I was a very active, athletic young man growing up in Puerto Rico. I played baseball; I was an amateur boxer; I ran short marathons; I did track and field; I played basketball; I was a martial artist, kickboxer, and so on. As a teenager, I ran 5 miles every morning before school. After school, I got on my bicycle and went to the boxing gym for a couple of miles; I trained there for an hour or an hour and a half; got on my bike, and when I got home, I went for a short 2-mile jog. On Saturdays were the boxing fights, and on Sundays the baseball games.
The problem was that even as I was only 5’ 7” tall, I always had the appetite of a 7-footer. The only “dieting” I ever did as a boxer was not eating rice but once a month. I heard that recommendation from the mother of one of my favorite fighters Wilfred Benítez, who never struggled with maintaining weight. I also remember eating only vegetables the day of the fights to ensure my weight was suitable for the weigh-in. That was the only time I exercised some self-control when it came down to food.
As I continued to grow up and my boxing days were over, I ate everything I wanted by the time I reached high school. However, during my high school years, I did track and field; I continued to play baseball and played basketball with my friends in the barrio about every day. I was still highly active, so eating rice, potatoes, and noodles was not a big deal. My favorite foods growing up were ham & cheese sandwiches, rice & beans, and Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes. Tony the Tiger was a family friend.
I remember the pleasure I felt at night after supper; the milk was always cold and in a deep bowl with the cereal. It was heavenly! There was no need for extra sugar with Tony; the sugar was included.
Despite my bad diet, I was about 160 pounds of muscle when I entered college. However, as Dr. Mark Hyman reminds us, “…we can’t exercise our way out of a bad diet.” Indeed, we can’t outrun lousy nutrition. As a young man, eating the way I did was not a big deal, but my horrible eating habits caught up to me as I got older.
I married young when I was only 19 years of age. For the first seven years of that marriage, we had no children. I was still active but, by far, less busy. It did not take long for me to reach 200 pounds after graduating from college, and other than an episode in my mid-twenties, when I became a very active martial artist, I have been over 200 pounds ever since.
In December of 2004, a year after working as a young pastor in Gates County, North Carolina, my wife was diagnosed with cancer. I was a hurting man with three small children. My oldest son was 11 years of age, my special-needs son was 10, and my daughter was only 5. That was a dark time in my life! I remarried, searching for what I had lost, yet still hurting from the death of my first wife. But less than two years later, I was divorced, and the nights got even darker. My world got so dark that all I wanted to do was raise my children and die; I saw no other purpose in life. By the time I reconnected with Dr. Pollard (now Dr. Casiano) and married her twelve years ago, I was beyond a heavy-weight boxer; I was 260 pounds with a 42 waistline. So why in the world did she marry me? It had to be divine intervention! When we got married, we became a family 8; she brought in three daughters, and I brought in my two sons and daughter.
Two years after we married, we moved to Fairbanks, Alaska. Fast forward to April 14, 2014, a few days before turning 47; I felt like I was dying with every step I took. It did not happen immediately; in the weeks before this day, I was always thirsty, constantly going to the bathroom to pee, even in the middle of the night. In the beginning, I blamed my thirst on the dry climate in Fairbanks. I was always exhausted and started losing weight for no apparent reason. Finally, after falling asleep at a red light while driving a company van during work hours, I called my wife and told her I needed to go to the hospital. She knew it was serious! My wife, a medical doctor, recommended that I go to Urgent Care, and I did. On that day, within days of my 47th birthday, I was diagnosed with diabetes and given meds. My glucose number was over 900 hundred, and my A1C was over 12. I was welcomed into the family of diabetics with a bam.
I took the diagnosis like a grown-up; that is to say that I did not fall apart, partly because I did not understand diabetes. I simplified things and minimized the severity of my disease. It is what we do… we are men! I knew that countless close family members had diabetes; in fact, I was aware that in my country Puerto Rico, the real pandemic is diabetes. I also knew some of my close family members died from not caring for their diabetes correctly. However, in my mind, I was convinced that if I exercised enough, I could overcome whatever this thing was. In the following years, I did better during the long and beautiful summers in Fairbanks. I was actively cutting trees, splitting wood, and stacking wood to keep our home warm through the brutal winters. In addition, I spend much time working in the yard, building things, keeping the yard beautiful, etc.
For those who know about firewood, keeping it dry for at least six months after you split the wood is good. Then, you want to stay ahead in your wood-stacking for at least three years. Boy, did I enjoy that kind of work! After getting an excellent three-year supply of firewood, I could enjoy the summers a little more by riding my bicycle everywhere. Then I fell in love with golf and walked golf courses all summer. Always active, continually moving! However, come the winter; my physical activity decreased considerably. A Puerto Rican does not know much about winter sports! So, I blamed my uncontrolled diabetes not on my high-carb and sugar diet but on Alaska’s climate. But things were about to get a little more serious.
One night, I was getting ready to make love to my smoking-hot wife. As a doctor, she needed to go out to the villages every three months and offer services there for a week. A week without my wife seemed like an eternity… I could not wait, but “Pepe” was not responding… at all! It felt like it happened suddenly, but that’s the thing about diabetes; it is not a quiet killer, it lets you know little by little, and in time it has a way of putting a beating on you physically and emotionally.
Erectile dysfunction is one of the many devastating consequences of uncontrolled diabetes. The psychological impact of being unable to satisfy your wife sexually; is overwhelming. Now, you are jealous of the air touching your wife; you start doubting the fidelity of your wife. Every man is suspicious; you tell yourself, “This man probably can satisfy my wife much better than I can.” Beloved, I don’t care how spiritual you think you are; erectile dysfunction is the closest thing to hell on this earth because you still have sexual desires but cannot follow through. “Pepe” was dead, rolled to the side asleep. I am telling you, your self-esteem as a man takes a devasting blow. Now diabetes was taking a more severe turn. When “Pepe” is not working, it gets a man’s attention.
I told myself that if I could be in a place where I could move and be outside the whole year, I would be just fine. But I still insisted that all I needed was to exercise more. So, then my wife and I decided to move to a golf paradise… Arizona! I played golf all year; I walked the courses even during the heat of the summer. But there is one little problem… all that physical activity throughout the year did not take away my diabetes.
After a few summers in Arizona, I tried one more thing: I decided to get back to the gym, get on the bicycle, and lift weights. At times I woke up at 4:30 AM to exercise before work and then came back from work and exercised again. Throughout this process, my wife told me about changing my diet, how carbs turn to sugar, to consider the Keto diet, and so on. Because of my wife, I had access to much good information; but that information did me no good because, in my mind, I still insisted that all I needed to do was exercise more.
One day, I took my wife on a date on a beautiful Arizona Sunday morning in December of 2022. At the time, my fasting glucose was reaching four hundred. I was frustrated, depressed, and desperate. I felt like I was losing. I did not share what I was going through and how I felt with my wife, but she knew what I was going through as a doctor. So, I took it in silence, in my secret place. I was giving up; I tried everything possible, and nothing worked long-term.
On December 28th, I finally decided to embrace a Carnivore-Keto diet. I was still taking meds at the time. In just 21 days, my glucose numbers normalized dramatically; they stayed in the 100s or less. However, I was not feeling all that great; I was feeling dizzy. I decided to stop my diabetes and blood pressure medication in February as I continued embracing mostly a carnivore diet.
Fast forward to today, 1) I feel good, 2) I can’t eat more than twice a day. Eating ribeye steaks is so satisfying that you don’t always feel hungry and don’t need to eat snacks. 3) “Pepe” is functioning well. I have done much damage to my body because of inadequate nutrition; years of eating poison. It has taken me until my 55th year to learn, but I am more sensitive to things I did not notice before, like, for example, stress. Recently, I quit a job that became so stressful that my glucose went up to the 300s even as I was on the Carnivore Diet. No job is worth our health!
People should stop eating the traditional American diet of processed food, sugars, carbs, etc. There is enough data to make these conclusions. I recommend eating what God created; if a man alters it, don’t eat it. This principle applies to everybody. However, folks like me who are insulin-resistant must take more drastic steps. The Carnivore approach with very low to almost zero carbs works for me. I am still learning and adjusting, but I feel joy that I am finally heading in the right direction!
There are days I could eat once a day without a problem, without feeling hungry or weak. I feel great! However, I want to caution you that our bodies are highly complex and react differently to different foods. We like to simplify things; find the magic pill or the magic diet, but as the song said, there is no easy way out. This process is confusing and, at times, frustrating. That is why if we are on a journey to make drastic changes related to our health, we need help; we can’t do it alone. Lately, even as I follow a strict carnivore diet, with no sugar and no carbs, my glucose numbers have shown high, in the 200 hundred, especially in the mornings. I am blessed to have my wife, Dr. Casiano, who guides me and makes sense of what is happening. So even in a no-sugar, low-carb diet, your glucose can still be high; how can that be? That’s why we need help, and I am getting the answers I need; adjusting, changing things, working hard, staying focused, not giving up, watching our stress levels, and looking closely at our liver and how it functions… this is complex.
I am a Counselor and Life Coach at Wonderfully Med, and a client Dr. Casiano guides. For me, this is personal. As you can see, I am open and transparent. When I say I am here for you, I mean every word! My message is a message of hope; we can overcome diabetes if disciplined. However, it is impossible to stay disciplined if you are hungry all the time. And, if you are always hungry, you need to include something else in your diet; obviously, you are missing something. Staying disciplined in the Carnivore and Keto lifestyle has been much easier because I feel satiated after eating. I have never experienced that satiation feeling, where you are full and satisfied, but you can still move, take a walk, etc. When I ate like a pig, I felt terrible, ready to sleep, only to feel hungry again a few hours later. My mindset has drastically changed; now I understand the divine order on my way to wellness; I know that wellness is not one thing but a variety of complex factors working together, starting with:
- Spiritual connection: In my case, I am a Christian. I start my day by reading God’s Word and praying. I need God above all things—connection to the Body of Christ, the church.
- Optimal nutrition: We need a form of a creation diet, foods created by God.
- Sound sleep: This has been a long struggle for me. We must sleep 6 to 8 hours; deep sleep where you can dream. That’s how the body recovers.
- Relieve Stress: we need to keep that spiritual connection throughout the day by taking walks, writing, studying God’s Word, enjoying nature, and sometimes doing nothing.
- Keep the mind engaged: Study, take a class, work on a new degree, certification, etc., and learn about the human body and whatever challenges you face.
- Exercise: I learned from my Father-in-Law that we no longer must work out; we are no longer athletes but must still be active. We must keep moving, working around the yard, doing some cardio, doing strength exercises, etc. Just keep moving and keep lifting.
- Surround yourself with a tribe: A tribe is not necessarily your blood family; you are indeed blessed if it is. These folks are on the same journey as you; they share the same goals and enjoy each other’s company. Out of all these seven principles of wellness, this is the most difficult because it is hard to find folks in this wellness journey, especially in the average church.
- Get help: Trust me when I tell you that you can’t do this alone; we all need help.
My journey has been filled with many mistakes, but I have learned some powerful lessons. The journey continues until my Heavenly Father calls me home. Philippians 2:12 says, “…work out your salvation with fear and trembling…” (NIV). The word salvation is the word deliverance. In other words, we are responsible for working out our mess and not giving up; take it seriously, follow up, and follow through.
Today, I want to take all these experiences to help others. If you are a young man or a young woman, we can help you prevent some of the issues I went through. But, if you are my age and think that you are done, that there is no hope, and that this is where everything ends, I have news for you… you’re mistaken.
Our Team at Wonderfully Med is a powerful Team that includes Reyette Pollard Casiano (MD IFMCP), Meg Morita (RN), Angelo Casiano (Director of Marketing), and me, Angel Casiano (Counselor and Life Coach). Give us a call at 855-925-8255 or visit our website at https://wonderfullymed.com. Also, please find us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/wonderfullymed. Discover the best version of you.
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