Dan Sodergren

Welcome to Diabetic Dialogue. I'm Sandra Ewers and we are on Women's Radio Station today. And I would like to welcome Dan Soderbrud to Women's Radio. Dan recently took part in ITV's Fast Fix diabetes show in June with Dr. Zoe Williams and Professor Gill. And Dan is going to tell us about his journey with type 2 diabetes. Welcome, Dan, to Women's Radio Station. Oh, thanks very much for having me on. You are very welcome. Now, Dan, tell us about how all this came about. How did you get involved with the show? I know you were one of the volunteers. Tell us all about it. Yeah, well, I was very, very, very lucky. It's an amazing amount of luck actually for me because I'd only been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I'd probably had the condition for quite a while actually, had a lot of the different symptoms, but Because I had spoken to my doctor about a different condition, which was the onset of early dementia, which is linked to type 2 diabetes. We'd run some tests and he'd stumbled into the fact that I had type 2 diabetes. I literally went back and he said, well, you must probably haven't got early dementia, even though there is a link, but you've definitely got type 2 diabetes. Wow, that was a very good find, wasn't it? Because obviously you didn't have dementia. You were very lucky there. So, you know what I mean? And lucky at the same time. Yeah, exactly. I mean, when I tell people the story, that's exactly their reaction, which was, you know, for me personally, I was very happy because I didn't have— well, they weren't 100% sure about the early dementia. We're doing a few more tests on that side of it. But for me, and that was the biggest pain point for me, that was my worry. But for them, for them, it was almost like a side note that, well, you've got the symptoms for it, let's do some tests. Oh no, you definitely got type 2. And I was like, okay, well, that's fine. And they said, well, you're gonna have to go on metformin then because that's what you need to do. Because that's what you do next. And, you know, don't worry about it, it's a chronic disease or condition, but you'll be able to manage it with some drugs, so don't worry about it too much. And I was like, well, it's interesting you say that, Doc, because I looked online and it kind of said the opposite. It said that it wasn't necessarily a chronic disease, um, it was very worrying to have it and some huge complications because of it, and I should, and I should do something about it as quickly as possible. And of course, one of those things was reading about all the work that that Professor Roy Taylor had done and Jason Gill and other people that had shown you could potentially reverse or certainly put it into remission types of diabetes with diet and exercise. Right. So did you— may I ask, did you take the metformin? No, I never took metformin. No, I went back to the doctors 2 weeks later. It was a brilliant moment of NHS moments because I'd taken up my 2 or 3 minutes talking about not having early dementia. They couldn't book me in again for another 2 weeks. You know, you go over that kind of time allowance and they say, well, this will be for a different session. So in that time, I'd actually found out about Jason Gill's work and also a variety of other people's work, you know, Dr. Michael Mosley and all sorts of folk that have reversed type 2 diabetes with diet and exercise. And so when I went back to the doctors, I kind of told them about all this stuff and said, well, actually what I'm going to do, doc, is I'm going to reverse it with type 2— I'm going to reverse my type 2 diabetes with diet and exercise. So I don't need to take metformin, and nor will I. I'm going to give it a go this way. Because of what I do as a job, I teach people digital transformation. I teach people how to use social media and blogging and all these different kinds of things. That's my proper job. I'm still self-employed, still my own business, but that's what pays the rent and the rest of it. I'd actually written a blog, and that's how they found out about me because I put this blog on LinkedIn. And the research company or the producers or whatever, they found me through LinkedIn. So that's how I stumbled in part being part of the show. Wow, a good find. So what actually happened— Yeah, it was only by luck. So you were— it was an extreme diet, wasn't it? I know that you were taking 800 calories a day in the form of sort of shakes. Tell me all about that. It was an extreme diet. Yeah, it wasn't— how can I put this in a positive way? Well, the positive thing is I reversed type 2 diabetes. So that's the positive. It wasn't necessarily something that I would recommend everyone do, right, ever. It wasn't a— I've now learned an awful lot more about the process, what it does, and, and the work that Professor Roy Taylor and other people have done is absolutely right. It reverses type 2 diabetes, and it does so very quickly, but it's not necessarily the most pleasurable of human experiences. I can imagine. Yeah, you're starving yourself, technically. You're going into starvation ketosis rather than metabolic ketosis. Your listeners will know ketosis is when you start burning away the fat. When you burn away the fat rather than burning away sugars, what really happens is you lose weight very quickly, and it's that weight around your pancreas and other organs, it's that ectopic fat as it's called, the stuff on the inside that certain people get a lot. Myself included, and because, I don't know, because it disappears from you because you're burning it away, and that's quite a painful process. It's not an enjoyable process. Of course. And you were— were you monitored by experts? Sorry to interrupt you there. Were you monitored by experts while you were doing this? Because I know that you stayed in like a particular house for 4 weeks. Is that correct? Yeah, we stayed down in Brighton, a beautiful multi-million pound pad down in Brighton, and it It certainly proved to me that you can have all the money in the world, but if you're not well, it doesn't make any difference because you can't really enjoy all these nice housing and all this other stuff we were staying in because actually I was in quite considerable amount of pain because of having to starve myself. Because it is literally— it's not quite starvation. Starvation would be anything under 600 calories, so it's technically not starvation diet. It's not fasting either. It's a bizarre mixture of the two. Which works to reverse type 2 diabetes, but as I say, it's quite a painful process. For us, there was— well, how do I put it? We had to have medical people there. We had to have daily checkups. We actually had hourly tests that we would fill in. At one point, we were doing blood tests every couple of hours just to monitor the situation. Yeah, it wasn't a normal setup. Right. And I think I even saw you monitoring urine. So if anybody's eating whatever they're eating right now, sorry, but there was a time when you were like monitoring each other's urine to see if there was sugar in that. What was that experience like? I have to ask you. No, I think, I think to be fair, what my friends and lots of other people remember about the show is definitely the smelling of the wee, uh, is what they remember, uh, which is interesting. Luckily for me, again, it's bizarre luck, um, because I'd had a back complaint and because of, um, because of how painful the process was, I I was going through. I was kind of bedridden at that time. And I didn't know that when Zoe Williams and some other people were turning up, that that's what they were gonna be filming. And so I'd had to kind of bow out of the filming for that day. But that meant that everyone else got to smell my wee and I didn't have to smell theirs. Oh my God, that's an experience. So, yeah, Luke still hasn't forgiven, one of the contestants still hasn't forgiven me about, if you do know. Oh goodness. So, now with these 800 calories, obviously because you were eating so little, You didn't do any exercise at the time, did you? You were just sort of like— A bit of both. The first 2 weeks, because remember we weren't eating anything, there were shakes. So in the first 2 weeks you drink an awful lot of water and you have these shakes and you have them every couple of hours and you have 4 a day, which is round about 800 calories. Sometimes it might go down to 600 because of timings, but we were still doing 8 or 10 hours of filming a day as well. So we weren't bedridden and we weren't not moving, but in the first 2 weeks, because of the energy depletion, you're not meant to exercise, right? That's because you can't, you can't do it. That's a very powerful journey for you. And did everybody— so what, how did you feel when you were doing it? Did you think, I can— were there any times that you felt you might give up? Yeah, no, I almost came home a couple of times. And one of the things that— because obviously you're making a TV show as well, so one of the things that they didn't allow you to do is to FaceTime with your family, right, because of the amount of changes that happen. Also not to give away the changes, so to speak, right? And you obviously couldn't see your family. So, and my family is, I'm sure like most listeners, is very important to me. So that was a, that was a kind of a heartbreaking thing, not being able to see my daughter Mia because she's only 7. And so, you know, she's going through a wonderful time of her life and I wanted to be there. So that was my reason to want to come home. Also the fact that you get very, very cold— and it's not a very pleasurable experience. We were quite lucky because in the retreat there was 5 of us going through the same thing. It was almost a kind of war mentality where we were like a little mini family and it was us versus— we say us versus the world— it was us versus normal food. You could actually support each other. I like that. Yeah, I think that's good. If you were going to do it and if I was going to do it again, I don't know if I would do it the way they did. Remember, we were making a TV show. You know, you're under certain parameters to do it, and I don't know if— I've heard from, and I've read through lots of different tests that people can do this at home, and believe me, my hat goes off to anyone who can do this change at home and also work at the same time, because I would have found it impossible to work because of the amount of headaches and pain I was in. No, I understand that. We're going to take a short break right now, and we're going to come just take a short 5-minute break, and we will be joined once again by Dan Soderlund, who will be telling us about his Fast Fix experience. So do join us after the break. Thank you very much. WRS, Women's Radio Station, voice of women worldwide. Sarah's Universal Soul Show. What does your soul or spirituality mean to you? Welcome to Future Classical Woman Awards with me, Stefania Passamonte, on Women's Radio Station. Welcome back, I'm Russ Kane. You're listening to In Conversation With on Women's Radio Station. I'm Angie. 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Women's Radio Station is a not-for-profit community interest company supporting women Health is our passion. We're currently welcoming donations to help towards our running costs to keep this important initiative alive. To donate, simply head to our website. Every little will help. Welcome back to Diabetic Dialogue. We're on Women's Radio Station today and we're joined by Dan Sodergren, who's telling us about his experience on ITV's Fast Fix Diabetes show, which went out in June. Welcome back, Dan. Ah, nice to be back. Right, so we've just been talking about, um, obviously your experience there and everything that you went through, and for our listeners now, look, you were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes last year, so what symptoms did you have last year? Well, the symptoms I had had, actually, say I bumped into it. We were— I was kind of almost misdiagnosed. I was diagnosed because I'd gone for, uh, the, the early accept of Alzheimer's and then actually dementia. So it had to do with mental fatigue and the kind of fogginess that I was going through and my memory going. And of course, that's because, as they explained to me since then, it's to do with your high blood sugar. Obviously, it rots you from the inside out, unfortunately, with type 2 diabetes. And it'd actually been going through, and I'm kind of proud of it in a weird way, it'd been going through my brain. So because I've been using my brain so much, because I was so clever, that's what I like to think. I wish I was clever. Yeah, well, to be fair, I'm not anymore. Because it's gone through my brain an awful lot. You know, 25% of glucose to your brain as well, so it's going to affect your brain. And that's what type 2 diabetes— type 2— have been doing. It's been triggering potential dementia. Other things have been obviously, you know, being very, very tired, drinking all the time, uh, you know, going to the toilet, um, at nighttime, you know, just lots of, um, joint pain. I'd also had a lot of leg pain, start— the start of neuropathy, as it's called, you know, start of pins and needles in my legs. Lots of weird and wonderful stuff had happened. Right, so I can understand all that. I mean, I had the same symptoms last year, which I did ignore. I've got to say this, listeners, for about a few years, I thought I was going through the menopause and they were menopausal symptoms. So if you do get any of those symptoms, do go to see your GP or a health professional. We're just putting it out there. And just remember, listeners, this show is about type 2 diabetes today. It's about listening to Dan, hearing about his journey. And this is not about type 1 diabetes, how Dan reversed his diabetes, and it's type 2 that he reversed. So if you've got any other issues, do go to a health professional. Dan, um, did you— on the Fast Fix show, you had to do, um, get back into eating. So how did you do that? Well, that's one of the things that I found kind of the most interesting out of all the experience. And because I had like 6 or 7 months off, I could change my relationship with food. And I must confess, I'd never really been into health until I got ill. Now I've managed to turn it all around. One of the ways that I've managed to do this, and again I reiterate what you were saying before, this is just type 2 diabetes. This is just how to reverse type 2 diabetes. It's not necessarily healthy. It's just the way that we did it. That's low-carb versus no-carb. For me, a low-carbohydrate diet, and I know there's lots of people doing this, like the low-carb program, some great work by Dr. Unwin and loads of folk that are now understanding this now and the science behind it. It's that low carbohydrate, high fat route. That's what's worked for me personally, and that's how I've changed my relationship with food. Before, I was eating a tremendous amount of beige carbohydrates, which as you know, turn into sugars. Then I was eating quite a lot of sugar at the same time. Of course, as you know, type 2 diabetes is about having high blood sugar. There's a common sense to not doing those things. The other one that I hadn't done enough personally is I'd never slept a lot, and I'd never really drank a lot of water. That's another key for me personally for reversing my type 2 diabetes was sleeping more and drinking more water. Then the last one, which is part of the 3 keys which are in the book that I've written, the 3 keys, the last one's around exercise and changing my relationship with exercise. I'd been going to the gym a lot, but actually as Jason Gill and Dr. Zoe Williams pointed out, for me at the time with type 2 diabetes, that route probably wasn't working. Instead, what I should do and what I do now is I exercise, but I exercise little and often. So I exercise for 10 minutes every hour rather than going to the gym and doing an hour and a half and then the blood sugars go down and I eat something bad for myself. So I've changed my relationship not just with food, but also with exercise and water and even sleep. That's a really good message and it obviously has worked for you. Now, as a result of— I know as a result of the show, you've actually created your own retreat, so to speak, called Be Free of Type 2 Diabetes. Can you tell us more about that, please? Well, yeah, I mean, it was inspired on what we've done in the thing. I mean, I didn't realize— I'm going to be completely honest with you— I never realized how big the problem with type 2 diabetes was until I got it. Yeah. Until I kind of went, got to look into it a lot. Until they did the scan on me and they worked out my liver fat was 27.2%, you know, liver was 27.2% fat, which is basically going to kill me. Yeah. And I didn't know any of this stuff until I went on to this, went on to the program. Because it basically changed my life and actually saved my life, the work of Professor Taylor and others literally saved my life. I decided that I would give up my pension pot, cash it in early, and launch this organization, which I've launched, which is called Be Free of Type 2D. There's the website, www.befreeoftyped2d.co.uk. What we're thinking of doing is doing retreats very similar to what we did at the Fast Fix Diabetes, and taking people away for an amount of time to reteach them and reprogram their bodies, but also reteach them about their relationship with food. And that, that's my big thing really, is it's all very well I was kind of talking about what people need to do, but if you can't show them what they can need to do, you can give them the whys all you want, but you have to show them how, you have to show them what to do. And that's what we'll be doing on these retreats. That sounds very interesting because it obviously is guidance, that's what people need. And I know it's not one size fits all, I've probably said this already today, it's not one size fits all everyone, it's, it's about choice, how you choose to reverse your type 2 diabetes. My choice was I did take metformin, my blood sugar was very high. I did take the metformin, but I also went on a lifestyle change and lost a load of weight, and I feel better for it. So that was my choice. I was going to say, whatever you choose to do, it's obviously about you, but you must have support from the professionals. So obviously you're saving money for the NHS. I mean, it could save them save the NHS a lot of money. I know they spend millions on fighting diabetes and obviously for medication and supporting patients. Do you think this could help with it? Well, the actual figures, if you look at it, range between like £10 billion a year, and I'm not joking, not a million, but £10 billion a year, up to when you look at the complications, etc., it's up to £23 billion. So £23 billion is, you know, something like 20, maybe 27% of the actual whole budget. If you look to what they could do if they did this, they could save— and we were working this out on the BBC when I was talking about it— it's between £5 and £10 billion a year you could save if you only helped 50% of the people with type 2 diabetes. The research that's coming back is showing that with lifestyle changes and other changes, you could most probably help between— and something I believe as well— you could change between 70% to 90%. It's much higher than 50%. You could actually save the whole NHS. Just by changing the way that the 4 million people that have got type 2 diabetes in this country— and it's rising sadly rather than dipping— you know, look at their bodies and what they do. And I think one of the key things that I've learned is that we've got to try to take control of our own bodies again. And as you say, you're absolutely right, it is a choice. But one of the things I don't think is a choice, and I get very told off about this, is— and it's only because it's based on some of the scientific proof— is that, that people who are people who are overweight or obese are much more likely to get type 2 diabetes. One of the first things you need to do if you want to reverse it is you need to lose 15% of your body fat. Losing 15% of your body fat or your body weight, that's one of the hardest things to do. We did that very quickly. I don't know if that's necessarily the only way of doing it. That 15% is actually quite a golden rule. The first thing you need to do if you've got type 2 diabetes lose 15% of your body fat, your body weight. Obviously, talk to health professionals as well. But I think nowadays, the modern medicine approach would— everyone would say the same thing, which is it tends to be because people are overweight, rather than that people aren't, which is very different, of course, to type 1. Right, that's a very positive message there. I hope listeners out there, you must obviously adhere to these messages. Obviously, do speak to your doctor and a health professional if you do plan to lose weight, if you need any assistance, because obviously you can't do it on your own. You do need support. So there is support out there. Now, do Do you have a final message, Dan, to our listeners? A very quick message just before we go off air. Any other message that you'd like to give? Well, yeah, I mean, one of the ones is, to me, it's all based on research, it's all based on knowledge and the newest research that's out there. So we created another website called type2diabetesfree.com, so that's type2diabetesfree.com, which isn't linked to any of the retreats or anything else that we're doing. It's purely non-profit, and that'll show you— there's a link from that that will show you the newest research that's out there at the moment, and that's what I suggest all what listeners do is they find out the newest research on this stuff. It's changing every month, but the actual message seems to be continually that this low-carb approach is working for 50 to 90% of the people that have got type 2 diabetes. If you're going to exercise, make sure it's done often and drink more water. That's the key things really. Brilliant. So Dan, thank you very much, Dan. Dan has given us the message. Do you have any questions for Dan or Diabetic Dialogue? Then email presenters@womensradiostation.com. And you can go or tweet us at womensradiostation.com. And thank you very much, Dan, for taking the time to come to speak to us. No, no, thank you. It's been great. You're very, very welcome. If you want to catch any of our previous programs, obviously you can go on to womensradiostation.com and click on presenters. We spoke to Dr. Zoe Williams of the Fast Fix Diabetes show. She's ITV's This Morning resident GP. And we've got some other shows out there. We spoke to Diabetes UK, and there's some interesting interviews, so please have a look at the site. It was very interesting speaking to Dan as well, and, you know, hearing about his journey. If you do want to let me know about your journey, then please email me at presenters@womensradiostation.com, and I'm very happy to hear about your journey. So help me fight the war on diabetes. Thank you very much for listening. Welcome to Women's Radio Station, the voice of women worldwide. Hungry? 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We're a registered charity operating in Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and we produce and share podcasts via Bluetooth on mobile phones, focusing specifically on women and girls excluded from information due to extreme poverty. We empower those living in rural areas with media that transforms how they access, own, and share information. To find out more and be part of this movement, come check out our website at MediaMattersForWomen.org. Mireille Bill Limited. We are a virtual PA consultancy. We provide remote administrative services. Our offering is diverse. We manage your calendar. We update your client database. We take care of your property in France and in London. We also offer bookkeeping and translation services. Would you like to know more? Please call 077 868 48998 for further information. Miray B Ltd. Making the life of the business owner successful. I'm Isabelle Manivy, an executive coach. Do you want to change a negative into a positive? We can do this by coaching you to rewire your brain using simple visualization techniques. In 20 years of practice, I've seen this transform lives. For more information, look on Women's Radio website. Call me on 07984 422 171. I'm listening. Do you need mediation? We are the A-Project Charity. We provide conflict resolution and community engagement services. Our services Services include community mediation for neighbour disputes, family mediation for separating couples, special education needs for parents, carers, and their children and young adults, as well as workplace mediation and restorative services. To find out more, head to womensradiostation.com or thea-project.co.uk. I'm Angie. I'm Patsy, and we're open. As a trans woman living in the centre of London in 2018, the show's about all the barriers I face on a daily level, but it's also about our life stories, how we got to where we are, how we stayed positive in the face of adversity, and being more than just a label. It's about finding one's true authentic self, but it's also about your stories too, so send us a Tweet, send us an email at presenters@womensradio.com. The voice of women worldwide. Women's Radio Station is a not-for-profit community interest company. Supporting women is our passion. We're currently welcoming donations to help towards our running costs to keep this important initiative alive. To donate, simply head to our website. Every little will help.