I was working as a technical writer, stuck behind a desk all day and constantly sleep-deprived while racing to meet project deadlines. I’d known about my prediabetes for a while, but I didn’t really take it seriously—it felt more like a background warning than a real problem.

Still, I’d managed to drop my weight from 310 to 250 pounds over the last four years. That weight loss journey got serious when the pandemic hit; I realized my obesity was keeping my body in a constant state of inflammation, which meant I was at much higher risk if I caught the virus.

Here I was now in mid-April 2024, seeing a new, more serious threat to my life and health. I sat at my desk and thought about the results -- this was not what I was expecting. I wasn’t sure what to tell my wife, Alicia, so I didn’t mention the lab results until after my appointment with my internist, not wanting to scare her without having heard what my doctor would say. Immediately, I started reading about diabetes, what to expect, and what, if anything, I could do about it. I scrambled to learn what I didn’t know.

While learning more about diabetes and how I could manage it, I read that type 2 diabetes remission is possible. I was encouraged when I read the book by Dr. Roy Taylor, a pioneering researcher in the UK, “Life Without Diabetes: The Definitive Guide to Understanding and Reversing Type 2 Diabetes.” His short book gave me hope and provided critical insights I so desperately needed. So, I decided to start looking into more about diabetes remission.

When I Googled “diabetes remission,” one of the first results caught my eye because the word “Prolon” showed up in both the title and the description snippet. I’d already done a few rounds of the Prolon fasting mimicking diet (FMD) over the past year, a 5‑day boxed meal program designed to mimic the effects of a prolonged water fast while still letting you eat, mainly for its longevity and cellular “clean‑up” benefits like autophagy (your body recycling damaged cells). I clicked through and discovered that L‑Nutra Health was offering a Diabetes Remission and Regression Program centered on doing a 5‑day fasting mimicking diet each month, specifically formulated for people with diabetes, and it seemed to include almost everything I might need to be successful. Their program bundled L‑Nutra Health FMD boxes shipped to my home with telehealth visits, lab monitoring, regular sessions with a registered dietitian, and ongoing support across the year‑long program.

At my physical exam on April 23rd, 2024, my internist diagnosed me with type 2 diabetes, based on my lab results for HbA1c and fasting blood glucose. Although I’d done research and had time to prepare for this possibility, I was still shocked to hear him say the words out loud. He prescribed metformin and told me to come back in three months. I mentioned that I was planning to sign up for the L-Nutra Health diabetes program, but he didn’t know anything about it.

During my drive home, all I could think about was what I was going to tell my wife and daughters.

What was at stake

Like a lot of people, I hadn’t been in a rush to get healthier. I’d lost over 60 pounds since 2020, and I kept telling myself that as long as I kept losing weight slowly, I’d eventually move out of prediabetes and get back to normal. The diagnosis of type 2 diabetes threw a wrench into that story. From what I’d read, I figured I was looking at losing roughly a decade of life expectancy on average, plus facing a higher risk of complications like heart disease, vision loss, foot problems, and neuropathy. If I just took the medications and followed standard instructions, I wasn’t sure where I’d end up—but I knew it was time to get even more serious about my health and to do more for myself.

My daughters — Nicole (33, a hairstylist), Claire (30, a campaign manager for a city council member in San Jose), and Laura (42, a librarian in Santa Barbara) — were concerned when I told them. I let them know I had a plan and that I was going to sign up for the L‑Nutra Health diabetes program. But what I was really thinking about was something I hadn’t said out loud: I didn’t want diabetes to be the reason I might not be around to watch my daughters get married, have kids, and for me to become a grandfather.

My wife, Alicia, and I have built a great life together, working hard in tech and raising children over 35 years of marriage. I didn’t want to become a husband whose health was yet another burden she had to carry. I wanted us to share a long life together and actually enjoy the future we’d worked so hard for.

My diabetes remission journey

After seeing my doctor and talking to my wife and daughters, it was time to get serious about trying to achieve diabetes remission. I was already familiar with Dr. Valter Longo’s trials on the fasting mimicking diet (FMD) for longevity and cellular clean‑up processes like autophagy. Now I started digging into his research and related studies using FMD with people who had type 2 diabetes. What convinced me to join the L‑Nutra Health diabetes program wasn’t just the mechanisms—autophagy, cellular regeneration, “metabolic reset”—it was the actual patient outcomes in people with type 2 diabetes: real reductions in HbA1c, meaningful weight loss, and medication reductions. Real people, not mice. The research wasn’t just a future promise; it had already been translated into a program I could enroll in and start right away.

The L‑Nutra Health program isn’t a miracle cure or a vague internet promise. It’s a carefully designed nutritional intervention that systematically supports the work of reversing diabetes. That distinction mattered to me. A lot of people make promises online, and a lot of programs are competing for your attention with the “one answer” they claim you need. Based on my prior experience with Prolon and my reading of Dr. Longo’s work, I felt confident that the L‑Nutra Health diabetes program was worth my time and effort.

On top of the science behind it, what most attracted me to the L‑Nutra Health program was the offering itself. The program includes quarterly visits with a telehealth lifestyle physician, monthly sessions with a dietitian, regular blood work, a smart scale, and a monthly 5‑day fasting mimicking diet—all bundled into one program, at a cost that struck me as reasonable. What L‑Nutra Health provides is structure, accountability, and support—the kind of clinical scaffolding that’s hard to get from a rushed fifteen‑minute appointment.

L‑Nutra also publishes outcomes from their diabetes program and presented real‑world patient results at the American Diabetes Association’s 2025 Scientific Sessions. In that cohort, participants saw meaningful HbA1c reductions, lost several kilograms on average while preserving lean mass, and the majority were able to reduce diabetes medications within six months. That data set my expectations. What happened for me ended up exceeding them.

To enroll, I had to get lab work to confirm I was eligible for the program and then be cleared by one of their telehealth physicians. By the time those follow‑up labs came back in May 2024, I’d already been trying to lose weight, move more, and clean up my diet—and the numbers showed some early progress. My HbA1c had dropped from 8.1 to 7.2, and my fasting glucose had come down from 177 to 126. Better than April, but still clearly in the diabetic range.

I was ready to start.

The actual work

I started the program in May 2024.

When I began my first fasting mimicking diet (FMD) cycle, I met with the dietitian, Ashley Bizzell, that week. Because I was already familiar with the FMD approach from my earlier Prolon experience, the mechanics weren’t new. The FMD package provides everything you need for the five days: nutrition bars, soups, crackers, vitamins, omega‑3s, and a glycerol drink that helps blunt hunger and ease the process. Of course, when you drastically reduce your calorie intake, you get hungry—and I did. What surprised me was that, for the most part, I’d forget I was hungry. My stomach wasn’t churning; I just quietly knew I was in a deficit and craving food.

What the five‑day cycles actually did—beyond the metabolic benefits—was break the automaticity of seeing food and eating it, whether I was hungry or not. By the third month, I’d stopped automatically reaching for the refrigerator door or wandering into the pantry to find a snack. The hunger became something I noticed rather than something that controlled me. One of the benefits of these FMD weeks is that you get a chance to become more mindful of your body, your hunger, your cravings, and how much longer you can actually go without food than you might have thought.

Between cycles, my eating shifted. Breakfast was usually savory oatmeal with vegetables and an egg. Lunch and dinner became salads, chicken or fish, more vegetables. I cut back a lot on carbohydrates without eliminating them. I also started walking after most meals—at least fifteen minutes—to help with digestion and blunt post‑meal glucose spikes.

Ashley, the dietitian, was phenomenal. We met regularly for half an hour, usually during a week when I was on the FMD. She’d teach me something new about how to eat better, move more, and understand the lifestyle changes I needed to make. Ashley was great at encouraging me, and we’d talk through how I was feeling about the process, any concerns I had, and anything that wasn’t working. Having someone who knew my case in detail and was reliably there if I needed her was important for my success.

By August, it was time for my next blood tests. I was a few weeks late getting to the lab, so by the time I had my blood drawn and met with my lifestyle physician, Dr. Jeffrey Pierce, I’d been on the program for about three months. He was excited to share my new numbers. My HbA1c was now 5.5 and my fasting blood glucose was 116. As I listened, it started to sink in that an HbA1c of 5.5 wasn’t just in the diabetes remission range—it was even below the range for prediabetes, a number I’d hoped to see someday, but not this soon. I was thrilled and shared the news with Ashley and my family.

The lifestyle doctor told me my HbA1c was now in the non‑diabetic range and that I could stop taking metformin. I’d been on it for less than five months.

Knowing I could stop metformin was liberating. Instead of settling into the usual chronic‑disease script—a lifetime on medications—I was drug‑free. That felt amazing.

I continued the program for another nine months, adding to my knowledge, improving my metabolic health, and gaining confidence that I could maintain my new success.

In February 2025, the lifestyle doctor congratulated me on the progress I’d made with the FMD cycles. In May 2025, at my last scheduled visit with him, he said, “Your HbA1c is now normal, off metformin. That’s amazing!” I’d completed the twelve‑month L‑Nutra Health Diabetes Remission Program.

The biggest moment, though, came almost eight months later.

In October 2025, I went back to my own internist—the one who’d diagnosed me eighteen months earlier—for a follow‑up. I was caught by surprise when his nurse took my blood pressure, updated my records, and then asked if I wanted an HbA1c test right there in the office, with results in a few minutes. I hadn’t had my HbA1c checked in many months. I was nervous, but I said yes. Then I waited.

When my doctor came in, he showed me the result—5.5—and congratulated me.

It wasn’t until I got home and looked at my after‑visit summary that I noticed something else. My doctor had updated my medical record. Where my diagnosis had been “type 2 diabetes mellitus,” he had now written “type 2 diabetes mellitus resolved.”

That felt good in a way that’s hard to describe. I don’t think he had really believed I was going to achieve diabetes remission—certainly not so quickly. By the formal definition the American Diabetes Association uses in its Consensus Report: Definition and Interpretation of Remission in Type 2 Diabetes, diabetes remission means an HbA1c under 6.5% sustained for at least three months without diabetes medications. I’d been there since August 2024. A year later, my own physician had quietly written it into the chart.

I’d achieved remission in four months. I’d been off metformin for over a year. The medical system that had told me I had a chronic disease had now recorded that I’d reversed it.

Here’s what the numbers looked like at each major checkpoint across the journey:

I’ve been off all diabetes medication since September 2024.

Why this worked

After achieving this major milestone, I spent some time thinking about why it had happened so quickly. During those first three months I lost only 14 pounds — from 255 down to 241 — and I didn’t think that modest weight loss alone could explain moving from type 2 diabetes past even the prediabetes range.

I realized it wasn’t the 14 pounds by themselves that made the difference. It was the L‑Nutra Health diabetes program itself — the underlying research, and the support structure wrapped around it.

The program gave me structure, tools, and support at a cost I could justify. Four telehealth visits with a lifestyle medicine doctor. Regular meetings with a dietitian. Quarterly blood work so we could see exactly what was changing. The chance to meet and ask questions of Dr. William Hsu, L‑Nutra Health’s Chief Medical Officer. And between dietitian visits and the fasting mimicking cycles themselves, I actually put into practice what Ashley taught me and what my own reading reinforced: better food choices, more movement, better sleep, and more deliberate attention to what my body was doing.

I might have figured out a path to remission eventually if I’d tried to do this entirely on my own. But the L‑Nutra Health program made getting there much easier — and much faster — than I had imagined.

What I still do

I still do periodic FMD cycles. I still walk after meals. I still eat oatmeal with vegetables for breakfast most days. The work isn’t dramatic anymore—it’s just what normal looks like now. I track my glucose occasionally with a CGM, more out of curiosity than concern. Between April 2024, when I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and now (May 2026), I’ve learned to be more intentional and mindful about what I eat and do. Staying in remission will probably always be a challenge, but I have the tools and knowledge I need to keep going.

The latest

As of my latest blood test on May 14, 2026 — just over two years after my diagnosis — my HbA1c is 5.6 and my fasting glucose is 95. The fasting glucose, which was 177 the day I was diagnosed, is the lowest it’s been in this entire journey, and it’s comfortably in the normal fasting range. I’m still in remission and still off all diabetes medications. The numbers move a tenth or two between tests; that’s just normal biological variability. Day‑to‑day fasting glucose can naturally swing several points even in the same person.

The work of staying on this side of the diagnosis isn’t dramatic anymore. It’s just what I do now. Over these past two years, I’ve become passionate about learning everything I can about diabetes, metabolic health, nutrition, and exercise. And I’ve been thinking a lot about what I can do to help other people achieve the same kind of remission that I’ve been able to experience.

My daughters — Nicole, Claire, and Laura — don't bring up my diagnosis much anymore; these days our conversations are about ordinary things, not test results. That's its own kind of victory. The fear I carried out of that internist's office in April 2024 isn't part of our family's story the way it could have been.

What’s next

I stepped away from technical writing in October 2025 and have been spending most of my time researching and planning how I might be able to help others. If you’re newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, you most likely spent some time in prediabetes first. Your healthcare practitioners may have expressed concern but offered limited guidance on how to make real lifestyle changes. With a type 2 diabetes diagnosis, the alarms are louder and more urgent to respond to—instead of hitting the snooze button again. The time to change is now, not later, especially because remission is most achievable in the first few years after diagnosis.

If you’re newly diagnosed, don’t give up and accept the diagnosis and the prescriptions as your destiny. You can find your own path to diabetes remission. Based on my experience, I strongly recommend taking a look at the L‑Nutra Health diabetes program and seeing if it might help you too. If you were diagnosed within the last five years or so, your chances of remission are higher, but even if you don’t reach full remission, you can almost certainly improve your health and often reduce your reliance on medications. Talk to your doctor, talk to L‑Nutra Health, and see what’s possible. Don’t settle for your current status quo.

In upcoming newsletters and notes, I’ll share more about the science of fasting mimicking diets, how to read and interpret your own lab work, what I’ve learned about resistant starch and glucose control, and other insights and tips to help you start your own journey toward better health and a longer life.