Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Praise
Title Page
Dedication
Foreword
Preface
Chapter 1: What Is Type 2 Diabetes?
Chapter 2: How You Can Lose Weight
Chapter 3: What Should I Eat?
Chapter 4: Monitoring Your Blood Glucose Levels
THE RECIPES
Simple Breakfasts and Brunches
Light Lunches, Salads and Soups
Main Meals
Desserts
Appendix 1 BMI Chart
Appendix 2 Blood Glucose Record Charts
Appendix 3 Useful Websites
Appendix 4 Meal Planner
Notes
Index
Acknowledgements
Copyright
From the reviews of Reverse Your Diabetes by
Dr David Cavan
‘Inspirational [and] amazing . . . A bible for all diagnosed type 2 diabetes sufferers!’
11/02/15
‘I’d just found out I have T2 diabetes when I came across this book. It is absolutely invaluable . . . the author is extremely positive and so encouraging about dealing with T2. I thank my lucky stars I came across this book – it is my bible.’
29/12/15
‘If you buy one book this has to be it . . . [it is] an excellent book, very clear . . . if you have struggled with your diabetes as I have then put the past behind you and start again!’
26/04/15
‘ [A] Game changer . . . my husband read this book and has changed his lifestyle completely. His blood sugar levels have returned to normal in two weeks.’
07/12/14
‘This book is very informative, easy to read and understand, but most of all it calmed my sense of fear after being told I was diabetic. I thoroughly recommend this book and urge you to buy it, I am so pleased I did!’
10/05/15
‘This book in an absolute inspiration from the very first page . . . I can’t recommend this highly enough.’
18/09/15
Dr David Cavan MD, FRCP is a medical doctor who worked for 17 years as Consultant Physician at the Bournemouth Diabetes and Endocrine Centre, one of the leading diabetes centres in the UK. He has expertise in all areas of diabetes management, particularly intensive management of type 1 diabetes, dietary management of type 2 diabetes and the development of self-management education programmes. Dr Cavan has also been Clinical Director of Medicine at the Royal Bournemouth Hospital and Chair of the Education and Psychosocial Section of Diabetes UK, in which positions he contributed to the development of the National Service Framework for Diabetes. In addition, Dr Cavan co-founded the Diabetes Education Network, which supports diabetes centres across the UK and helps them develop structured education programmes. In 2013 he moved to Brussels to join the International Diabetes Federation as Director of Policy and Programmes. In this role he oversees a global network of programmes to promote improved care and education for people with diabetes as well as prevention of type 2 diabetes.
Dr Cavan is the author of Reverse Your Diabetes – The step-by-step plan to take control of type 2 diabetes.
What if you could not only manage your diabetes but actually reverse it?
In Reverse Your Diabetes Diet, diabetes expert Dr David Cavan shows you how to modify your diet to help stabilise your blood glucose levels for good. Based on the latest scientific research, this book explains the steps you can take to control type 2 diabetes and potentially reverse it. You will also find:
Dedicated to
Penny Cavan,
who taught me the value of real food
Most people say it is the intellect that makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.
Albert Einstein
What does it take to go against a dogma in medicine when the dogma is wrong? Let us be clear, type 2 diabetes can be reversed. The possibility of reversal is based on much rigorous scientific evidence, yet it is largely overlooked by many organizations in the field of diabetes care. This despite an exploding world-wide epidemic of type 2 diabetes. Not only is the number of people affected growing, but the age at which it affects them is decreasing. Type 2 diabetes in a teenager or even a child was unheard of a few decades ago, but is now becoming common place. When does the care and advice we give to these patients come under scrutiny? When do we admit that we were wrong?
New ideas do not develop because they just sound good. I mean, who would not love the idea of reversing diabetes? The advice needs to be backed by one very important thing: scientific evidence. Successful reversal of type 2 diabetes with lifestyle changes has been demonstrated in multiple studies. The uniting factor in all of them? Cutting carbs.
In my work as an obesity medicine physician and lipidologist at Indiana University Health Arnett, I see many patients who have successfully reversed their diabetes. The biggest barrier I see is that most people when diagnosed have no idea that it is possible. Reverse my diabetes? Get off medications instead of taking more?
In Reverse your Diabetes Diet, Dr Cavan addresses the barrier head on: type 2 diabetes can be reversed and here is how. Helping people understand the why and not just the how is paramount for a true lifestyle change. Much of the advice goes against the standard recommendations, but it is based on science. For this I applaud Dr Cavan. We cannot continue to recommend to people with diabetes that they eat potatoes and cereals and call juice a serving of ‘fruit’. Fat has not been the enemy in this disease; it has been the carbohydrates we replaced it with. This book, like its predecessor, Reverse your Diabetes – The step-by-step plan to take control of type 2 diabetes, changes the discourse.
Dr Cavan’s book does a fantastic job of walking the reader through the physiology of diabetes and provides sound advice on which so-called ‘healthy’ foods are actually anything but. The recipes provide a solid foundation to get started on a new, healthy lifestyle.
I encourage you not only to read this book but also to buy it for a loved one, friend or coworker who is one of the millions and millions living with this condition. Understanding that you have the power to take control of type 2 diabetes instead of it controlling you is the big first step. Enjoy the book and the new lifestyle which it will help you to begin.
Dr Sarah Hallberg, January 2016
Dr Sarah Hallberg is the medical director and founder of the Indiana University-Arnett Health Medical Weight Loss Program that has helped hundreds of patients reverse and prevent type 2 diabetes through low-carb and high-fat nutrition. Dr Hallberg also holds certification by the American College of Sports Medicine as a Registered Clinical Exercise Physiologist. She has a master’s degree in exercise physiology and has worked as a fitness trainer and instructor.
Since the publication of Reverse Your Diabetes – The step-by-step plan to take control of type 2 diabetes, further evidence has emerged of the links between certain foods and the development of type 2 diabetes. The harmful effects of sugar on the health of the world’s population has been emphasised by the World Health Organization, who in 2015 recommended a substantial reduction in sugar consumption. This was supported by many national and international bodies, including the International Diabetes Federation and Public Health England, who both adopted a policy to recommend that sugar consumption should be reduced to no more than 5 per cent of daily calorie intake. Turning such laudable aims into reality will do much to stem the rising tide of type 2 diabetes diagnoses in the UK and across the globe.
In the meantime, it is important to encourage people who already have type 2 diabetes to adopt a diet that will help them to achieve as near-normal blood glucose levels as possible, by eating foods that will help reduce their blood insulin levels and in turn reverse some of the changes that might lead to their developing type 2 diabetes complications.
Reverse Your Diabetes – The step-by-step plan to take control of type 2 diabetes presented the dietary principles that I advise in my clinical work to help people achieve better control of type 2 diabetes and the rationale for these principles – i.e. the ‘what’ and the ‘why’. This follow-up book begins with an updated summary of the arguments set out in the first book, to serve as a refresher to those who read the book some time ago, and to provide context for readers who have not read it – and who, hopefully, may develop a curiosity to read it in due course.
There then follows a recap on the blood-testing schedules that I recommend, with a focus on testing blood glucose immediately before and two hours after meals. I would encourage the reader to do this exercise each time you try one of the recipes – there is a table to record the results for each one. What I have aimed to write, therefore, is not just another recipe book, but a practical guide to how to use diet to optimise self-management of type 2 diabetes, which includes some new and tasty recipes to enable the reader to put these principles into practice.
Dr David Cavan, November 2015