Diabetes Week: How low carb helped bring HbA1c down from 97 to 30

We’ve seen the Low Carb Program help people to perform some amazing feats. One of these successes has been with Michele Gladde, who has had an amazing turnaround in her diabetes control.
This Diabetes Week, we’re recognising the fabulous achievements of members of the Low Carb Program. In doing so, we look forward to inspiring others that diabetes control and a much better quality of life are well within reach through some very simple steps and a change in thinking.
Michele’s story is one of incredible success. In 2015, Michele had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes with an HbA1c at 97 mmol/mol (11%). This is roughly equivalent to having average blood sugar levels 15 mmol/l each day.
One of the problems with type 2 diabetes is that if it is able to progress, it can make it very hard to manage body weight and Michele found herself in the obese range when she was diagnosed. Michele was advised to follow the standard NHS dietary advice for type 2 diabetes which was to have a low fat and medium carbohydrate intake.
Michele states, “However, although my figures had come down initially they had started to climb yet again – much to my horror! This way of eating wasn’t working despite following it religiously and I was feeling constantly hungry and miserable.”
Michele is far from alone in her experience. Many people have struggled with the low fat dietary advice of the NHS and have been left feeling demotivated. Fortunately, there is another way, and Michele found it. On joining the Low Carb Program, things started to change, and quickly.
Michele adds, “What a difference it made eating low carb, healthy fat – no more hunger, so much energy. I also felt someone was walking alongside me on the programme and very quickly started to see amazing improvements in my blood glucose, weight and overall well-being. Quick results like this were also motivating.”
Within 11 months, Michele had got her HbA1c down to 30 mmol/mol (4.9%), which represents excellent, healthy control. This is roughly equivalent to having average blood sugars of 5.2 mmol/l each day.
Additionally, as Michele’s type 2 diabetes vastly improved, so did her body weight. In less than a year of following the Low Carb Program, her weight was down a BMI of 20 – well within the healthy range.
Michele had been on metformin and blood pressure medication when she started following low carb. Within the first 6 months of the program, she was able to come off all her medications and is going from strength to strength.
Michele reports that, “I’m now happily maintaining my non-diabetic figures, feel at least 20 years younger and have so much energy again. I have no plans to change my way of eating in the future, it works, it’s enjoyable and boy does it get results! I just wish I’d found out about it sooner.”
If you would like to follow in Michele’s footsteps, you can join the Low Carb Program too.