The Lower Frequencies

Five months after being diagnosed with diabetes, I thought I’d update anyone interested as to how I’m doing.

I guess the biggest challenge I face right now is my diet. Not in the sense that “Oh my God, I need to eat ___________!” where I crave some type of dessert or carb-laden treat, because changing my eating habits was really quite easy.  I eat salads every day for lunch (topped with grilled chicken, usually) along with fruit of various types, and dinner consists of some sort of non-fried meat alongside some vegetables and maybe a small portion of something with carbs. Breakfast is instant steel-cut oatmeal and coffee – I’d never been a breakfast person but now I don’t skip it.

No, the challenge for me is all the weight I’ve lost. I know, that doesn’t sound like much of a problem. As I wrote when I announced I had been diagnosed, five months ago I weighed 195 pounds.  Today I weigh between 175 and 180, depending on the time of day.  A lot of that loss can be attributed to the diet, I’m sure, but I’m also hitting the gym and the road regularly – meaning that if I don’t go to the gym I’m running 4 to 6 miles. I’ve found with the weight loss that my mile pace has improved considerably – go figure, right? I’m now able to run four miles easily at an 8:30 pace. Longer runs I’m not falling below 9:15. So there’s that. This combination of diet and exercise has, amazingly enough, led to the shedding of the gut I saw in pics of me taken last summer at South Padre.

Notice how tiny the Shiner Bock can is compared to the belly backdrop. Yeesh.

A “selfie”, as the kids call it today.

First world problems have resulted.  My pants don’t fit me – I had to buy a couple new pairs of jeans (32 inch waist) and now even they’re a bit loose. The one suit I have, which used to fit me fairly well, now looks and feels baggy. Fortunately I’m only required to wear a suit one or two times a year. I feel like I’m always hungry, too, and that leads to more expensive grocery bills because I’m eating fruit, nuts, and sausage.  I’ll get home after work, turn the grill on, and throw a link of jalapeno cheese venison sausage on and eat half of it as a snack.

I’m really struggling with how I can maintain or gain weight – sugars and carbs are right out, really (and not the type of weight I want to gain), but eating too much meat will certainly affect my cholesterol levels. I drink protein smoothies after every workout, but I’ve found the frozen berries I throw in lead to a spike in my blood sugar level, and I’m still a bit paranoid about that. Especially when I drink the smoothie after my evening workout, go to bed, and wake up to see it at 130. No smoothie, it’s in the 1-teens. Really, though, it’s usually down to less than 100 a couple hours after lunch, so I don’t know what I’m particularly  worried about.

So, how to stabilize my weight in a healthy way is the biggest question I’m facing.

I did visit a local endocrinologist in late January – I wasn’t impressed: my blood test results weren’t given to me until a month and a half later, and only after I called and requested them.  My A1c was at an 8.6, which wasn’t a surprise given my elevated blood sugar levels, but I had to get that down.  I did learn, also, that I have “diabetes 1.5”, and it’s really only  a matter of time until I will need to go on insulin. But for now I’m controlling it with diet and exercise and Metformin.

I later changed general practitioners, and was told again that my diabetes is in some sort of “honeymoon” period, and that if/when I start to see a rise in my levels, I’ll need to get on insulin. I don’t plan on letting this honeymoon period end soon. The good news is that I did have another A1c done, and it’s now at 7.0, which is where my doc wants me to be, if not lower.

All in all, I guess it could be a whole lot worse. I don’t want to be on insulin, but if it comes to that it’ll be what it’ll be.

This entry was posted on May 17, 2014 at 8:48 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.