Understanding disease is never an easy task. When I was first diagnosed in early 2014, the doctors made type 1 diabetes sound so simple to me. They told me that my beta cells were being attacked and that I will soon no longer have the ability to create insulin on my own.
Diabetes is not so Simple
At the time, I was very depressed when I went home from that initial appointment. However, after researching the hell out of the disease over the first 9 months, I came to find that T1D was anything but simple. Not only that, I came to realize that the mainstream doctors are only communicating one side the story to a majority of the T1Ds out there.
After I explored the alternative approaches to managing the disease, I came to realize that this is the path that I needed to take. No pills, no insulin, no shots, no doctors (except for an annual visit), just a mostly live plant-based diet and plenty of exercise.
Continuing Education – The Diabetes Summit
I always continue seeking ways to better educate myself on the disease in an effort to add value in my blog and help other people (even non-diabetics) improve their way of life.
One great educational forum that I was made aware of was the Diabetes Summit (website). I actually only came across this because my wife found it. She is very into a holistic approach to fighting disease, so she comes across things like this on occasion. The Summit is facilitated by Dr. Brian Mowll (website) who is known as “The Diabetes Coach”.
The definition from the site is “The Diabetes Summit 2017 is the premier event in natural diabetes prevention, management,
and care to help you discover the root cause of blood sugar imbalance, and set a path of change to enable your body to regain optimal health and blood sugar”.
Summit Structure
The program is structured to last one week and include 30 different speakers via video podcasts, so it was about 4 different videos per day for a week. A nice thing about the program is that it was actually free during the week of March 20 to March 27.
However, if you are like me, it’s tough to find the time to watch five hours per day of videos for a week straight. So, the site gives you the option for around $60 to just buy the summit and have access to watch it at your leisure. This is what I did, and I’ve been trying to watch one per night if I can.
As of today, I’ve only gotten through about 1/3 of the videos, but it has been eye opening. The Summit is focused mostly on type 2 diabetes, but there are many references to type 1 diabetics throughout the presentations.
Summit Topics
The topics run the gamut as to the different ways to help combat the issues of high blood sugars. The topics of the videos that I’ve watched so far include:
- A New Understanding of Insulin and Blood Sugar
- From the Trenches, Strategies for Reversing Type 2 Diabetes
- Using Detoxification and Clean Eating to Reverse Type 2 Diabetes
- A Parent’s Journey to Managing Type 1 Diabetes
- A Functional Medicine Approach to Managing Blood Sugar
- Autoimmune Disease and It’s Connection to Diabetes
- Using Naturopathic Medical Principals to Reversing Type 2 Diabetes
- How to Get your Sleep Right to Improve your Insulin and Blood Sugar
- Using a Raw Foods Approach to Reversing Diabetes
Number 9 above was a video with my boy Dr. Gabriel Cousens (Tree of Life Center), which is the gentlemen whose live food diet strategy has been the key to my ability in staying off of insulin. During the video he discussed his track record of getting 20-30% of the T1Ds that he treated off of insulin with a fasting blood sugar below 100. Absolutely remarkable.
Reigniting the Fire
Being involved and watching forums like this are an important ingredient to keeping me motivated to stay off of insulin and medication as a T1D.
Sometimes what makes life so hard is that I feel like I’m on an island by myself on this plant-based journey. When I’m in the comfort of my own home, it’s a lot easier. However, as soon as I leave my front door and jump into the real world, it’s a constant struggle of seeing nearly everyone around you eating steak, chicken, fish, sugar, dairy and other products that I know are detrimental to my ability to manage this disease insulin free.
You Vote with your Fork Everyday
One of the best lines from a Summit video that I watched thus far was “You vote with your fork everyday”. I truly resonate with this saying because I could curl up in a ball, pump myself full of insulin and eat the standard american diet (SAD) and go about my life and fit in a lot better with society.
However, I see this SAD lifestyle choice as only perpetuating the global epidemic of type 2 diabetes, not to mention many other SAD induced diseases. I think of my children growing up in this crazy toxic / GMO / sugar filled / animal-based protein society, and I just can’t buy in to supporting these SAD ways which are proven to be unhealthy and cause disease. This probably motivates me more than anything to continue my march down the lonely road of being a T1D off of medication.
Even if my kids grow up and choose to eat a poor diet, I’ll be damned if I don’t at least set a good example and educate them during their adolescent years of how to optimize their health because I know the schooling system and corporate media machine certainly won’t.
Conclusion
The Summit has been a great reminder that there a significant amount of people out there that know and seek the truth about how diet can affect and cure disease, and it’s great to see the top researchers in homeopathic medicine come together to educate the public and spread the word.
One of the videos mentioned that nearly 50% of the population either has, or is in the early stages of type 2 diabetes. Talk about an epidemic. This Summit can be useful for everyone, not just for diabetics, and I encourage everyone to check out this information and start yourself into a healthier lifestyle.
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