3 years. 3 very different diets. One diabetic trying to challenge his own beliefs. At one point, my HbA1c was over 9%. I started reading extensively about visceral fat, insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. And one question fascinated me: What if getting really lean could dramatically improve my metabolic health, even without restricting carbohydrates? So I started experimenting on myself. 2024: ~2,100 calories * Carbs: 75g * Protein: 200g * Fat: 110g My bloodwork was encouraging. But my gym performance? Terrible. Strength dropped substantially during the cut, and my physique looked flat. 2025: ~1,800 calories * Carbs: 100g * Protein: 200g * Fat: 65g Bloodwork was good again. But training performance still left a LOT to be desired. I was lean, but I wasn't particularly happy with how I performed. 2026: ~2,300 calories * Carbs: 330g (!) * Protein: 140g * Fat: 45g This was a completely different experience. More food. Dramatically more carbohydrates. Much better gym performance, fuller muscles and a far more enjoyable training experience. But I was skeptical about my bloodwork. Surely eating 330g of carbs as a diabetic would come at a metabolic cost? Well, have a look at my latest results. Not every marker is perfect, but the relationship between carbohydrate intake and metabolic health clearly isn't as straightforward as I'd once believed. Here's what these experiments have taught me: Getting leaner and reducing excess visceral fat can be enormously beneficial for metabolic health. And a high-carbohydrate diet isn't automatically incompatible with improving it. Low-carb diets absolutely have their place. For many people, restricting an entire category of foods makes controlling appetite, calories and blood glucose easier. But for someone who trains as hard as I do, I've found that having considerably more carbohydrates and calories available makes an enormous difference to performance. Of course, this is n=1. My calories, body composition and training also changed. I'm not claiming that carbohydrates caused my results, or that low body fat cures diabetes. The biggest lesson isn't that high-carb beats low-carb. It's that we become so emotionally attached to our nutritional beliefs that we sometimes stop questioning them. Experiment. Track your performance. Monitor your bloodwork. Pay attention to your body composition. And most importantly, be willing to change your mind when the evidence challenges your beliefs. Your physiology doesn't care which dietary ideology you subscribe to.

That moment during machine preacher curls when the constant tension hits and you realize you still have 4 reps left...Absolute burn.