My numbers are no longer pre-diabetic.
Jabber. When I last posted on the intermittent fasting I had not remember that I had never heard of it until Lil posted about your sister having such success.
I read up on it (mainly the versions they use in Great Britain--mainly 5/2--and I read a lot of Jason Fung the nephrologist in Canada (his clinic is in Scarborough, Ontario)who has a blog and there are a number of articles and talks by him online (youtube). A nephrologist I found out is a kidney doctor and I had not known that diabetes causes kidney disease which is how he got involved in fasting research. (( know I posted all this before...)
He puts his diabetic and pre-diabetic patients on intermittent fasting regimens. He also puts overweight heart patients on the regimen.
His clinic will work with distant-patients.
The science of the approach is fascinating to me. And I find that extending my period of time without food very much curbs my appetite, without a loss of energy. I am trying to walk 50 minutes a day and I am doing so most days.
I do not aim for a specified period of food without food. Rather I see how each day goes. At first I was strict. Then when I got used to it, I no longer craved food all day. And I eat when I am hungry. Some days I will have French toast in the morning (no butter on top, just to fry it, no syrup but a little sugar and then I am not hungry until dinner. I have no hunger during the day with this. In this sense it does not conform to Dr. Fung's principles because he suggests a 16 hour fasting period, at least, with 20 hours being better.
Dr. Fung does allow coffee and tea, but not with sugar or Splenda. (I cheat and use Splenda.) He does allow a splash of milk in tea or coffee because he writes that it greatly increases adherence among his patience.
I turned to this method in frustration because I had been going to a nutritionist for 2 years and had lost in that time 17 pounds. When I do this intermittent fasting I lose 1 pound a week, with exercise. But I can live with this.
Dr. Fung is against calorie reduction which he refers to as the C R A P. method (To go along with your eschatological metaphor.)
Ask your sister! I think she used the 5/2 method.
I read all of the time. It relaxes me
I read too. We must have 2000 kindle books. Almost all of them were free. The books that are out of copyright used to be available almost all of them with a free version. Now most of them still are, but some are 99 cents.
We have read with used kindles bought off amazon for the last 5 years. Now a vastly improved kindle is about $69 new. I get so much pleasure from mine.
Finally. In my area there are quilting and needlework classes through the adult education at the community college. Some towns have this in adult education. We have a quilting guild too. If this interests you, why not try? If you go so will I.