I quit being vegetarian after 20+ years because of my strong family history of diabetes and watching my aunts and mom struggle with it. It is no joke to have diabetes and it increases your risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke...not to mention nerve damage, including gastroparesis which my aunt had.

"Healthy whole grains" often aren't. Grains and beans can have huge carb loads, and subbing in whole wheat toast for white toast or whole brown rice for white rice does almost nothing to mitigate the huge carb loads those foods have. Beans are better than grains, and more nutrient-dense, but still high carb and not a whole lot of fiber to offset that.

Fruits very much vary, as PP said. Berries are great, apples are pretty good, tropical fruits like pineapples, bananas, mangos, or melons, are a huge amount of sugar for not all that much nutrition.

Exercise for sure -- and not just in a planned way; if you sit all day for your job make sure to get up and move around for at least 5 minutes every hour. Being sedentary the rest of the day can't be compensated for by exercise.

My experience:
Lifting weights is a huge help.

Increasing not just protein but really focusing on increasing fiber. (And when you do those enough, the carbs will naturally reduce. But the fiber is important regardless.) Included fruit with lunch and dinner.

Walking after meals - even just cleaning up around the house.

Anonymous wrote:Walking is great and better than nothing but you got to do cardio to get the heart pumping. Do 20 minutes. This will help you lose some weigh. Even 10% helps.

Reduce carbs and sugar. Increase protein

only cutting calories reduces weight.

Walking is great and better than nothing but you got to do cardio to get the heart pumping. Do 20 minutes. This will help you lose some weigh. Even 10% helps.

Reduce carbs and sugar. Increase protein

OP here. So much information! I am overwhelmed, but thankful for all the replies. Lots of research to be done.

If anyone knows of a nutritionist — or is it an RD I want? — to recommend in DC I would truly appreciate it.

Anonymous wrote:Fruits have too much sugar

Berries are your friends.

What worked for me:

1) Significant dietary changes. I had been a vegetarian for years and it was just too much starch (chains of sugar) for me as I got closer to peri. On an omni diet with a lot of protein my glucose improved.

2) Intermittent fasting, Dr. Jason Fung's Diabesity Code, YT vids, articles at The Fasting Method and his team's podcast by the same name have been hugely helpful. I used to eat frequently and sip coffee with cream all day. Spacing eating, cutting snacks and drinking only water between meals gave insulin time to fall and stay low.

3) Controlling sleep and stress, poor sleep drives hunger and snacking and impacts glucose levels.

4) A CGM gave me data that I could not ignore about how my body reacted to certain foods, to eating in the evening, to lack of exercise or poor sleep. Right now they are prescription only but this summer will be OTC. Even a few weeks can burst the "oh it won't hurt too much" delusion.

5) Walking after meals, even 15 minutes, walking stairs if it is raining. That little bit really helps manage glucose.

Good luck! If you have insurance coverage I'd definitely work with Virta or Level 2, their reversal results are very solid and they provide a lot of support and education.

Good luck! Reversal IS possible and you CAN do it! The link between early diabetes and Alzheimer's was super motivating to me.

My mother became pre-diabetic in her late 60s/ early 70s. My father put her on a diet of roasted vegetables and lean meat (fish, chicken) and got her outside walking twice a day. She lost 50lbs and got rid of the pre diabetes.

Anonymous wrote:Please educate yourself about diabetes. Sugar isn’t the enemy, carbs are. Carbs convert to sugar. Fruit and veggies are all carbs.
Obviously with a bmi of 24 you need to lose weight. Do that and your prediabetes should get better.
Eat a lot more protein.

BMI of 24 is not overweight.

Anonymous wrote:Fruits have too much sugar

It depends on the fruit.

Op, look at the glycemic index. Aim for low - mid GI foods.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please educate yourself about diabetes. Sugar isn’t the enemy, carbs are. Carbs convert to sugar. Fruit and veggies are all carbs.
Obviously with a bmi of 24 you need to lose weight. Do that and your prediabetes should get better.
Eat a lot more protein.

Once you become diabetic, carbs must be carefully tracked and maybe limited. Before that, fat is the enemy. A high-fat diet will lead to diabetes.

Wrong. Carbs are the enemy. A low carb diet (follow the diabetic diet and eat at most the amount recommended, ideally less) where you get your carbs from fruits and vegetables with most nutrition (ie Berries are high in fiber and lower sugar content than an orange and have more nutritional content). Pair that with higher protein and higher GOOD fats. Avocado and nuts are your friends. Fat is not the issue.
It's carbs and sugars.

Nobody tells a diabetic to avoid Good fats

Read more. Learn about fats in your diet before you become diabetic. OP is not diabetic yet so this is important information for her for after she reverses the prediabetes.

Basmati rice has the lowest glycemic index. More vegetarian sources of protein- lentils are great as are beans and chickpeas, and so many vegetables, if you don’t generally love vegetables, try them roasted or in a soup.

Fruits have too much sugar