Four Food Habits To Master Diabetes and Metabolic Health

As I am reading Peter Attia’s Outlive, every line is knocking at the door of my conscience and putting me and my appetite to the test. I train a lot and I have a huge appetite, but burning a lot of calories is no excuse to simply eat whatever food meets the eye.

True, ensuring the right balance of calorie expenditure and calorie consumption is crucial to maintain energy, to train safely and recover fast, but the line between eating the right amount and eating too much is a fine one to cross.

Dr. Attia makes it very clear that excess calories and the insulin resistance one develops due to poor dietary and lifestyle choices is literally the equivalent of signing a contract for an early death and/or a miserable life.

The advantage of being a diabetic is that I must have full control and mindfulness of what I eat, how it affects my insulin needs and my blood glucose levels. Wearing a CGM (Continuous Glucose Monitor) leaves no room for guess work. Eating food X causes blood glucose to do Y. When Y is the desired effect, you can keep food X in your diet. When that is not the case, you need to question the quantity and the quality of the food you’re ingesting, try to understand why that is causing problems, and do whatever it takes to tame that and prevent it from occurring at all in the future.

Type 1 Diabetes and Self-Responsibility

Being a diabetic entails a great responsibility towards myself because I see how my each and every food (and lifestyle) choice affects may health.

The more I learn about the brutal consequences of metabolic disfuncions on one’s health and lifespan, the more I put my own behaviours under close scrutiny. As a type 1 diabetic my pancreas does not produce any insulin and it is my responsibility to find the common ground with my organism in terms of insulin dosage and blood glucose levels. Being a type 1 diabetic means doing the math every day to figure out the right insulin dose for any given amount of food (yes, you can automate that process).

While I eat a very clean whole food plant based diet, there are still circumstances where everything that resembles food somehow finds its way to my stomach. Lately, I satisfied these bursts of appetite with big portions of “yellow light” foods (such as dried fruits, processed carbs like bread, and processed soy products). While these foods have a time and place in one’s diet they should not constitute the bulk of caloric consumption, high blood glucose and insulin resistance being the price to pay.

Wearing a CGM and reading tons about nutrition and diabetes I am fully aware of the negative consequences, yet for some odd reasons I still pursue the wrong path.

Until yesterday, I rationalised my behaviour and made peace with the damages I saw (spikes in blood glucose and higher insulin needs). Now that I know this is not only harming myself short term, but that it is the closest thing to putting my signature on my own death sentence, I have some strong reasons to be diligent.

If that sounds overly dramatic, diabetic or not, read Dr. Attia’s Outlive, it will persuade you just as it persuaded me.

One Strategy and Four Tactics for Mastering Diabetes

Moving forward, the goal is “simply” to get and keep my metabolic house in order. I know this can be done even with T1D because I already did it in the past and it felt great: >90% time in range, insulin needs cut in half and carbs intake nearly doubled. But I am still a human with all my fallacies, so here I am trying to straighten my path once again.

The strategy is to define some clear principles that are easy to stick to, and a system that minimises the friction and the effort required to stick to the plan.

For my principles I need not to look any further than Stoicism: its praise for simplicity and “eating only what is functional, and with no excess” is a simple enough statement too keep on the top of my head.
My system will involve three tactics designed to make it inevitable that I’ll stick to the plan. As stated in James Clear’s Atomic Habits, the first biggest step to remove a bad habit (food overconsumption) is to remove the cue. Hence, here are the three simple tactics to remove tempting cues and fuel my longterm metabolic health:

1. I will buy less stuff at the supermarket: I’ll simply buy less stuff. Fewer options in the kitchen shelf automatically eliminate the risk of eating more than necessary. I know that buying a loaf of bread with the promise of “keeping it for a few days” will naturally translate in me eating the whole thing on my way back from the grocery store.
   So? I simply don’t buy the loaf of bread. I eliminate the cue, I reduce the mental strain of having to resist temptation, and I do not over consume any food. It may require some willpower at the supermarket, but that’s all. Make the right first decision and the rest comes easy.

2. I will design my meal: if I want to control the intake, I simply put rules on my plate composition and do all it takes to respect those rules. 70% carbs, 20% proteins, 10% fats.
   For instance: a bowl with quinoa, some tofu and greens with flaxseeds. That’s the meal, in one bowl, and once I’m done with it there’s nothing else to eat. No extras, leftovers I might snack on, no additional temptations. Eat by design, not by default. Easy.

3. I will eat stuff that I must cook first: putting additional steps between buying and eating is also very helpful. While a loaf of bread is there, ready to be eaten as is, I simply can’t to the same with a bag of rice. I have to at least wait to arrive at home, boil the water and cook it. So I’ll simply buy more foods like rice (whole grains, pasta, and the likes), and less foods like bread (such as rice cakes, nuts or any other food item that constitute an easy snack).
   That’s enough friction to control your impulses. Actually, you (I) won’t even experience any craving, since the cue is not there at all to tempt you.

4. “Gone”: although it is a less tangible tactic, mindfulness is in our every action, arguably making it the most impactful one.
   In the context of food, mindfulness means that whenever the craving comes, and the food is there right in front of me, I simply take a step back and say “gone”. And the crave is gone.
   It can be hard at the beginning, and it surely took a few tries for me to get the habit ingrained and working, but once it becomes second nature it really helps controlling impulses. Bonus point: the “gone” muscle is a muscle that will naturally extend beyond the dining room. I have noticed that the ability to observe an impulse and simply letting it go is now second nature for me in many areas.
   For instance, I am less impulsive when I interact with others, or when I seek a distraction from some work. I am more kind and less responsive when I talk to people, and I can put some distance between myself and my phone during focused bouts of work.

In It For The Long Run

Long term health is nothing to give for granted. It’s a daily commitment, and as such it requires daily actions that compound on one another. As you know, I like to keep things simple, and I know these tactics will help me along the way, because they already did. It’s good to sit down and occasionally remind myself of what I am doing wrong or right, and then fix the wrongs and do more of the rights.

It’s an iteration, a daily “battle” that requires intentionality and discipline. But once the goal is clear and the system is refined, the effort can feel even enjoyable.

That’s it from me, but now I’d love to hear from you: what are you strategies for dealing with food cravings? Did you ever consider your metabolic health as an urgent issue to address?

See you next week!