Michèle has been one of our customers from the beginning of Eat by Alex. Learn how she uses the power of food, specifically Eat by Alex, to manage her diabetes.
Could you please start off by telling us a little bit about yourself?
I’m Michèle, I’m a holistic well-being coach. I am helping all the busy people out there that are constantly busy with everyone else’s sh** to take better care of themselves, that’s what I do as a coach. I’m pretty new on this journey, before I worked in the corporate world, as a leader of big teams for about 15 years, and I started my own business at the beginning of the year.
How has type 1 diabetes impacted your life and made you approach eating in a different way?
I’ll quickly explain what type 1 diabetes is, it’s a chronic autoimmune disease and this means that some cells in the pancreas are destroyed, and those cells are responsible for creating the insulin hormone. Insulin is responsible for bringing the glucose in the food that you eat, from the blood into the cells. If insulin is not produced, then you have to inject insulin. So that is something every person with type 1 diabetes has to do their whole life, there’s no cure for that. The only way you can deal with it is to manage it.
There’s a lot of different factors that define how much insulin you need and when you inject it. Factors like movement, stress, even how much you sleep, and what you eat of course. Really anything that goes into your body in terms of food, you need to know exactly what went into your body and how you react by insulin injections to kind of satabilize your blood sugar levels so that ideally your blood sugar levels are like the ones of a healthy person. That will keep you healthy for a long life.
Can you share a bit about Eat by Alex and how it fits into your lifestyle?
I’ve experimented all my life with food, sometimes more sometimes less. Specifically, a few years ago, I got to know plant-based foods for myself and experimented with that. And eating whole foods, eating plant based, in itself had a huge impact on my body.
My whole insulin need, how much insulin my body needs, went down drastically.
So I thought I want to stick with that. At the same time, I was working in a super demanding, really busy job. So I didn’t have time, honestly, to cook myself those healthy meals every single day.
So I could have gone to the whole convenient stuff and see what is out there, I think most people know what I’m talking about, but I was looking for something else. I was really looking and researching where in Zurich can I get something that could help me in a different way. Where can I get whole foods, plant-based foods, and then, it was in the very beginning of Eat by Alex actually, I found her!
I found Eat by Alex, and I was like woah! I was so excited something like this even existed and I tried it out. So I tried it out, at the beginning it was offered just as weekly packages so it was more like a “reset” for your body. And after eating Eat by Alex for one-week hands down I knew
This is the food I want to live on. I want to have it every day!
Also, as I told you before, as a person with type one diabetes, it's so important for me to know what goes into my body and especially the amount of macronutrients of carbohydrates. I need to know how much I eat of carbohydrates so I can adjust my insulin dosage. And that's the perfect thing about Eat by Alex, because on the website you can read the macronutrients of every single meal. I know exactly how many carbohydrates are in my breakfast, I know exactly how many carbohydrates are in my lunch, I know exactly how many carbohydrates are in my snack. And that's plus, minus the same every single day.
Of course, we're talking whole foods and we're talking natural foods, so sometimes there can be little variances. But overall I know exactly, this is the lunch and here's the insulin dosage. I need to inject myself for that. And that to be honest, this is a life changer, a big life changer for any diabetic. So I can highly recommend.
Overall would you recommend whole food and plant-based diets, and Eat by Alex meal plans, for other type 1 and type 2 diabetics?
Oh yeah. So I can actually say for anybody with diabetes, no matter if type one or type two, that fact of knowing the nutrients that go into your body is a big factor. Also eating whole foods because we are made of what we eat. Our blood is made of what we eat, our cells are made of what we eat. You want to be made of chocolate and chips? Yeah, partially, maybe! I'm not saying that I'm not eating that too but knowing when I eat whole foods and I eat plant-based and I get the base by eating Eat by Alex throughout the week, I know I have my 80% fixed. Then the 20%, I can also indulge myself in other stuff, so I also do that. But that's also the thing I love about it, the 80/20 rule. Go 80% all in, the best healthy food that you can get on the planet. And then the rest, it's up to you.
Has Eat by Alex impacted more than just your physical health, but mental health as well? Just knowing that you have food in your fridge that you can trust?
I even forgot to mention this one! I mean, this is just the amazing thing of it all. I don't have to worry at all about where to get and how to get my food. And I know, I will have all the nutrients. I know, and this is most important, it tastes amazing! And another really nice fact is I know I get all the variety.
So, eating the rainbow is something we've all heard of. And this is so important so that the body is nourished fully and hands down, I'm more the person that if I love one thing, I could eat that all day, every day. If I would cook for myself, probably I would cook for myself every single day, the same thing, or I would have the same breakfast every single day.
Knowing that every day I get a complete variety of food is insane. So, from that perspective, the whole planning got easier. And yeah, the whole impact of eating those really high-quality foods, no doubt this has an impact on all of your body. And I lost a little bit of weight too, so somebody might be interested in that as well.
Discover Michèle's universe online over here!
