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- #2 Where Are You Now?
#2 Where Are You Now?
Tracking is not just for biohackers!
Andrew Scott
June 19, 2025
I’m So Glad You’re Here
This could be the start of something big.
Just before we dive in…
This issue lays the foundation for reversing type-2 diabetes. It’s longer than usual, but covers the essential ground you need to understand if you want to do this right.
If you're already confident in the basics, feel free to skip ahead. But if you're new to the science, or just want a refresher, stick with me.
Consider moving this newsletter into your main/focussed inbox so you don’t miss it and make sure to read the disclaimer at the very bottom.
And, if you thought this newsletter would be vague fluff and backdoor marketing … get ready to have your cynicism checked. 😊
You Can’t Control What You Don’t Measure.
As promised, let’s get straight to work. What’s the first task?
Figuring out where you’re starting from.
One of the biggest problems people face reversing their diabetes is doing things and not knowing if they’re working. By “working” I mean taking you towards reversal and doing so quickly enough to reward your efforts and get you out of danger. This doubt leads to confusion, kills motivation and you give up before you see progress.
To break this failure-cycle, you need to track your progress. Undeniable proof that your diet and lifestyle changes are working is the closest thing to “magical fairy dust” you will find.
To measure progress, you need to know your starting point. We will get into the details in future issues, but here is what you need to get started:
Thing | Why it’s needed |
|---|---|
Fasted glucose & insulin (same draw) | Calculate insulin resistance index |
Recent HbA1c | Used for diagnosis & tracking |
Finger-stick blood glucose monitor | Tracking daily progress |
Why do you need a fasting insulin? Aren’t blood glucose measurements enough?
Honestly, you can reverse your diabetes without ever knowing your fasting insulin levels and track it with just blood glucose results. If money is tight, or your doctor won’t play ball, that’s no problem at all - don’t be discouraged. Just skip the parts below that mention insulin and keep moving forwards.
I’ll show you exactly what to do with these below, in the Practical section and every way imaginable to improve them in future issues.
🧬 Diabetes in a Nutshell - Just the Basics
Blood glucose monitoring is a good start - but it’s only the start.
Your food contains two primary fuel sources: carbohydrates and fats. (There is also alcohol, but that should be minimal or absent). In a healthy state, you can digest, absorb, store and use these fuels correctly. In diabetes, the way your body stores, transports and uses these fuels changes. Some of the changes lead to health problems, including cardiovascular disease (heart attack, stroke, etc.), kidney disease, vision problems, painful nerve damage, infections, amputations, etc.
It’s a scary list, which is why we’re going to fix this.
Insulin is a hormone released into your bloodstream by your pancreas.
It tells your cells to open up little ‘glucose portals’ - called GLUT4s.
GLUT4s grab passing glucose from your blood and pull it in to the cell.
Before eating, we say you are in the “fasted state”. And when digesting and absorbing a meal, we say you are in the “fed state”.
When you have a meal, the sequence goes like this:
initially, you are in the fasted state between meals
you eat a meal with carbohydrates
digest this into simple sugars (we’ll focus on just the glucose for now)
absorb these sugars into your blood
blood glucose rises
your pancreas detects increased blood glucose
pancreas releases (more) insulin into your bloodstream
insulin triggers the cells in your muscles, fat, liver, etc. to take in glucose
glucose is cleared from the blood - so blood glucose falls
pancreas detects the fall in blood glucose and lowers insulin output
cells use the glucose they took in for energy and store some
you gradually go back to the fasted state
At a basic level, in type-2 diabetes, you have some combination of:
your cells not responding normally to the insulin - they are “resisting” its instruction to absorb glucose. This is called insulin resistance (IR).
your pancreas not producing enough insulin to force your cells to respond. Since it is the beta-cells in your pancreas that produce and release the insulin, and they are dysfunctional, this is called beta-cell dysfunction.
The result is higher blood glucose, both background levels (in the fasted state) and higher peaks after eating (in the fed state).
Let’s get back to the question we asked above: if higher blood glucose is the main effect of diabetes (and the only one your doctor seems to think about!), why bother measuring insulin?