. And when I contacted you to say can we catch up again for the podcast, and you said, oh, you know, my HbA1c has gone up, I’m not sure if it’s a very compelling story. And I said to you well, no, it is. And I think it’s important for people to hear stuff like this and that’s how I want my podcast to be really real about that stuff because these things, the real things that happen in life, and not hide those things from people like it’s all glossy either, because it helps people to feel better about their situation. If things start to go up again, well, that’s okay. Just think about what you can bring in under control and take those proactive steps to bring it back down again, and I think you’re going to be fine to get there.

Dean, Guest 09:56

Certainly, my aim now is to be just a little bit more conscious of what’s going on, both with the food side and with these stresses, uh, we’ll see over the next three months whether I can drag it back down again.

Dr Jedha, Host 10:07

Yeah, well, I certainly have every confidence that you can, because you’ve just got the tools and the skills to do that as well now.

Dean, Guest 10:19

So well, yeah yeah, I’m still pretty confident about it. I mean, I just felt it was so easy to do it in the first place that all I’ve got to do is put my mind back to it again and it will happen again. I can’t believe that my body has somehow changed within the last six months and suddenly my HbA1c is going to be high forever forever.

Dr Jedha, Host, Finishes first part of chat with Dean, 10:55

Certainly true and that’s very unlikely; Dean will get his A1c down again, but due to lots of pressure and stress over this period, Dean did see a rise in his A1c of 0.5 or 0.6 percent. Now this isn’t really that much, but it goes to show that life can get in the way of our healthy habits and routines where we’re not as focused on self-care, and then, before we know it, we look back and we’re realizing that multiple factors in our life can have a negative compounding effect on us. This can and does happen, and that’s exactly why I wanted to share all parts of Dean’s story, because it is inspiring to hear about the realities. There will always be ups and downs in our journey, which is why we always need support.

Announcement 11:41

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Dr Jedha, Host, Begins second part of Dean’s chat, 11:56

If you drop the ball, just pick it up again. Be a bit more proactive and do what you can to take small steps forward until you get your momentum again. And that’s exactly what Dean did after finding out his A1c had jumped up a little since his last test, where he was maintaining his levels at those 5%. So let’s hear from him again with his last incredible update, where his A1c had gone down again and he has now finally got off all medication. Yeah, so last time with your health when we met too, your A1c had gone up a bit, so that was at about 6.5, I think you said it was.

Dean, Guest 12:42

Yep.

Dr Jedha, Host 12:43

Yeah, and then you weren’t really too happy with that. So you said you were going to get proactive and despite all the challenges you had. And so what type of things did you do in the follow-up after that, after we spoke last?

Dean, Guest 12:57

It wasn’t huge changes. It was just keeping our mind on the diet all the time, even when we were away. But we just kept our eye on the diet all the time, and not that we hadn’t before. But you know, it’s just. It’s so easy, when a meal comes with salad and chips, to eat the salad and, oh well, the chips are there and you eat half the chips and you think, well, that’s good, I still left half behind. But the reality is I shouldn’t have eaten the first half in the first place. And it was just keeping our eye on that sort of thing with the diet. And we probably got an opportunity to do a little bit more exercise as well. And, yeah, that brought it back down to 6.0, and, yes, that was good enough for the doctor to say, okay, let’s try it now without medication and we’ll see how we go from there.

Dr Jedha, Host 13:45

That’s fantastic and yeah so really it just was a refocusing, like just being more mindful about what was going in, and at the time too, I mean, you were working a lot, you had your job that you had retired from was putting you under more stress. It’s probably likely for most of us under those circumstances also to get a bit lax. So do you feel like better now that that’s kind of gone out of your life as well?

Dean, Guest 14:26

Yeah, I think. So I look honestly, the stress that comes with things like that. You don’t realize it. As you say, you sort of retire and you feel like, okay, I’m slipping into this life, but oh, you know, I can easily jump back into work. And as soon as you do, you don’t realize how much stress is involved, even when most of the people I work with are very nice people, so they weren’t necessarily causing me stress. But it’s just that for months I didn’t have these timetables that I had to meet. Now, suddenly I’m making commitments to have something done by Thursday and you’ve got to work hard to get it done by Thursday. So I think there was a lot of stress and that, taken out, made it a lot easier too, I think.

Dr Jedha, Host 15:13

Yeah, that’s right. It’s so interesting, isn’t it, that when we’re in stress, we just don’t realize it often how much of an impact it’s having until afterwards, when we look at it in hindsight yeah, absolutely yeah, so that’s great. So you’ve got it down from 6.5 to 6.0 now and off medications. Hooray, finally off all medications now. How exciting it is.

Dean, Guest 15:40

It’s good. I’m really pleased with it. 

Dr Jedha, Host 15:41

That’s fantastic, and you’ve got out for all your medications now. And how long have you been living with diabetes, Dean?

Dean, Guest 15:50

Yeah, I was in my early 40s, Then I was around 40. So, yeah, it’s been between 20, 25 years that I’ve kind of lived with it. I lived pretty much that whole time with readings that were in the seven type range, the first ones that came in in the fives. It was almost like yeah. So yeah, this is a good turnaround after all that time.

Dr Jedha, Host 16:18

I have every confidence now that you have the tools and the skills to maintain it. And, as you know, before you kind of went into that stressful time with work and everything. You were maintaining levels you know 5.6, 5.7, 5.8. It was only that interim period there that things seem to have gone up. And you know, stress does affect our blood sugar levels too, so you’ve got to wonder how much of an influence that also really had on the actual numbers.

Dean, Guest 16:45

Yeah, absolutely.

Dr Jedha, Host 16:47

But it’s so good, Dean, that’s just awesome yeah.

Dean, Guest 16:50

I’m really pleased with it. You know it was so interesting whilst we were away. You know everybody asks about these things and you know you tell them oh yeah, look, I’m on this diet. And it really occurred to me how much people just see a diet as a weight loss tool and that’s all they see it as. So they would say to me oh, you don’t look like you need to lose any weight. How much weight are you trying to lose? And I said I’m not trying to lose any weight, this is for being a diabetic. And then they’ll say oh, so how long until you can get off it again. And so it, it’s funny. Just that word diet in everybody’s mind conjures up something that is for weight loss and short term rather than a whole lifestyle change.

Dr Jedha, Host 17:41

That is so interesting, isn’t it? Yeah, that we have a real mentality around that word, but really it’s just how we eat every day, and it’s for our health and well-being more than anything else. Yeah, yeah, I guess you would feel more confident now that you can well, that you know how to manage those levels better, that you know what to do, how, how the foods you’re eating are affecting your body.

Dean, Guest 18:09

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I think I’ve said this to you before that one of the other very interesting things for me personally was how much, by sticking to the diet and just working through all the different foods that were available, how much some of those foods that I’d never eaten in my life because I didn’t like them. I never liked a lot those vegetables and so on, but you, your body actually tunes itself to them and now I quite enjoy all of them there. There is nothing that we put on the plate that I go ah damn, we got this one tonight. Everything is enjoyable and that’s been quite a shock to me that I honestly didn’t think that you know a lot of things like cauliflower and broccoli and these sorts of things, that I’ve always hated them in my life. And if you’d told me two years ago that I would be saying, no, they’re delicious, I love seeing them on the plate now I would have said, no, you’re mad, it is crazy.

Dr Jedha, Host 19:11

I love that, Dean, that’s such a great insight and you’re so right. I think the body does tune itself. It knows it’s being nourished. You know, I think our body is intuitive, in the sense of it knows what it needs.

Dean, Guest 19:33

And look, it’s all a learning thing and I gotta say, even simple things like following new recipes is enough to make you learn, ah now, I never realized that vegetable does this, or it’ll taste like that, or if you boil it it tastes yuck, but if you do it this way it tastes really nice. For both my wife and I, there’s just something about learning all this new stuff that we both enjoy about it. It’s good. 

Dr Jedha, Host 19:51

So good, so good. I love stories like this. It’s just fantastic and all over, just how you feel and how you’ve now embedded those habits into your life. I mean, this is your new lifestyle now, and how much your health has improved out of that is just incredible. 

Dean, Guest 

Yeah, absolutely. 

Dr Jedha, Host 

And I wonder, Dean, do you recall why you got involved in the first place? All of us have things that motivated us, so what would you say your motivation was?

Dean, Guest 20:21

There’s probably multiple points to that, but probably the main point for me is I’ve never been someone who’s wanted to rely on medications to get me through life, and I probably inherited that from my mum. My mum is 85 now and she’s determined to keep off as many medications as she possibly can, so she looks after herself well to do that. So I guess the driving motivation for me always has been how can I look after myself better and not rely on the doctors to have to keep propping me up? And I think you know your thing came along just at the right time. The T2Diet has been fantastic.

Dr Jedha, Host 21:21

So here’s the thing: Yes, Dean did experience a dip in his journey at some point, that happens to all of us but Dean didn’t give up. He just refocused on his goal and brought his attention back into line with the goal of bringing his A1c back from 6.5 down under 6. And that’s the thing just to notice what’s happening and start being more proactive with what you can do. In the four months since Dean and I had last spoke, he got his A1c back down to six and the doctor finally agreed to take him off all medication, taking him off the metformin. So, after living with type 2 diabetes for over 20 years, Dean is now medication free, which is absolutely fantastic.

So Dean has been a member with us for the past couple of years and he uses our recipes, resources and support on a regular basis, on a daily basis, and that has been a big part of his success.

22:24

We all need reminders, good resources and support, because it can be very difficult to achieve our goals on our own, and what this whole story tells us is that even after 20 years with diabetes, you can significantly change your health. What we’ve also learned from this story is that in life, stress happens, or, as Dean said, life happens and sometimes life can overwhelm us without us realizing. That can impact the way we take care of ourselves because it disrupts our focus. That happens sometimes and that’s okay. Don’t let it lead you completely off the rails, but just use it as inspiration for a bit of a reset. We also have things in our environment that can impact us. The unhealthy foods that can be all around us but not be a great choice for us. But we know the temptations can be there and making a conscious choice to choose you can take time and attention, but it’s certainly well worth it. Another important message in all of this is you can change, but you need to be open to change. Like Dean said, he had never been a person who would eat vegetables, yet now he absolutely loves them and two years ago he never would have said that. I’ve seen this time and time again. Foods people thought they hated, they actually like once they know how to use these foods in creative and, most importantly, tasty ways. But again, if you want to reverse your diabetes, you need to be open to change, believe it can happen and take the necessary steps to support your body in the right direction.

24:14

Mindset and motivation are really so important, and Dr Doug J Moore and I spoke about mindset in episode 5, and I really would encourage you to listen to that episode because there’s so many great tips and strategies that you can implement. And then there’s motivation. All of us have some driving motivation, and for Dean, it was the fact that he wanted to look after himself better, to feel in control of his health, rather than relying on medications or doctors to prop him up as his head. So think about your why. What is your deep motivation for wanting to change, for wanting better health?

24:57

As I said, Dean has been a member with us for the past couple of years and that has been a big part of his success. Before taking our program, getting off medications wasn’t really part of his reality. Other people have experienced the same success by using our programs and getting the support from us. You only have to listen to episode 7, where Wilma shared her success, and we’ve got an update coming from her very soon as well.

25:24

Listen to episode 25 of the T2Diet Program success stories, where several people shared their incredible results decreasing A1c medications and finally shifting stubborn weight. This stuff is real and I’ve been so incredibly fortunate to have been supporting people to elevate their diabetes health for the past decade. All I can say is, if you’re inspired by any of this, come and join us over at DMP. We have incredible programs, resources and support to guide you on your road to a medication-free life, just like it has done so with Dean and many others as well. 

In the next episode, we’re going to be chatting about reversing prediabetes through proactive nutrition and health. 

Until then, take care. 

Dr. Jedha, over and out.