Type 2 Diabetes Diet [Case Study]

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Yvonne is a client I’m working with right now who was needing help with her diet to lower a1c levels.

So I suggested we do a ‘live’ case study here on the blog. I will be helping Yvonne to implement some new dietary and lifestyle strategies and we will share what we’ll be doing and the results she achieves over a 6-8 week period.

This case study is a great opportunity to share a ‘real life’ experience of diabetes where we can all learn more about the different aspects of the condition, and also answer some important questions along the way.

Why Does Yvonne Need To Change?
She has basically been given an ultimatum by her doctor to lower her a1c or he will put her on insulin.

Here is what Yvonne says about that:
“I’ve just gotten serious about reversing this and not going on insulin. I’m 3 weeks in. I’ve got till the end of Aug to show the doctor I can do this. I’ll take any help right now. I need to figure out what works and I need a place to start.”

Firstly I just want to say that I love the motivation, sometimes we do need a bit of a kick up the backside to start getting serious about things, so good for you Yvonne.

Another thing is that type 2 diabetes can be effectively managed with diet and lifestyle. So our challenge here over the next 6-8 weeks is to lower Yvonne’s sugars and a1c levels, and hopefully we will also have a beneficial effect in lowering her blood pressure and cholesterol levels. We also aim to get her losing a bit of weight too

So let’s share Yvonne’s vital stats so we’ve got a starting point we can refer to throughout this case study.

Yvonne’s Stats At Baseline
Meet Yvonne

She is 67 years of age, of Puerto Rican decent, is a mother, gradmother and great grand mother (how wonderful).

Vital Stats

• Type 2 diabetic
• High blood pressure
• High total cholesterol and high triglycerides
• Depression and anxiety – Did you know that this often accompanies type 2 diabetes due to the influence of adrenal health and hormonal imbalances throughout the body.
• Insomnia
• History of diabetes in the family
• Suffers from back problems with substantial pain
• Weight 184 lbs / 83.6kg

Blood Sugar Numbers

• HbA1c=12 – this is the number she needs to work on bringing down.
• Her sugars are their highest at around 225
• Mostly they are under 200
• She does have epidurals for her back pain and when she has those her sugars go between 200-300+. (This is how stress can affect the body as having high cortisol – your stress hormone – also pushes blood sugar up)

Here’s a visual map of Yvonne’s initial blood sugars over an 11 day period.

Where to Next?

The next article in this case study series will look at a couple of days of Yvonne’s diet and we’ll start digging into what types of changes she might look at making.

We’ll also cover a few questions such as:

• A diabetes blood sugar levels chart
• Hemoglobin a1c results, what do they mean?
• Cholesterol levels and diabetes

And of course most importantly we’ll be covering things like:

• What to eat with diabetes
• Carbohydrates and diabetes
• How to get your blood sugars level
• and much more

Best of all we get to see this all applied to a real life case study (Thanks Yvonne) and we’ll get to share the results along the way as well.

There will be lots to learn and share so be sure to click here to subscribe to updates about this cases study series

And please feel free to leave your comments and questions as we go along

Jedha

Nutritionist & Health Coach

P.S. Be sure to share this case study with other people as well so they can follow along with us as well

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