Problem of obesity and diabetes in world

The population of obese people in world increased from 10.5 crores in 1975 to 64.1 crores in 2014. In 1975 India ranked 19th in obesity in the world. Now we rank 5th in males and 3rd in females! There were 41.5 crore diabetics in the world in 2015. In India, prevalence of diabetes in the age group of people above 20 years is 8.7%.

Let's know first what obesity and diabetes is...

Why we become obese?

There are many factors responsible for obesity. These includes age, sex, genetic factors, lack of physical activity, socio economic status, eating habits, psychosocial factors, familial tendency, some hormones, alcohol, smoking, education, race and certain medicines.

How to know whether you are obese?

There are many indicators such as body mass index, waist-hip ratio, waist circumference etc to decide whether a person is overweight or obese. In this campaign we use a very simple formula for this.

Deduct 100 from your height in centimeters and you will get your maximum allowable weight in kilograms! It can be up to 10% less than this.

Hazards of obesity

Obesity is a disease itself and is also a risk factor for so many other diseases. These include cerebrovascular accidents, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, cataracts, fatty liver, gall bladder stones, sleep apnoea, arthritis, some cancers and irregular menstrual cycles.

Why Diet Plans Fail?

Diet plans keep you starved

Too difficult diet plans

Culturally alien diet plans

Diet plans that make you dependent on the expert

Costly diet plans

And most importantly, you are exploited by weightloss industry because of your mentality that ‘someone else will/can reduce your weight’!

Role of insulin in diabetes and obesity

Insulin secretion

Insulin is a chemical substance scientifically termed as hormone from a gland called pancreas in your body. It is secreted in two different ways. One is called as baseline secretion; in which pancreas secrete 18 to 32 units of insulin throughout the day. This secretion cannot be stopped as it is essential for survival. The other method of insulin secretion depends on food intake. Every time you eat insulin is secreted. It is expected that out of your total insulin requirement, half should come as baseline secretion and half from secretion in response to eating episodes. Whatever you eat, insulin is secreted. It is documented that whether you take less food or more a similar amount of insulin is secreted every time. This we label as individual ‘measure’ of insulin which is person specific. It can be 2 units for one and 12 units for the other. Once insulin is secreted or your measure gets emptied, it takes 55 minutes to refill it. Hence if you eat up to 55 minutes, insulin will be secreted only once. If you continue eating more than 55 minutes, then for every 55 minutes slot you will secrete insulin.

Functions of insulin

Insulin is a conserving hormone which is responsible for energy storage and processes of synthesis in our body. Every time you eat insulin is secreted. It takes care of the end products of digestion of foods that you consume. Surprisingly, though you eat dozens of food items, the end products are only three: glucose from carbohydrates, amino acids from proteins and fatty acids from fats. On an average we need energy to the tune of 2000 calories per day. 1gm glucose/ 1 gm protein gives 4 calories and 1 gm fatty acids give 9 calories. The cells of the body can use glucose or fatty acids for energy. The trillions of cells in the body except cells from organ like brain are happy burning fatty acids. Brain cells have preference for glucose. Glucose from the blood can not directly enter the cells as there is a lock on each cell, technically called insulin receptor. For glucose to enter the cells, insulin must open the lock of insulin receptors. Then only cells can get glucose. Brain cells are again exception to this as they can directly take glucose from the blood. The first function of insulin is to allow the entry of glucose in cells. Cells then utilize glucose and perform their functions. If there is some more glucose in blood, it is converted to a substance called glycogen in liver and muscles under the influence of insulin. Generally an adult would have 100gm of glycogen reserve in liver. If there is still more glucose in blood, then insulin converts this into fatty acids and stores in body as fats! Insulin converts amino acids into useful proteins and also stores fatty acids as fats in body. Thus it is a conserving hormone responsible for synthesis in the body. Insulin acts a switch to shuffle between use of glucose or fatty acids by the body. If high, body uses glucose and if low, body uses fatty acids as fuel. This is called as day cycle and night cycle in physiology.

Effects of hyperinsulinemia

Raised level of insulin, technically called as hyperinsulinemia, is responsible for many deleterious effects on our body. There are thousands of research articles published in medical journals that document these effects. These include hypertension, obesity, hyperlipidemia and importantly insulin resistance. Insulin resistance then results into type 2 or maturity onset diabetes mellitus.

What happens if insulin level goes down?

When insulin level goes down then first glucose from blood is used by cells for energy. Then glycogen is broken down to get energy. Then your fats are used for energy purpose. One must understand that to use fats for energy one has only one option and that is to reduce insulin level in the body. This can be done not by eating less but by eating less frequently!

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Simple Method to Lose Weight and Prevent Diabetes

It is clear that if you wish to lose weight and your protruding tummy, then the only way available is to reduce frequency of insulin secretion. Generally we feel really hungry only twice in the day. So the simple method to lose weight and prevent diabetes includes following suggestions:

Food items allowed in between two meals

Recommended exercise

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The recommended exercise in this lifestyle modification is to walk 4.5 Km in 45 minutes at a stretch for at least 5 days a week. Cycling and swimming for 45 minutes at a stretch are the other options. Other exercises like Yogasanna and weight training are other options.

Importance of getting HbA1C and fasting insulin tests done

HbA1C gives us the average blood sugar of last three months. Compared to fasting and post meal blood sugars, it is a more robust indicator of blood glucose levels. As most doctors suspect diabetes on the basis of blood sugars, around 30% cases of prediabetes are missed! Hence HbA1C is recommended in this lifestyle modification. When you are in fasting state, your insulin should be near zero. It should be at least below ten. In some countries a value above ten is considered as prediabetes. Make sure that your laboratory technician has understood the difference between fasting blood sugar and fasting insulin. It is likely that he may provide you results of fasting blood sugar rather than fasting insulin!

How to interpret the test results?

HbA1C up to 5.6 is regarded as normal. From 5.7 to 6.4 it is labelled as prediabetes and after 6.5 it is called as diabetes. Fasting insulin in healthy nondiabetic person should be near zero or at least below ten. More than ten is labelled as prediabetes in this campaign.

Dr. Jagannath Dixit's research papers on obesity and diabetes reversal

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FAQs

Habitually you are used to drink tea with sugar. It is a matter of only determination of 8 days! If you will drink tea without sugar for only 8 days, you will not like tea with sugar on 9th day!! So, try this.

Every adult with weight of 65 Kg has 13 Kg of fats in his body. That means he has energy stores of about 1,20,000 calories. On an average one needs 2000 calories every day. It means if you do not eat anything but drink water you will not die at least for 7 weeks! So do not worry about giddiness or weakness. As you are eating two square meals everyday nothing will happen to you.

Actually if you eat small meals frequently then you are more likely to get problem of acidity. Because the acid secreted in the stomach may not be utilized for that small amount of food. When you eat enough to satisfy yourself, the acid produced gets utilized and actually your acidity problem disappears. At least that is the experience of most of our followers.

Always remember that body prefers to burn glucose and fatty acids to get energy. Proteins are precious because if you lose more than one kilogram of proteins from your body stores, you will die! Muscles are made up of proteins. Your proteins are used for energy purpose only when your other sources are depleted. This can happen only if you starve for many days. As you are eating two square meals everyday in this diet plan, there is no possibility of losing muscles.

Eating when you are hungry is natural. If you eat when you are not hungry, you will face the problem of indigestion. If you do not eat when you are hungry, you will get acidity. In this diet plan we are not advising you to skip anything. Our advice is to eat twice in the day when you are most hungry. This is natural. If you are hungry at 8 am, have your first meal at that time. We do not have terms like breakfast, lunch or dinner. We have first meal and second meal!

There is no problem in following diet plan if you take medicine for hypothyroidism in the morning empty stomach. Continue as it is. All other medicines can be taken in first or second meal in the given time slot of 55 minutes. Consult your doctor so that she can adjust doses for and timing for you. If you get some serious health issue and have to take medicines for multiple times, then do not follow diet plan for a few days till you are alright. Then resume diet plan. Always remember that diet plan is for us and we are not for the diet plan! Make it sure that any sweet tasting medicines should be taken with meal.

The sequence of food items in your meal should be as follows: start with  fruit/dry fruit/sweet dish; then take salads, then sprouts/boiled egg/protein source, then take chappati, dhal, rice and vegetables. At the end you can drink milk. It is important to note that it is not necessary to eat all these food items in every meal everyday!

The beauty of this diet plan is that you can eat anything and everything that you like to eat! As a general principle, sweets and sugars are bad for health. Hence restrict as much as possible. Second principle is that everybody especially vegetarians should try to increase proteins in their meals. Keep this in mind when you are eating. There is no restriction in this diet plan about variety of food that you wish to consume. Our advice is to go for a balanced diet that has all ingredients like fruits, green leafy vegetables, other vegetables, salads, sprouts etc.