Over the last four or five years I have acquired pain in my knees, inner hip joint, ankles, and more generally am much slower to heal than I used to be. I could barely jog any longer, and many CrossFit movements — and real life movements — were becoming excruciating.
Independently I noticed I was having the standard signs of high blood sugar in spite of being on a low carb diet anyhow. I am in my 50s, and it makes sense that my insulin production ain’t what it used to be.
At first I didn’t connect the two, but after a few months of noticing the high sugar signs it occurred to me that perhaps they’re related.
I hypothesized that even mild chronic excess sugars can lead to less efficient capillary circulation.
And, I reasoned, the first parts of the body to experience trouble with poor circulation should be the least perfused parts.
That in fact was the case for me: all my pains were in my tendons. Not joints per se, not muscles, not nerves. All from tendons, which are inherently poorly perfused.
So, at Christmas I decided to do an experiment.
I drastically cut my carbs & fruits almost entirely (like, to one strawberry per day). And even my usual meals were split and eaten in two parts separated by several hours, the idea being that it’s not about the total sugars per day, but about keeping them at all times within what my pancreas can accommodate.
Within even two weeks the pain in my tendons was at 30% of what it had been.
Now, two months in, the pains are almost entirely gone. I am now the lithe and limber athlete I used to be. I had begun to feel old due to the pain, despite being very in shape. The “release” from what I initially took to be “getting older” has been exhilarating!
And it should only improve, because I suspect these injured tendons are still in the months-long process of healing.
I’m a scientist, not a medical doctor, so perhaps this is all now well appreciated in medicine. (Supposing my hypothesis is right at all!)
But I do not think it is well appreciated among us laymen the extent to which sugars and carbs over time deteriorate us. It first hits your low-perfused spots, but later everywhere. And that includes your heart, your organs, your genitalia and sex life, and of course your brain.
[An added advantage is that I lost ten pounds, and, for example, my six pack kinda sorta is beginning to show (although it’s at best a two pack).
I also found that changing one’s diet for athletic mobility was so much more motivating than for aesthetics.]