Alice in weight-loss wonderland
In a quest to learn as much as she can about metabolism and the biology of weight loss, columnist Alice Dogruyol heads back to Combe Grove Health and Wellbeing Centre in Bath for the world’s first insulin optimisation retreat for type 1 diabetics.
CURIOUS TYPE 1 DIABETICS are an unusual cohort when it comes to health management because we have so much at stake. We must be incredibly in tune with our body’s requirements at all times to stay alive and we can never take a day off. My type 1 pals are the best biohackers I know.
Shockingly, two thirds of the UK’s type 1 diabetics are losing 100 days of life every year, which has not changed for the past five audits. Now, a new retreat run by Dr Ian Lake (type1keto.com) at Combe Grove in Bath hopes that a new paradigm of care, focusing on insulin optimisation, will start to reverse this horrific statistic.
What I learned about blood-sugar balance and fat burning during the week-long retreat at Combe Grove was mind blowing. I went in thinking I knew pretty much everything there was to know about diabetes: turned out I had a lot to learn. While the week was developed by type 1 diabetics for type 1 diabetics, much of the information we delved into is applicable to anyone, diabetic or not, trying to optimise their health and maintain a healthy weight.
The retreat was run by Dr Lake, himself a type 1 diabetic, who has spent the past 10 years looking deeply into the relationship between insulin, carbs and the body’s ability to use fat for fuel. Over the years he’s put all his scientific theories to test on himself and managed to transform his own health for the better. He then began sharing his approach with others also struggling to manage type 1 diabetes (T1D), achieving astounding results in people who were at their wits end and heading for major diabetes complications, which can include blindness, kidney failure, heart disease and limb amputations.
Dr Lake is now one of the world’s leading voices in type 1 diabetes management and is on a mission to change the lives of people with T1D. He is devoted to helping as many people get off the carb-o-coaster, which is how I playfully refer to my daily blood sugar spikes and drops, which can be lethal.
KILLER CARBS
I have gone through life assuming that carbohydrates are an essential macronutrient. Turns out that we only need two essential macronutrients to sustain human life: protein and fat. If I never ate another carb I would be fine as long as I had adequate protein and fat in my diet. This simple scientific fact was a revelation to me. Our bodies are elegant machines that are designed to adapt to using different energ y sources when required. Of course, th
