This article was written by fellow health coach, Michele Stamn a plant-based health coach at Wellness Empowered Plant-Based Health Coaching. Michele’s focus on helping people adopt a plant-based diet, as well as her previous work as a Physical Therapist, has given her a unique perspective on chronic disease. In this article, Michele shares all about diabetes and its connection to food and the way we live our lives. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 1 in 10 Americans have been diagnosed with diabetes and that number continues to grow every year. It’s time for a change! 

Written by: Michele Stamn

I absolutely LOVE a good analogy!  

Maybe it's just how my brain works, but thinking through an analogy often lands me in a place of way better understanding.

How ‘bout you?  Is it easier for you to understand concepts when they’re explained with a good analogy?

If that’s the case, today’s your lucky day!  Because I have a couple of good analogies for you…about Type 2 Diabetes.

Why spend the time on not just one, but two analogies about Type 2 Diabetes?  Well, because it's a BIG PROBLEM in our country today!  Just how big of a problem?

According to the CDC, more than 37 million Americans have diabetes (that's about 1 in 10 of us), and approximately 90-95% of those people have Type 2 Diabetes.

And approximately 96 million American adults have pre-diabetes.  That's more than 1 in 3 of us.  That's right, that's more than 38% of American adults! Yikes!

So even if you don't have diabetes or pre-diabetes yourself, you're gonna wanna keep reading…because you almost surely know someone who does.  

My grandfather had Type 2 Diabetes when I was a kid.  I remember hearing him turn down desserts because they contained too much sugar - his body couldn't handle the sugar because of the diabetes.  

For many, many years, that's how I understood diabetes to work - as long as you don't eat sugar, you don't have to worry about your diabetes.

Actually, I think that's how many people still think about diabetes.

But what I've learned while studying to become a plant-based health coach is that the story is actually quite a bit different than that.  

And here's where my first analogy comes in…

Think of a keyhole on a door.  It's meant to accept a key so that the key can enter it and do its job - unlock and open the door so that you can get inside.

But what if someone stuck gum into that keyhole?  The key wouldn't be able to get into the keyhole then, right?  The gum would prevent the key from doing its job, which means the door would remain locked and closed, and you would remain outside.  There wouldn’t actually be anything wrong with the keyhole or the key; gum would just be getting in the way.

That's pretty much what happens inside your body if you have Type 2 Diabetes.  

Stick with me here…

In this analogy, the “key” is insulin, which is trying its darnedest to get into that “keyhole”, so that it can unlock the insulin receptor and open the “door” so the glucose (sugar) can get into the body's cells to do its job once inside.

But if you have Type 2 Diabetes, your insulin receptors are “gummed up” with fat, mostly the saturated fat found in animal foods.  This fat then prevents the insulin from being able to do its job of entering the “keyhole” and opening the “door," leaving the glucose stuck outside of your cells, circulating through your body, and causing your blood glucose (sugar) levels to rise.

So just like removing the gum from the keyhole would solve our problem in the above analogy, removing the high levels of fat from your diet should be able to unclog the insulin receptors, allowing the insulin to then properly do its job of ushering glucose into your body's cells, right?

RIGHT!  More and more studies are showing us just that - when people with Type 2 Diabetes make the shift to a low-fat plant-based diet, this is exactly what happens inside their bodies. 

Amazingly, this allows many of these people to completely REVERSE their diabetes, to the point where they can then DISCONTINUE their diabetes medications completely - under their doctor's careful guidance of course.

Now, I can't take credit for that gum/key analogy, as I have heard many doctors explain Type 2 Diabetes in this way.  But this next analogy is all my own.  I thought of it when I broke my arm in early 2021.

When my arm was first broken, I quickly learned that if I avoided moving it at all, it didn't hurt.  But just because it didn't hurt, that didn't mean that I didn't have a problem, right? The underlying problem remained - my arm was still broken. 

So I did what was required to heal.  First I rested, then I faithfully went to physical therapy and did my exercises.  My broken bone healed, my range of motion and strength were restored, and my arm doesn't hurt anymore.  NOW my problem was truly solved.

That's pretty much what happens inside your body when you have Type 2 Diabetes.

Again, stick with me here…

In this analogy, if you have Type 2 Diabetes and make the choice to avoid eating simple carbs and sugary foods altogether, you'll be able to keep your blood glucose levels low. But just because you can keep your blood glucose levels low, that doesn't mean that you don't have a problem, right?  The underlying problem remains - your body still cannot properly use insulin to usher glucose into your cells.

But what if you did what was required to heal?  What if you shifted to a low-fat plant-based diet?  And that fat then dissipated from your cells?  And then your insulin could actually start working again, doing its job of ushering glucose into your cells?  THEN your problem would truly be solved.

Not that you'd want to just resume eating all kinds of simple carbs and sugary snacks all the time, but if you no longer had Type 2 Diabetes, you COULD enjoy those things on occasion.

Boy, I wish I knew this information when my grandfather was still with us!  I would've loved to have helped him with all that I've learned about the super-effective ways that a plant-based diet can heal our bodies and so often can even REVERSE Type 2 Diabetes as well!

Does this sound like the approach that you’d like to take, to TRULY HEAL YOUR BODY from Type 2 Diabetes?

Or maybe you have pre-diabetes and you don't ever want it to progress to Type 2 Diabetes at all. 

Either way, it’s time for you to try shifting what you eat so that you can control your Type 2 Diabetes or pre-diabetes with food instead of medications!

You really CAN stop this problem in its tracks.

I’ve seen this happen multiple times now. 

For most people with pre-diabetes, their next trip to the doctor typically reveals full-blown Type 2 Diabetes.  But for those who make the shift to a plant-based diet, their next trip to the doctor reveals blood glucose and A1c readings that are completely back into the normal range!

And yes, even if you already have Type 2 Diabetes, there’s an extremely good chance that you can achieve those same kinds of results, getting your blood glucose and A1c readings completely back into the normal range too!

Wouldn’t that be great?!?  Instead of resigning yourself to a lifetime of Type 2 Diabetes and all the devastating side effects that come along with it, I highly recommend that you give plant-based eating a try and start creating your own health. Your WELLNESS, EMPOWERED BY PLANTS!

If you are struggling with diabetes, or pre-diabetes, or want to help a loved one with either, Michele can help! Or if you are looking for support to reach your other health goals through a plant-based diet, Michele can help with that, too! Connect with her below.

About the author: Michele Stamn has been helping people achieve their wellness goals for over 30 years as a physical therapist, and now does so as the founder of Wellness Empowered Plant-Based Health Coaching. She helps her clients tap into the transformative power of plant-based eating to improve or restore their health, changing their lives in ways they never dreamed possible. And she makes it doable, delicious, and fun!

Connect with Michele and Wellness Empowered on her website here or on Facebook here.