How to Reverse Diabetes and Lose Belly Fat in 60 Days
In less than two months, I dropped my HbA1c from 8.2% to 5.8% and lost 24 pounds by making targeted habit changes
Bob Wuest

Bob Wuest

Nov 21, 2020·14 min read
A fat belly hanging over a belt.
A fat belly hanging over a belt.
Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash

The title sounds like a bold claim, right? It’d be hard to believe it if I hadn’t done it myself. Here’s the story of how I did it — and how you can too.

On August 17, my doctor said one sentence that rocked my world: “You are a Type 2 diabetic.” Naturally, she prescribed diabetes-management drugs.

I was like, “No, thanks. Diabetes is a lifestyle condition. I’ll make lifestyle changes to reverse it.”

With the experience of someone who’s probably had this discussion more than a few times previously, she said, “That’s not likely.”

Hold my beer.

Less than a month later, on September 12, I had dropped 14 pounds and 1.5 inches of waistline. A second blood panel showed my triglycerides and LDL cholesterol had dropped to normal levels — for the first time in my life — and my HbA1c level had dropped — but still indicated diabetes. (It was at 8.0% against a normal max of 6.0%.)

On October 15, I had dropped another 10 pounds and two more inches of belly fat. My third blood panel showed that my HbA1c level had moved to 5.8% — within the normal range.

I had started at 194 pounds and was at 170 at that point. My target weight is 155, and so my journey continues. But here’s how I achieved these remarkable results within just 60 days.
When the Doc Said I Had Diabetes, I Was Floored

I exercised regularly. I’ve been regular with gym workouts throughout my adult life. I had been walking three to five miles three to four times a week for nearly two years and had walked 500 miles across Spain on the Camino de Santiago just 14 months before my diagnosis.

I ate healthy (or so I thought). I had refrained from regularly eating red meat for over 30 years because the generally accepted wisdom was it’s laden with fat — and thus bad for my heart.

I prepared dinners daily with mostly fish or chicken (baked, grilled, or occasionally fried in extra-virgin olive oil) and plenty of fresh, locally sourced vegetables. I cooked with loads of antioxidant-laden herbs and spices, like garlic, ginger, onions, turmeric, cumin, and coriander.

Rarely a day went by when I didn’t eat one or two of the wide variety of fresh fruits available where I live — in the Philippines. I avoided fast-food restaurants and rarely bought processed foods. Whenever a recipe called for sugar, I replaced it with honey — a healthier choice.

And yet, here I was — with an unmistakable marker of diabetes: an HbA1c reading of 8.2%.

When the doctor prescribed Metformin — a diabetes-control drug — I gave it not a moment’s consideration. I’m 70 and have always avoided maintenance medications. When a checkup indicated the presence of an abnormal condition, I’d research its cause and try to address it with supplements or diet rather than drugs.

Many maintenance medications are putting a Band-Aid on a disorder rather than correcting it at its source. And frequently, the side effects can be worse than the original condition.

The blood panel with my high HbA1c marker also showed a few items I had seen on my blood tests throughout my adult life: high levels of LDL cholesterol and triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol. I had avoided taking the statins prescribed by my docs and tried to manage this with diet — but nothing seemed to correct them.

Modern medical research has discounted the old myth that high cholesterol levels lead to heart disease and higher mortality rates, so I didn’t worry about it much. I had accepted the condition as hereditary, without giving it much thought. My doc now, though, referred to those numbers as verification of my diabetes diagnosis. I wondered if that was true.

On reflection, I knew the source of the diabetes problem. After walking the Camino de Santiago in 2019, I was at my lowest weight in 30 years. In the following nine months, I had gained 20 pounds — still, in my mind, on the high side of “normal”.

But in the five months before my diagnosis, the COVID-19 lockdown had had its way with me. I had spent long hours every day at my computer, mindlessly nibbling soda crackers or other salty snacks out of boredom. My gym was closed, and technically I was prohibited from leaving my home. I still walked in circles around the rather large lot where I live for three miles on most days. But eating from boredom and reduced exercise added another 20 pounds to my weight.

I had gone from a fit bod to a fat dad bod in just over a year.

This seemed more likely the cause of my diabetes.

Driving home from the clinic, my mind was racing. I formulated the beginnings of a plan on how to recover from diabetes: a complete withdrawal from sweets, anything containing wheat, and starchy foods like potatoes and rice. I had read about wheat belly years earlier but never could give up my hot bagels, fresh whole-wheat bread, or several other favorites — pasta, pizza, and Basmati rice with spicy Indian food. I resolved to research diabetes itself and the best means possible for defeating it.
What My Research Showed

It became very clear within an hour or two of researching diabetes that my lifelong appreciation of breads and pasta was surely a primary cause of the problem. The carbohydrates in food are quickly transformed into glucose in the body. Insulin — produced by the pancreas in response to eating — is supposed to metabolize that glucose so it can meet the body’s short-term energy needs. But with Type 2 diabetes, the body has become insulin-resistant. In other words, insulin can’t do its job, so the glucose accumulates in the blood and is stored in cells as fat.

A prime place where excess glucose is stored is in the liver. So the liver becomes fatty — and thus far less efficient at its job of metabolizing food. Fat around the belly pretty much assures that other visceral organs are fat-laden, too.

I gathered that the formula for beating my diabetes was pretty simple:

Minimize my carbohydrate intake to give my insulin a break and allow my body to become more insulin-sensitive again.
Drop the 40 pounds I’d put on in the previous year.

I was pretty certain I could give up breads, pastas, and sweets without too much trouble. Any other carb-heavy foods I should avoid?

Uh-oh. Some of my other favorite foods had to go: fruits, lentils, chickpeas, and beans. Oatmeal, granola, and milk. Quinoa, rice, and all other grains. Not only potatoes but sweet potatoes as well (the healthier option, I’d always thought).

Yikes. Without these staples, what was I going to eat?

I put that question on hold while I researched the best ways to lose weight and liver fat.

An item that popped up in my research seemed like a no-brainer to me: intermittent fasting. So I resolved to start 16:8 fasting after that night’s dinner. That’s 16 hours of fasting (say, from 8 p.m. in the evening until 12 p.m. the next day), followed by an eight-hour eating window (12 p.m.-8 p.m., for instance). Then wash, rinse, and repeat. Also, cue the internal monologue:

Intermittent fasting seems pretty easy. All I have to do is skip breakfast? Anyone can do that!

Hmm, can I really lose 40 pounds by simply 16:8 fasting and avoiding sweet, wheaty, and starchy foods during my eating window? How long will that take?

I fell asleep with those questions on my mind. And in the background: the issue of what to eat in place of all the staples I’d have to avoid.
The Next Morning

The following morning I had a Zoom call with a group of men I refer to as my Wisdom Council. The general purpose of the weekly call is to support one another through life’s ups and downs, week to week.

Since leaving the USA in 2010, I had lost touch with these and other men from my men’s brotherhood (The ManKind Project). Previously, I had sat in weekly face-to-face gatherings among these men for over ten years. Due to COVID-19, they had recently started holding their gatherings on Zoom and reached out to me to join them. Sitting with these men again in weekly circles was truly a redeeming aspect of the pandemic.

As I checked in, I mentioned my diabetes diagnosis.

Their responses blew me away. All three of them had struggled with weight problems, one specifically with diabetes. That man (Scott) gave me the titles of two books I should read immediately for answers to the questions I’d fallen asleep with:

“The Complete Guide to Fasting” by
Dr. Jason Fung
, M.D.
“The Keto Reset Diet” by Mark Sisson with Brad Kearns

When Scott had lost a bunch of weight to beat diabetes, it had been as a result of the information in these books. He had learned to do water-only fasts ranging from 24-72 hours in duration, combined with a low-carb, high-fat diet (LCHF) — generally referred to as keto.

He assured me that with a keto diet, I’d have plenty of yummy food choices to replace the foods I’d have to avoid. He also suggested I get a blood glucose meter and a ketone meter. I bought a glucose meter online later that day, but I couldn’t find a quality ketone meter here in the Philippines. (It turns out I don’t need it.)

I devoured the books Scott mentioned. Dr. Fung’s book was specifically targeted to readers with Type 2 diabetes. The book described how it’s possible to reverse diabetes and lose weight — quickly — with a fasting program and LCHF diet. But I’d never fasted for 24 hours or longer! Could I do it?

But wait. I’m getting ahead of myself. A bit more about what I learned from Dr. Fung, a practicing kidney specialist and one of the world’s leading experts on fasting as a means of recovery from diabetes and other chronic diseases. I’ll share my own interpretations rather than quote from his book.

The food pyramid developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1992 is at fault for a couple of things:

The obesity epidemic in the U.S. Quoting the Center for Disease Control: “42% of Americans are obese.” What’s worse: “From 1999-2000 through 2017-2018, the prevalence of obesity increased from 30.5% to 42.4%, and the prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7% to 9.2%.”
The diabetes epidemic. Quoting Diabetes Research: “34.2 million people, or 10.5% of the U.S. population, have diabetes. An estimated 26.8 million people — or 10.2% of the population — had diagnosed diabetes. Approximately 7.3 million people have diabetes but have not yet been diagnosed (2018).”
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Me: I have been a Type 2 Diabetic for over 20 years. Recently my Diabetes Doctor told me I should eat greens morning, noon and night, no sugar drinks or alcohol, no sugar, no salt and within a very short amount of time I dropped my Diabetes count to around 6.9 – however eating greens like a cow was rather hard after a while and I have strayed off that strict regime – with the expectation of returning to it when my Type 2 Diabetes starts to go up again