From Meal replacements to counting points and everywhere in between, you name it, and I’ve tried it! In 2009, it seemed my seven year old child, Ren, was doomed to struggle with the weight too. Ren was on a year-round swim team, soccer team, basketball team, took ballet and gymnastics but still weighed over 100lbs going into the 2
nd grade. And believe me, we quit buying sodas, candy, or anything that “caused cavities” after our four children had an $1100 dental bill a few years earlier. We were doing exactly what the doctors said we should do to “lose weight,” but it didn’t work.
When my blood sugar rose over 100, I looked at my family members plagued with diabetes on my mom’s side, and went searching for answers. I wanted to leave a better legacy for Ren. I had been “counting points” and starving myself on 800-1000 calories a day for over a year; walking an hour every morning, and just could not shed the weight I gained after having our fourth child. I knew there had to be something “wrong with me”. I could not lose weight, felt tired all the time and stayed hungry.
My husband, Jeff, a board-certified physician in family medicine and emergency medicine at that time, had no answers or suggestions. They do not teach nutrition in medical school. He was 50lbs overweight himself! My search found the Obesity Medical Association and I registered us both for the upcoming conference. Surely someone there could point me in the right direction! At the conference, I met a friend who gave me the DVDs for all the conferences going back to 2007. Everything I was learning was in stark contrast to everything I was doing to obtain a healthy weight. Seriously, almost everything I was eating was breaking down into glucose and I was storing it as body fat within an hour of eating it!
In the ten years of conferences that I have either attended or watched, the weight-loss specialists do not argue about why so many people are overweight; they all know why the “obesity epidemic” is out of control. Over 90% of overweight people have a disease called insulin resistance. We make too much insulin. We store carbohydrates as body fat almost as soon as it breaks down into glucose. Without significant dietary changes, insulin resistance can develop into type 2 diabetes.
There is no cure for insulin resistance, but it is controllable and I was able to get my glucose back to normal and lose the weight. Ren was able to get to a healthy weight too. At 15 years old Ren is 5’7” and about 135 lbs. But more importantly, that’s about 22% body fat. Ren is a lean, mean, goal-keeping machine!
When our family became healthier, people wanted to know what we were doing at the Hubacek household to lose weight and would write out menu plans for them. In 2010, I decided to open the clinic so that we could teach serious people that wanted to learn about insulin resistance and how to fight it. We fight insulin resistance with a low carb and keto-friendly lifestyle. We have seen hundreds of people not only obtain and maintain a healthy weight, but we’ve also seen them get off blood pressure medicines, insulin, cholesterol medicine and even antidepressants. We celebrate these accomplishments with them.
