Over 115 million American adults have prediabetes, and roughly 8 in 10 of them don’t know it. That’s not a small, rare condition, it’s closer to the norm than the exception, and it’s quietly the physiological engine behind a lot of what this site already talks about, cravings, energy crashes, and stubborn weight gain. The good news, and it’s real good news backed by solid research, is that this is one of the most reversible health conditions there is.
What prediabetes and insulin resistance actually are
Insulin resistance means your cells have started ignoring insulin’s signal to let sugar in, so your body produces more and more insulin to get the same job done. Prediabetes is the stage where blood sugar has started rising as a result, but hasn’t crossed into diabetes territory yet. A fasting glucose under 100 mg/dL is considered normal, 100 to 125 is prediabetes, and 126 or above is diabetes. An A1C, which reflects your average blood sugar over the past two to three months, follows a similar pattern: under 5.7 percent is normal, 5.7 to 6.4 percent is prediabetes, and 6.5 percent or higher is diabetes.
Here’s the part worth knowing that a lot of people don’t: you can have real insulin resistance with A1C and fasting glucose numbers that still look normal. Elevated insulin is one of the earliest detectable signs of this whole process, and it can show up years before glucose numbers move enough to get flagged on a standard test.
The signs most people miss
Because standard bloodwork can look fine for a while, a lot of people live with insulin resistance without a diagnosis, going only on how they feel. Some of the more common signs: fatigue that doesn’t add up even with decent sleep, weight that creeps up despite eating carefully, an afternoon energy crash that shows up like clockwork, brain fog, and intense cravings for carbs and sugar specifically. That last one connects directly to the sugar-craving cycle, the same insulin dynamics driving that cycle are often the earliest visible sign that something bigger is going on. A less commonly known sign is a darkened, velvety patch of skin at the back of the neck, in the armpits, or in skin folds, called acanthosis nigricans.
None of this replaces real bloodwork. If several of these sound familiar, it’s worth asking your doctor for a fasting insulin and glucose panel, not just guessing from symptoms alone.
Curious how tight the craving side of this is on you right now? The free quiz takes about two minutes and gives you an honest read.
The good news: it’s genuinely reversible
This is where the research is unusually encouraging. The landmark Diabetes Prevention Program found that losing just 5 to 7 percent of body weight, combined with about 150 minutes of activity a week, cut the risk of progressing to type 2 diabetes by 58 percent, and by 71 percent in adults over 60. More recent research looking specifically at prediabetes remission found that weight loss of more than 5 percent put prediabetes into remission in about 73 percent of people studied. This isn’t a rare, lucky outcome, it’s the expected result of a fairly modest, sustainable change.
Why the site’s whole approach lines up with this
This isn’t a coincidence. The same food-first approach already covered here, building meals around protein, fat, and fiber, weaning sugar down instead of cutting it out overnight, is the same territory these studies are working in. Protein and fiber both directly improve insulin sensitivity by slowing digestion and softening blood sugar spikes, the same mechanism this article is describing at a clinical level.
I have some personal history here worth naming. I lost close to 100 pounds and reversed my own prediabetes once, using almost exactly this approach, and I’ve also lived the other side of it, watching some of that progress slip when life got stressful. You can read more of that on the about page. I don’t say that to suggest it’s simple or that it stays fixed forever without attention, I say it because the research backing this up isn’t abstract to me.
If you’re in perimenopause or menopause, this is worth double attention, since insulin sensitivity naturally declines during that transition on top of everything else already happening hormonally.
What this looks like in practice
Start with real bloodwork if any of the signs above sound familiar, that’s a conversation worth having with your doctor, not something to self-diagnose from a list. Alongside that, the same approach already covered here applies directly: a plate built around protein, fat, and fiber, weaned down rather than cut off overnight. If you want your own numbers, the protein and macro calculator is a good place to start, and the Plate Builder builds a real plate for you from what you’ve got on hand tonight.
And if you want an honest read on how tight the sugar-craving side of this currently is on you, the free quiz takes about two minutes.