As you will know if you’ve been following my blog lately, I recently sent off some blood to MonitorMyHealth for a new HbA1c test. Normally, of course, I would get my HbA1c free of charge through my GP, but they rescheduled my quarterly check-up from last Friday (27th March) to early May. I had really been looking forward to seeing how much of a change there had been in my blood sugar after all my hard work over the last three months.
So I decided to go the private route – and paid for a MonitorMyHealth HbA1c test. MonitorMyHealth is an NHS partner and uses NHS labs for their tests, ensuring the results are reliable and consistent with my usual tests.
And the results are now in!
And they may shock you.
They did me.
Can you bear the suspense?
OK – drum roll please…
Wait I hear you cry – does that really say what I think it says??!!??
Did you really just hit 42 mmol/mol after 14 weeks!?!?
Yes, dear reader, it’s true! 42!
According to Douglas Adams – that’s the meaning of life!! 😝🤪 And for me, as a type 2 diabetic seeking diabetic remission, it really is the magic number! The answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42! It all makes sense now!🤣😂
You’ve no doubt gotten bored over the last few posts of me speculating on what my results might be. I had told you (many times!) that I wouldn’t be unhappy if I made it to under 60. As you can see from the graph above my previous test before December was back in March 2025, and I was at 59mmol/mol. At that point, diabetes didn’t feel urgent to me at all. I had no real symptoms other than my high blood pressure (we’ll come back to this in a later post!), so I didn’t take any action back then. So in my heart of hearts, I knew that I would accept a return to 59 or lower as a huge success. It took me 9 months to get from 59 to 79 so getting back to 59 in 3 months or so would have been a real achievement.
But I do like a good challenge – and I was quietly confident that I’d go beyond that. That I would even reach the “low 50’s”. But secretly, I was hoping to hit 48 mmol/mol. That’s the red line on the graph there, and that represents the barrier between “diabetic” (48 and above) and “prediabetic” (42-47).
Let me restate this so we’re clear – hitting 48 mmol/mol after a diabetes diagnosis, and retaining it for 6 months without medication, is considered to be “diabetic remission”. Since I’ve never taken diabetic medication – despite my GP pushing me for some time to consider Metformin – I only needed to hit 48mmol/mol and retain at that level or under for another 6 months and I would be in diabetic remission.
But I didn’t hit 48. I hit 42!! 42!!! Let me say it again for those in the back – 42 mmol/mol!!!!!
42 was my next target – after I hit 48 this time – or very near to it, I was going to set my sights on 42!
And I’ve hit it straight off the bat after just 14 weeks. That’s 14 weeks and 2 days to be exact.
But here’s another magic number for you – it’s 100 days exactly from my last test results on 23rd December to my new results which came in today!!!
100 days to diabetic remission!
I’m no longer technically diabetic! I am now just on the border of prediabetic!!! And literally only just!!! Describing me as prediabetic is really being very conservative and while it’s factually accurate, the reality is that I’m not stopping now. I still have more weight to lose, and still have hypertension / high blood pressure to address by losing weight and increasing my fitness. So I will certainly breeze through from 42 to well under 42.
I still have my follow-up diabetic check-in due on May 5th, and by then, I am 100% certain that I will be “normal”. No question about that whatsoever.
Easter is, of course, symbolically a time for renewal and rebirth, so it’s also incredibly fortuitous timing with Good Friday tomorrow. I literally feel like I’ve been born again! I’m sure you can probably imagine that I’m literally quivering with excitement today. This is everything I’d worked for and more than I’d hoped to achieve in such a short space of time.
But most importantly it’s a message of hope for other type 2 diabetes sufferers.
Often, doctors give the impression that this is a lifelong condition that is a long haul to combat. I’ve just demonstrated that it doesn’t have to be that way. Even after being diagnosed over two and a half years ago (July 3rd 2023), it is possible to reach remission in a matter of weeks! 100 days!
Of course, you don’t have to attack your diabetes quite as aggressively as I did. In many ways, I was ideally positioned to defeat diabetes. In the past I’d lost weight and improved my health on separate occasions through ketogenic diets (50lbs in 6 months), through intermittent fasting (60 lbs in about 9 months), and through exercise (70lbs in around a year).
I knew that individually, each of these approaches worked for me and could achieve great results. My thesis, which I’ve now proved beyond any doubt, is that by combining all three, I could effectively achieve remission for my diabetes in record time.
And here we are, 14 weeks / 100 days is all it took.
And as you’ve seen if you read my blog…that wasn’t 100 days of pure denial and pain. I found new snacks to make eating strict keto more enjoyable, including regularly eating my favourites for breakfast like bacon and sausages. I discovered a keto chocolate mousse to replace a more expensive shop-bought supposedly high-protein dessert, and made keto-friendly tacos.
I had blips and slip-ups – including a Christmas period where I allowed myself to fall off the wagon entirely and ate three Christmas dinners, with wine, and desserts! I allowed myself those little blips because I was so confident in my plan. I was easy on myself when I got ill and couldn’t fast or exercise. All it took was confidence in the plan, patience and persistence.
And here I am! I hit what is probably the single biggest target of this entire journey, and way ahead of schedule. 42 mmol/mol in 100 days from 79! It’s a legendary result and I couldn’t be happier. This journey started, as you may recall with a wake-up call on a business trip where I experienced my first symptoms of diabetic neuropathy – pain in my foot that lasted 18 hours. I immediately started making changes as a result of that one fearful night, and since then, my symptoms have been minimal – the odd tingle and numbness lasting a few minutes, nothing more.
I’ve now reached a point where I’m no longer diabetic, which means no more nerve damage! I’m done with that problem entirely. I mentioned I’d been diagnosed with the very earliest stage of diabetic retinopathy – which can lead to blindness – that disease is effectively stopped dead in its tracks now. No more damage, and my nerves have the time they need to recover. It’s literally a life-changing transformation. Potentially a life-saving transformation.
Anyway – on that happy note, I’m signing off for now, to bask in my success! 🥰
Wishing you all a fantastic Easter – I hope this festive weekend brings you the rebirth you dream of too!
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