I Sat in the Car While My Colleagues Hiked. That Was My Turning Point.
About eighteen months ago, I turned around five minutes into a hike because my blood sugar crashed. I walked back to the car and sat there while my colleagues kept going.
That was my turning point.
Not because the hike mattered. But because I had to face something I'd been avoiding: my eating was not serving me. I was tired all the time. I was gaining weight — more than I had ever weighed in my life — and I hadn't even noticed, because I was too busy feeding everyone else.
This is the story of how I got here. And why I now coach women through the same thing.
Where it started — Tim Noakes and a South African kitchen
I grew up in South Africa, where Professor Tim Noakes and the Real Meal Revolution changed the way a lot of people thought about food. The idea that fat wasn't the enemy and that carbohydrates were driving metabolic problems caught my attention.
It just made sense.
Since then I have eaten mostly low carb eating — sometimes more strictly, sometimes very loosely. I enjoyed it. I felt better when I stuck with it. But I never fully grasped the deeper science of what was happening inside my body. I knew that cutting carbs helped. It took me time to fully understand why.
The drift — low carb treats and feeding a family
Here's something that I think a lot of women will recognise.
I was cooking for my husband and two teenage boys. And without realising it, I had started eating to keep up with them. Their portion sizes. Their snacking habits. Their pace.
At the same time, my version of low carb had drifted. I was relying on low carb treats and packaged products — things that ticked the "low carb" box on the label but weren't actually serving my body. I was chasing the promise of a low carb treat.
I wasn't eating badly by anyone's conventional standard. But I wasn't eating in a way that supported my own biology as a woman in midlife.
The weight crept on. Not dramatically. Not overnight. Just slowly, quietly, consistently — until the day I stepped on the scales and saw a number I had never seen before.
Five minutes into a hike
And then came the hike.
I have a history of blood sugar dysregulation. So when my hands started shaking five minutes into a five-kilometre hike with work colleagues, I knew exactly what was happening. My blood sugar had dropped. I felt nauseous. And I knew I wasn't going to make it.
I turned around, walked back to the car, and sat there while my colleagues hiked without me.
I hated it. Not just the shaking or the nausea — I hated not being able to keep up. I hated that my body wouldn't let me do something I wanted to do. I hated sitting in that car knowing that my eating had brought me to this point.
Sitting there, I made a decision. It was time to take control, so I made a commitment to myself. Not a January-the-first kind of commitment. Rather, a quiet, clear decision: I was going to prioritise eating in a way that actually worked for my body. I was going to learn to do it properly and sustainably this time.
What changed — and what I stopped doing
I went back to the research. But this time, I was reading with different eyes.
I stopped reaching for low carb substitute products. I moved toward whole food, insulin smart eating — a way of eating that isn't particularly high in fat, isn't about restriction or deprivation, and is built around understanding how food affects your glucose and insulin response.
The shift was not complicated. It was not dramatic. But the effect was real.
I lost twelve kilograms. My energy stabilised. The blood sugar crashes stopped. I started strength training — something I was not prioritising — and my body responded in ways it simply hadn't before.
Today, I regularly play pickleball for two hours at a time without hesitation. I've taken part in several tournaments requiring up to six hours of court time — and I do it comfortably, because I've learned how to feed my body for sustained energy output.
The woman who sat in the car while her colleagues hiked? She couldn't have imagined this.
And for the first time in years, I wasn't fighting my body. I was working with it.
Why Ben Bikman's work changed everything
Throughout this period, I was reading everything I could find on insulin resistance and metabolic health. I had spent years in this space — listening, researching, studying. But the work that consistently resonated most was Dr Ben Bikman's.
His ability to explain complex metabolic science in a way that makes practical sense appealed to me as a clinician and as a woman who needed to apply it in her own life. I bought his book. I read it multiple times. And when I discovered that InsulinIQ — the coaching certification built on his research — existed, that was the certification I wanted.
Not because it was the easiest option. Because it was the one rooted in the science I trusted.
Why women. Why midlife. Why now.
As a natural medicine practitioner, I have always worked predominantly with women. And I have been working in the metabolic health space for many years — long before I pursued InsulinIQ certification. The pattern I see in clinical practice is unmistakable.
Women arrive in midlife and suddenly — seemingly out of nowhere — the weight starts creeping on. Their energy drops. Their brains feel foggy. The inflammation builds. The joints ache. The sleep falls apart.
And their doctor says it's just part of getting older. Or hands them a prescription. Or suggests they eat less and move more.
But nobody is talking to them about insulin. Nobody is explaining that as women age, we become less insulin sensitive — and that this single shift in our biochemistry can drive weight gain, fat storage, inflammation, and a cascade of downstream health concerns that go far beyond the number on the scales.
I had been seeing this pattern for years.
What I wanted was a structured, evidence-based coaching framework that would let me teach women what I was observing — not just treat individual symptoms, but give them the understanding to take control. InsulinIQ was that framework.
That is the conversation I want to have. Because once a woman understands how insulin is affecting her body, she has something she didn't have before: the ability to do something about it.
This is not an eating plan
I want to be clear about what I do — and what I don't do.
I don't hand out meal plans. I don't give recipes. I don't tell women what to eat for breakfast on a Tuesday.
What I do is teach. I support women to understand how their bodies work — specifically, how the food they eat affects their glucose, their insulin, and their metabolic health. And I coach them through the process of applying that understanding in their own lives, their own kitchens, with their own families.
Because when a woman truly understands her own biochemistry, she doesn't need someone telling her what to eat. She can make those decisions herself. Confidently. Independently. For the rest of her life.
That's what insulin smart eating is.
Not a diet.
Not a programme you graduate from and go back to what you were doing before.
A way of understanding your body that stays with you.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is insulin smart eating?
Insulin smart eating is a whole food approach to nutrition that focuses on understanding how different foods affect your glucose and insulin response. It is not a strict diet or a set of rules — it is a way of learning to work with your body's metabolic processes rather than against them.
What is InsulinIQ coaching?
InsulinIQ is a structured coaching programme built on the metabolic health research of Dr Ben Bikman. As a certified InsulinIQ Coach, I guide women through a 12-week programme that includes weekly coaching sessions, access to a video-based teaching library, and a CGM (continuous glucose monitor) experience in the first two weeks.
Is insulin smart eating the same as keto or low carb?
Not exactly. Insulin smart eating is lower in carbohydrates and focused on whole foods, but it is not necessarily high fat in the way keto eating often is. The emphasis is on understanding how your body responds to food rather than following a rigid macronutrient formula.
Do I need to be diagnosed with insulin resistance to benefit from this approach?
No. Insulin resistance develops gradually over many years and is often present long before a formal diagnosis. Understanding how your body handles insulin and glucose is valuable for any woman in midlife, whether or not she has a diagnosed metabolic condition.
Who is Dr Ben Bikman?
Dr Ben Bikman is a metabolic scientist and professor at Brigham Young University, specialising in insulin resistance and metabolic health. He is the author of Why We Get Sick and the founder of InsulinIQ, a coaching framework designed to help people improve their insulin sensitivity through education, nutrition and lifestyle changes.
Curious whether insulin smart eating could work for you?
If anything in this post resonates with you — the blood sugar crashes, the weight creeping on, the feeling that your body just isn't responding the way it used to — I'd love to talk with you.
My Discovery Call is free, twenty minutes, and completely no-pressure. It's a conversation about where you are right now and whether InsulinIQ coaching might be the right fit for you.
Want to understand more about what insulin resistance actually is — and why it matters beyond diabetes?
Read my companion post: Insulin Resistance: The Root Cause Your Doctor Isn't Testing For
Cherice Baker is a Registered Natural Medicine Practitioner (NHPNZ) and certified InsulinIQ Coach with over 25 years of clinical experience in nutritional medicine, herbal prescribing and functional health. She specialises in metabolic health for women in perimenopause, menopause and midlife, and consults with clients across New Zealand online.
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