For years, “Pamela” lived with diabetes.

“When I was first diagnosed 23 years ago, I was able to control it by dieting and exercise,” the 71-year-old retired educator said.

However, as time went by, she relied more and more on take-out food instead of cooking.

“I did not feel like cooking for one,” she said. “I got into terrible habits.”

Her blood-sugar levels rose and so did the prescriptions for diabetes.

“I got introduced to one medication and was getting good results, and all of a sudden, my A1C test results popped up again,” she recalled. “I got put on a different prescription.”

The A1C measures your average blood sugar levels over the past two to three months.

“I was starting to get tired of all the medications,” Pamela said.

Jim, who also did not wish to be named, thought he had been eating healthily for years but admitted that dessert and chips were a staple.

Working in the prison service, Jim started to see his blood sugar fluctuate.

He and Pamela turned to a new service offered by Premier Health, a King Street medical practice owned by chief executive Stanley James.

A dietitian there, Frellyn Guban, told them about The Doctor’s Kitchen — a medically designed, plant‑based meal service run through Premier Health and the Bermuda Centre for Lifestyle Medicine.

Patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cardiovascular disease and fatty liver subscribe and receive fully prepared meals that are specifically structured to help reverse disease, not just manage it.

Patients pick up breakfast, lunch and dinner twice a week.

Pamela said: “When I heard about the programme I put up my hand.”

Jim felt much the same way.

“The main thing for me was that they prepared the meals,” he said.

Four months later, Pamela and Jim are the stars of the programme.

Jim lost close to 20 pounds.

“I don’t go to the grocery store any more unless I need things like laundry detergent, cleaning supplies or paper products,” he said.

Pamela went from full-blown diabetes to pre‑diabetes.

“Her numbers are still coming down,” said Johan Manes, a doctor and consultant in lifestyle medicine at the clinic. Pamela has also been able to stop taking one of her diabetes medications and lost more than 30lbs.

If she can keep her blood sugar steady for several months without medication she will be considered in remission.

The meal plan includes plant‑based versions of comfort foods such as tacos with fillings such as legumes and fruit instead of meat.

“This morning, I had broccoli, carrots, lentils, and two little cookies for breakfast,” Pamela said. “We get a lot of veg for breakfast.”

Another breakfast option could be wholegrain cereals and house‑made muesli.

The meal plan rotates monthly. Meals that were not particularly enjoyed by clients are taken out of rotation and favourites are left in.

The meal service is intended as a temporary measure until clients reach their health goals.

Meals are prepared in a kitchen upstairs at Premier Health by chefs Pocholo Nieto and Michael Orieko, a former sous chef for the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club.

As a youngster, Dr James was inspired to pursue lifestyle medicine after reading a religious health book Ministry of Healing, written by Seventh-day Adventist church cofounder Ellen White in 1905.

Ms White’s ideas stayed with Dr James long after he trained as a doctor.

“Diseases are not destiny,” he said. “If you change direction, you can have a new destination and create a new destiny.”

For years he hesitated to bring it into his medical practice because it was a religious text without modern scientific backing. What changed was the emergence of lifestyle medicine as an evidence‑based field.

“If patients continue to eat this way, they can avoid blindness,” he said. “We have seen a significant reduction in patients having to be on dialysis and a significant reduction in heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in this country.”

The Doctor’s Kitchen is only one pillar of a broader whole-person care model at Premier Health.

Alongside the meal subscriptions, the team offers group visits, recovery programmes, exercise initiatives such as “walk with the doctors”, and plans for pickleball with patients.

They have also just released a healthy juice service.

The clinic has a vegetable garden, the Mary Prince Healing Garden, where patients learn about healthy cooking skills, cultural history and emotional recovery.

While the service is aimed primarily at Premier Health patients, Dr James envisions a broader community role, maybe even a restaurant one day.

The cost of the meal service is comparable to what clients would pay at the grocery store each month.

“That would be around $1,400‑plus per month,” Dr James said. “If you take the three‑month plan, then you get a little bit of a discount.”

The programme is not a standard insurance benefit.

“It is the hope that insurance will come on board and support the patient,” Dr James said. “It is locally provided, and it works.”

Dr Manes said the goal was simply to teach people that there is a better way to eat.

“This is proven and tested,” he said. “When we address the cause and the symptoms, the disease goes away.”