Paul's Story

I am a 65 year old (nearly 66) retired Royal Air Force Officer living with my wife in Telford.

I retired in 2011 and have enjoyed what I considered to be a healthy lifestyle and in general was a fit and well person.  I was active and enjoyed a number of adventurous activities, including sub-aqua diving and skiing.  Furthermore, I was a healthy weight for my size and age and enjoyed a varied and balanced diet. My role in the RAF was that of a catering officer and my career has been in catering and hospitality management, having studied to post graduate level.  I love cooking and enjoy trying new foods, whilst I have a particular interest in Asian cuisine; especially Thai and Japanese.  I tend to enjoy savoury as opposed to sweet foods, but probably drank more than the recommended amount of alcohol.

After retiring my lifestyle changed and I became less physically active and put on weight without realising it, but I still didn’t feel unhealthy or experience any noticeable health issues.

Unfortunately, in 2015/16 family health problems resulted in my foregoing the active lifestyle and becoming more sedentary.  Again I put on weight but I saw no cause for concern when I went for my annual check up with the doctor, when, apart from a slightly raised blood pressure and now edging on the wrong side of being overweight, all was good.  Following the checkup I resumed a more active and healthy lifestyle/diet, working as a volunteer with an Outdoor Education Activities centre, which I enjoyed until the pandemic struck.  The resulting lockdown was disastrous in respect of maintaining my activity levels, as it was for other people.  Additionally, I turned to food as a means of filling my time and started cooking – overeating and enjoying too much comfort food without burning the calories.  Furthermore, stress, problems sleeping and drinking too much took its toll on my health.

In July 2021 I went to the doctors for a check up and was told I should try and lose some weight, become more active, monitor my blood pressure and find a means of reducing my stress levels.

I was called back for a further blood test in November 2021 and, after enquiring why as I had only had a test in July, and was not aware of any problems, the doctor informed me that the blood test in July had identified I was pre-diabetic and she wanted to check whether anything had changed.  To cut a long story short, this test revealed that I was no longer pre-diabetic; I now fell into the category of a type 2 diabetic, albeit just over the borderline at 50 mmol/mol (the cut-off from being pre-diabetic to diabetic is currently 48 mol/mol).  This led to me having a further consultation with the doctor to discuss the way forward.

At the consultation various options/possibilities were considered, ranging from medication, doing nothing and adopting a change in lifestyle; I chose the latter.  The doctor also suggested I look at a programme being run called X-PERT Health, an award-winning Expert Patient Education versus Routine Treatment portfolio of structured education programmes developed by Dr Trudi Deakin to help people self-manage their health and quality of life.  The programme is predominantly aimed at individuals who are pre-diabetic or have diabetes; I enrolled on the X-PERT Diabetes (Prevention & Management) course.  For anyone interested in finding more about this course the following is the web address for the organisations website: www.xperthealth.org.uk

I was fortunate that our surgery had bought into this programme and it was extremely easy to enrol.  From the outset the X-PERT Health team were extremely helpful and supportive and helped me identify the best and preferred way to meet my needs.  For various reasons I chose to undertake the programme online and was allocated a ‘consultant’ to work with me as I progressed through the course using the excellent handbook issued by the organisation. My consultant has had years of experience in dealing with patients with diabetes and has proved invaluable in my quest to put my diabetes into remission.  The course is extremely detailed and covers numerous elements of living a ‘healthy lifestyle.  In addition to enrolling on the programme, I also explored countless sources of reference to try and find out more about diabetes including the symptoms and treatment.  All the sources of information had common elements; lose weight, reduce stress, healthy diet, the benefits of exercise, keeping hydrated.  Using all the information, and after discussion with my consultant, I decided that in respect of diet I would try the low carbohydrate route.

My wife has been enormously supportive of me in respect of my anxieties and efforts to address my diagnosis and as a Christmas present bought me some recipe books covering diabetes, Keto and low carbohydrate diets.  One of these books has been written by Katie & Giancarlo Caldesi and is entitled The Diabetes weight-loss Cookbook – a life-changing diet to prevent and reverse type 2 diabetes.  This is an amazing and informative book which, along with a plethora of tasty recipes, provides their story of the impact of diabetes on their lives and how they have adapted and changed their eating habits.  In addition to the book, my wife purchased a place for me on two courses – Giancarlo’s Low Carb Lifestyle being run by Giancarlo at their restaurant Caldesi in Campagna in Bray on Thames and a shorter online course being run by Katie.  The course at the restaurant was an amazing, inspiring and unforgettable experience and included the opportunity to spend a day in Giancarlo’s professional kitchen, preparing, and then eating, some of his recipes with him personally.  Giancarlo is passionate about what he does and very approachable.  He is open and honest on what he has had to deal with and is driven to help educate others avoid the pitfalls and discover and understand the benefits of low carbohydrate diets in addressing diabetes; he is able to speak from experience and show that type 2 diabetes can be reversed.  Testament to how much I had enjoyed the course and the food, I returned to the restaurant that evening with my wife where I also had the pleasure to meet Katie – whose own online course, subsequently, was equally engaging and reinforced the fundamentals of what we had learned with Giancarlo.

For those reading my story, I can thoroughly recommend you have a look at the Caldesi website: www.thegoodkitchentable.com and the recipe books they have written.

Above I have tried to illustrate my own journey and experiences, whilst attempting to address my diabetes diagnosis.  I can’t say the journey has been easy and it has necessitated a number of changes to my lifestyle, however, it’s been worth the effort.  Between my diagnosis in November 21 and April 22 I have lost 2 stone 10lbs in weight and now sit within the healthy weight range for my age and size; I have also reduced my waist from a size 36 inches to 30 inches.  I have reduced my blood pressure, have increased my overall fitness level and have much more energy than before.  Moreover, and most importantly, when I went for my checkup and blood test in March, I was delighted to find that my HbA1C blood sugar reading had reduced to 38mmol/mol.  This reading potentially shows that I have succeeded in placing my diabetes into remission. However, I need to wait for a second reading (due to be undertaken in September) to verify this result has been maintained.  If the reading in September is below the identified pre-diabetic levels then it will be acknowledged that I have been successful in placing my diabetes into remission and removed from the diabetic register.

As previously stated, my journey has not been easy, and I have had to make a concerted effort.  It has taken time to measure and monitor my progress, but the results have been well worth the effort.  My lifestyle has changed and I feel much better for sticking with it, but I could not have done it without the support, help and guidance provided by the X-PERT Health team, Giancarlo and Katie Caldesi and their team, and my wife; thank you for everything you have done in helping me achieve success.