HbA1c 47 → 37: How I Reversed Pre-Diabetes in 16 Months (NHS Confirmed)

“October 2022. HbA1c 47. One point from diabetes. Thirteen months later, HbA1c 37. Optimal. NHS confirmed.”
“I’m Neil. I reversed pre-diabetes without medication. I’ll show you exactly how.”
“In the next 14 minutes: What HbA1c 47 actually means. The timeline: month by month. What I changed and when. The April 2025 blood test that confirmed it.”
“Most people get their HbA1c result and hear ‘normal’ or ‘high.’ Nobody explains what the number actually means. Took me years to understand this properly.”
“HbA1c measures how much sugar has been stuck to your red blood cells over the past two to three months. Not a snapshot. A rolling average. Red blood cells live about 120 days, so the sugar coating on them tells you what your blood sugar’s been doing for the last quarter.”
“Normal range: 20 to 41 mmol/mol. Pre-diabetic: 42 to 47. Diabetic: 48 and above. Mine hit 47. One point. One single point from a diabetes diagnosis.”
“Here’s what nobody told me at the time. HbA1c doesn’t spike overnight. It creeps. Slowly. Over years. By the time you’re at 47, your body’s been struggling with blood sugar for a decade — probably longer. The number’s the symptom. The cause? That’s where it gets interesting.”
“I used to think calories were calories. Eat less, move more, weight comes off. Simple maths. Turns out… not simple maths. Not even close.”
“Think of it this way. Diesel and petrol. Both fuels. Same energy content, roughly. But pour diesel into a petrol car and see what happens. Engine seizes. Car’s ruined. Not because of the amount of fuel — because of the type. That’s food. 100 calories of broccoli and 100 calories of Coca-Cola are completely different fuels. Broccoli: slow release, fibre, minimal insulin spike. Coke: blood sugar rocket, massive insulin spike, crash 90 minutes later, fat storage activated. Your body isn’t a calculator. It’s a chemistry lab. Hormones — especially insulin — decide whether those calories get burned or stored. And that’s where insulin resistance comes in.” “Imagine knocking on your neighbour’s door 40 times a day. First week, they answer. Every time. Friendly enough. Month two, they stop answering. They’ve tuned you out. Can’t blame them, really. Forty knocks a day is… a lot.” “That’s insulin resistance. Every time you eat — especially processed carbs, sugar, snacking between meals — insulin knocks on your cells’ door and says ‘let glucose in.’ When you eat six times a day, insulin’s knocking constantly. Eventually, your cells stop answering. They’ve heard it too many times. Tuned it out. So your pancreas does what any persistent neighbour would do. Knocks louder. Pumps out more insulin. Cells still don’t answer. Blood sugar stays elevated. Pancreas pumps out even more insulin. This goes on for years. A decade. Sometimes two. And your HbA1c? Creeps up. 38. 40. 43. 46. 47. That’s what happened to me.” “Dr. Andrew Jenkinson explains this mechanism better than most. He talks about how high insulin blocks leptin — that’s the hormone that tells your brain you’re full. So not only are your cells ignoring insulin, but your brain can’t see that you’ve got plenty of fat stored. You’re carrying too much weight, and your brain thinks you’re starving. You’re hungry all the time. Eating more. Which drives more insulin. Which makes the resistance worse. Vicious cycle. And medication? Medication manages the numbers on the blood test. It doesn’t fix the cycle.” “Here’s the bit that should concern anyone over 40. Pre-diabetes isn’t a waiting room. It’s a runway. More than half of people with pre-diabetes progress to Type 2 diabetes. Half. And it sits underneath most metabolic problems — weight gain that won’t shift, fatty liver, cardiovascular risk, constant fatigue.”
“The standard response? ‘We’ll keep an eye on it.’ Manage it with medication. Retest in six months. That’s what they did with me. For ten years.”
“Common misconception: pre-diabetes means you need to eat less and exercise more. Calories in, calories out. No. Pre-diabetes means your insulin signalling is broken. Eating less of the same rubbish doesn’t fix insulin resistance. It just makes you hungry, miserable, and still insulin resistant.” “Imagine only ever driving in third gear. Car works, technically. But it’s loud. Inefficient. Burns fuel fast. Metabolic flexibility means learning all five gears. First gear: fasted, fat-burning, for hills and slow crawls. Fifth gear: refed, glucose-fuelled, for motorway cruising. Most people are stuck in third. Constant eating. Redlining the engine all day, every day. Fasting teaches you The Gearbox. First month feels clunky — you’re grinding gears, stalling at roundabouts. Month three, you shift without thinking. That’s what fixed my insulin resistance. Not a diet. Not medication. Learning to use the gearbox.”
“Right. Here’s the bit most people won’t show you. The full timeline. Ten years of blood tests. Medication phase and lifestyle phase, side by side.”
“April 2012. Cholesterol 7.5 mmol/L. Abnormal. Triglycerides 3.4. Outside reference range. Already on statins, allopurinol for gout, daily asthma inhalers. Weight roughly 18 stone. The numbers showed a system in decline. But I wasn’t connecting the dots. GP said take the pills, so I took the pills.” “September 2015. My GP’s notes on the blood test request — and I’ve seen these notes — read: ‘Weight gain, tired, tired ++, weight gain.’ Repeated twice. That’s how obvious it was. Acute kidney injury warning stage flagged. HbA1c: 38. Still normal. Just. ‘Tired ++’ wasn’t fatigue. That was metabolic overload screaming at me. I didn’t hear it.” “October 2016. HbA1c hit 40. Borderline pre-diabetic. On statins. On allopurinol. Doing everything the system told me to do. December 2016. Cholesterol 7.0 mmol/L. Triglycerides 1.8. Still abnormal despite medication. This was the trajectory. Medicated. Compliant. Still sliding.” “August 2020. Mid-pandemic. HbA1c: 43.2. Cholesterol: 7.30. Triglycerides: 2.50. Urate: 502. All flagged. Eight years on statins. Twenty years on allopurinol. Blood work still abnormal. At some point you have to ask: is the medication the solution? Or is it just maintaining the problem? That’s not a rhetorical question, by the way. I genuinely didn’t know the answer. Took me three more years to figure it out.” “December 14th, 2023. HbA1c: 46. Pre-diabetic. Cholesterol: 8.0. Triglycerides: 2.6. Weight: 18 stone. Eleven days before Boxing Day. This was the cliff edge. One more point on HbA1c and I’d be diabetic. On six medications. Doing everything I’d been told to do. And still heading straight for a diabetes diagnosis. Twelve days later, Boxing Day, I looked in the mirror and said ‘this ends now.'” “Boxing Day 2023. Started simple. 12:12 fasting — ate 7am to 7pm. Didn’t change food immediately. Just stopped eating outside that window. Week two: 14:10. Pushed breakfast to 9am. Week four: 16:8. Eating window 11am to 7pm. Week eight: 18:6. 1pm to 7pm felt natural. Didn’t force it. Body adapted.” “Same time, I started cutting ultra-processed food. Not overnight. Gradual. Swapped the obvious stuff first — cereals, ready meals, snack bars. Real food in. Processed food out. Roughly 85 to 90 percent real food, 10 to 15 percent flexibility. That’s the 10% Rule. Not perfection. Sustainability.” “February 2024. Came off all medication. Statins. Ezetimibe. Allopurinol. Asthma inhalers. Cetirizine. Bloods checked before and after. Not reckless — strategic.” “First blood test off all medication. Cholesterol: 7.0 (down from 8.0). Triglycerides: 2.3 (down from 2.6). Liver enzymes: normal. Kidney function: excellent. Three months. No statins. No allopurinol. No inhalers. Biomarkers improved. Not perfect — but trending right. Body was repairing itself.”
“My GP looked at the results, paused, and said: ‘Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.’ No lecture. No concern. Just… validation.”
“HbA1c: 37. Optimal. NHS confirmed. Down from 47 in October 2022. A 21 percent reduction. Sixteen months off all medication. Here’s what that means in real terms. The Evidence Log data shows my HbA1c deteriorated by roughly 1.2 percent per year during the medication phase — eight years of slow, medicated decline. Then reversed by 19.6 percent in fourteen months with lifestyle changes alone. The reversal happened sixteen times faster than the medication-phase progression. Sixteen times faster. Without a single tablet.”
“It wasn’t smooth. I’m not going to pretend it was. First six weeks of 18:6 fasting, sleep was rough. Four to five hours most nights. Nobody warns you about the adaptation period.”
“Ferritin dropped to 8.9 by April 2025. Low. Flagged. Needs investigating. Two steps forward, one step back. Still working on that. Triglycerides in April 2025: 4.3 mmol/L. Elevated. Context matters — I’m sixteen months off statins, inflammation is down 84 percent, and my GP isn’t concerned. But the number’s not ideal. I track everything. Some markers improve fast, others take longer. This isn’t a fairy tale. It’s data. And data has wobbles.”
“Right. Practical bit. What can you actually do with this?”
“Ask your GP for an HbA1c test. Costs the NHS nothing, takes a minute. If you’re over 40 and haven’t had one recently, get one. That’s your baseline. You can’t track progress if you don’t know where you’re starting. If your HbA1c is already flagged or you’re worried, ask for quarterly tests. Every three months. Track the trend, not individual readings.” “Before fasting, before anything else, switch to whole foods. Real food. Things your grandmother would recognise. If the ingredients list reads like a chemistry set, put it back. Use the 10 to 15 percent rule. Ninety percent real food. Ten to fifteen percent flexibility for life — a biscuit at your mate’s house, a takeaway on Friday. Not perfection. Sustainability. This alone will start lowering insulin and improving your blood sugar. Start here. This is the foundation that makes everything else stick. Without it, fasting benefits don’t last. You’ll lose weight, regain it, lose it again. Sound familiar? Fix the food. Make the benefits permanent.” “Once the food’s sorted — give it two to four weeks — start with 12:12. Twelve hours eating, twelve hours fasted. Most people can do that by just not snacking after dinner. Then tighten. 14:10. Then 16:8. Then 18:6 if it feels right. Don’t rush. Your body’s learning The Gearbox. Give it time.” “If your HbA1c is already a concern — 42 and above — and you’ve got the foundation of whole foods in place, consider longer fasts. 72 hours or more can accelerate insulin sensitivity recovery. But only with that food foundation underneath it. Otherwise you fast, you refeed on processed food, insulin spikes, you’re back to square one. Longer fasts without fixing food quality is like servicing the engine and then pouring diesel in a petrol car. Pointless.” “Fasting glucose weekly. Waist measurement weekly. HbA1c at three months, six months. Watch the trend. My numbers didn’t move dramatically for three months. Real change showed at month six. Significant reversal at month thirteen. This isn’t a three-week fix. It’s a three-month minimum. Judge it at 90 days, not Day 10.” “First two weeks: adaptation. Hunger signals changing. Energy up and down. Normal. Weeks three to four: metabolic switching starts. Energy stabilises. Month three: blood test time. First real data point. Month six: meaningful comparison. This is where trends emerge. Month twelve to thirteen: that’s where I saw full reversal. HbA1c 47 to 37.” “If you’re on medication — especially diabetes medication, blood pressure medication — speak to your GP first. Fasting changes medication needs. Dosing might need adjusting. Don’t just stop tablets. I didn’t. I worked with my GP.” “Red flags during fasting: dizziness that doesn’t pass, chest pain, severe headache, confusion. Break the fast. See your GP. If you have a history of eating disorders, fasting may not be appropriate. Different intervention needed. Speak to a professional.”
“If you want a structured starting point, I’ve built a 14-Day Rhythm Reset Guide. Covers fasting windows, real food swaps, what to track, and when to test. It’s free. Link’s in the description.”
“Educational content only, not medical advice. Speak to your GP before changing your fasting pattern, diet, or medication. Especially if you’re on diabetes or blood pressure medication. All my experiments were self-monitored with regular GP reviews. Pre-diabetes and diabetes management should be supervised by your GP. This is my experience, not a prescription.”
“Pre-diabetic to normal. Thirteen months. NHS confirmed. Not because of a miracle supplement. Not because of a drug. Because I stopped pouring diesel into a petrol engine, gave my cells some silence, and learned to use the gearbox. If your HbA1c’s creeping up and you’re wondering whether medication’s the only answer — it wasn’t for me. Get your number. Fix the food. Give it time.”