November is National Diabetes Month and I ran into my current podcast segment quite by accident.  At a recent family gathering, my brother had the rest of the family in shock with the amount of weight he lost and how good he looked. He told us a story that really hit home; that his doctor told him his pre-diabetic condition was not heredity, but more related to the foods he was eating. Little did she know that he would go on a campaign that would not only change his life but also his diagnosis.

Diabetes has become almost epidemic in our society with even young children developing what is generally considered a disease of middle age. According to the American Diabetes Association, 23.6 million people in America have diabetes.  Chances are quite good then that each of us knows someone affected by it, and  many who have diabetes and do not even know it. Billy was one of the lucky ones because he went to his doctor and then took action to change his lifestyle to prevent the progression of the disease.

I wanted to present his story because he does not give the false impression that some of the changes he made were easy, in fact he goes to great pains to tell listeners that at first it was one of the most difficult things he ever had to do. It involved a change in mindset, that coactive dream thing, to begin to see the foods he thought he didn’t like as tasty and wholesome. He began being mindful of what he was eating and using the vision of the benefits to his family and himself as a motivator. And then, as time passed he could see and feel  the difference.

When you listen to him during the interview, as he describes his current eating pattern, he is not aware that to a great extent he is following what is called the “Mediterranean Diet” which is focused more on broiled and baked meats with heavy doses of vegetables and nuts.  A new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine where 10,000  women who followed this pattern of eating in their 50s were tracked,  has found that about 40 percent were more likely to go into old age without developing chronic diseases or experience memory or physical problems, compared to women who didn’t follow this eating pattern.

Billy outlines a great approach to make yourself aware of your current lifestyle by first beginning to keep a log of what you eat. Doing that removes all denial that you only had one cookie when you ate the entire box. Once you see what you have been consuming it helps to increase the motivation. And, to provide you with an idea of how you can adopt the Mediterranean Diet I’m providing a link to a site with recipes that are simple yet tasty. They are just a start because rather than being a diet,  it involves a change in lifestyle if you really want it to be effective. So take a moment and ask yourself:  “How far would you  go to save your life?”