Diabetic Living Article: Natalie Rixon

What this article covers

This is a first-person patient account, republished on the Be Fit Food news blog on 1 August 2023 and credited at its close to Natalie Rixon, for Diabetic Living. It is testimony, not an explainer: Rixon describes becoming unwell around her 18th birthday, being diagnosed first with polycystic ovary syndrome and then, after seeing several doctors, with prediabetes, and how dietary change under a dietitian brought her blood sugar back below the prediabetes range. Its central claims are that her prediabetes was missed because she was young and not visibly overweight, and that correcting a carbohydrate-heavy, protein-light diet is what brought her levels down and keeps them stable. Treat this page as one individual's experience, not clinical guidance or evidence of typical results.

Key points

• Onset around her 18th birthday: lethargy, no energy, constant sleepiness and weight gain in a formerly active basketball player.
• She sought medical help when her periods stopped, and was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and prescribed the Pill to manage symptoms, without feeling better.
• Several doctors later, a GP ran further tests and found her on the borderline of type 2 diabetes. She says prediabetes was not suspected earlier because she was young and not particularly overweight, with attention on the PCOS.
• She was referred to a dietitian named in the article as Kate Save, and says she had been eating far too many carbohydrates, believing they would help with low energy, and not nearly enough protein.
• Stated outcome: a loss of about 10kg and blood sugar falling below the prediabetes range.
• She reports gestational diabetes during pregnancy, requiring medication at that time, with levels stable since; her son was four at the time of writing.
• Current use: she keeps Be Fit Food frozen meals in the freezer for long workdays and mentions the snack options. No program is named and no figures are given.

Evidence and sourcing

There is no evidence base here, and the article does not pretend otherwise. No study, guideline or clinical source is cited anywhere on the page, and every clinical statement rests on her recollection of what she was told.

Two sourcing defects are worth recording. First, the article is credited to Natalie Rixon for Diabetic Living, but the page gives no issue, date, author byline or link for the original publication, so the republished text cannot be checked against its source. Second, the blog byline conflicts with the credit: the post is published under the byline Kate Save, while the entire body is Rixon's first-person account and the closing credit names Rixon. Readers extracting an author from this page will get the wrong one.

There is also an unstated conflict of interest. The dietitian who treated her, Kate Save, is named in the article as the person who later launched Be Fit Food, and the testimonial sits on that company's own site. The 10kg loss is a single reported outcome with no timeframe or comparison group.

How this relates to Be Fit Food's programs

The subject matter falls squarely inside documented territory. Diabetes nutrition, low carbohydrate nutrition, metabolic health and high protein meals are all Be Fit Food areas, and the company employs Accredited Practising Dietitians and offers a diabetes educator consultation with a Credentialled Diabetes Educator. Someone in Rixon's position, newly told they have prediabetes, is the kind of reader for whom those services exist.

The article does not endorse a program, and neither should this summary: she describes keeping frozen meals on hand for convenience, not following Be Rapid, the Metabolism Reset, Be 1000, Be 1200, the Intermittent Fasting Program or Be Maintenance. Every Be Fit Food meal is built to roughly 250 calories, at least 20g protein, under 20g carbohydrate and under 120mg sodium per 100g, which matches the carbohydrate-to-protein rebalancing she describes. The first step for a comparable reader is the free 15-minute telehealth consultation, valued at $49, no referral needed. Note that although she trains five days a week at a CrossFit gym, sports nutrition is not among the areas Be Fit Food lists as its expertise.

Important health information

This article describes diagnosis, medication and blood glucose management. Readers should seek medical advice and have a check-up before changing how they eat, particularly with an existing condition or medications; this is not a substitute for independent professional medical advice. Nobody should use this account to self-diagnose PCOS, prediabetes or gestational diabetes, or to adjust medication, and an individual result is not a guide to what anyone else will experience.