I cannot believe that I forgot all about this blog!
I shouldn't have though.
Since I stopped posting here, I've learned many things and experienced ups and downs culminating in two heart attacks.
I hope to return to keeping my health foremost in my mind with the aid of this blog.
Until then.
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
Wednesday, May 14, 2014
Back to business
After a period of successfully managing my blood sugar, I hit a snag. About 5 or 6 weeks ago, my allergies hit me very hard. Immediately after the onset of allergic symptoms (coughing, sneezing, aching) I developed a sinus infection. Already, the allergies were bad enough that I stopped walking at lunch time, Then, as part of the treatment for my sinus infection, I was given steroids. I don't do well with steroids. Particularly, they completely mess with my appetite, as in, they increase it dramatically. As soon as my sinus infection was under control, I developed what felt like bronchitis. Well, all of this mixed together drove me to completely abandoning all efforts to control my blood sugar. Yes, I know this sounds like an excuse and maybe it was. Be that as it may, I am now finally 100% back to being committed to taking control of my diabetes.
Which leads me to why I am back to feeling motivated. The quick answer is: I don't know. I woke up today knowing that today was the day I would return to Intermittent Fasting and also return to the fight against the barrel of fat around my upper stomach (the omentum). In fact, last time, I wasn't chasing weight loss. This last time I was chasing a lower blood sugar. This time however, I am ready to drop 40 lbs.
How? Exercise at lunch time, which this time will include weight training. And controlling my food choices and food portions.
By the way, I am now 150% convinced that insulin is the wrong treatment for type 2 diabetes. I am still on the fence about metformin. I say this because in the presence of a huge omentum, these medications seem to do VERY little. That's my personal experience anyway. Maybe other people can say different but me, taking 2000mg of metformin daily, can tell you that my sugar levels don't bulge an inch, as long as I continue to make poor dietary choices and continue to carry around my swollen (swollen with fat) omentum.
So my doctor wants to see me because my last blood sugar was high. I knew this. I check my blood sugar. I know my doctor would roll his eyes if he read this post. And why not? Doctors know that when it comes to diet and exercise, which in my opinion are the ONLY proven and reliable methods to control diabetes type 2, we, the patients suck pond water. The compliance levels to diet and exercise are nearly zero. No wonder they pump us full of insulin and metformin! What else can they do?!
Anyway, I wish there was an honest (not run by a nurse or a diabetes expert) support group in my city. I don't want to hear about insulin, metformin, or the f****ing food pyramid or plate portion picture. I want to talk to other diabetics (type 2) about how they are coping day to day with this condition. I know of people taking 200 units of insulin daily and still walking around with high blood sugars and developing all kinds of nerve damage and kidney failure. I want to hear from them.
Oh well, until I find such a group, this blog will have to do.
Thank you for stopping by!
Which leads me to why I am back to feeling motivated. The quick answer is: I don't know. I woke up today knowing that today was the day I would return to Intermittent Fasting and also return to the fight against the barrel of fat around my upper stomach (the omentum). In fact, last time, I wasn't chasing weight loss. This last time I was chasing a lower blood sugar. This time however, I am ready to drop 40 lbs.
How? Exercise at lunch time, which this time will include weight training. And controlling my food choices and food portions.
By the way, I am now 150% convinced that insulin is the wrong treatment for type 2 diabetes. I am still on the fence about metformin. I say this because in the presence of a huge omentum, these medications seem to do VERY little. That's my personal experience anyway. Maybe other people can say different but me, taking 2000mg of metformin daily, can tell you that my sugar levels don't bulge an inch, as long as I continue to make poor dietary choices and continue to carry around my swollen (swollen with fat) omentum.
So my doctor wants to see me because my last blood sugar was high. I knew this. I check my blood sugar. I know my doctor would roll his eyes if he read this post. And why not? Doctors know that when it comes to diet and exercise, which in my opinion are the ONLY proven and reliable methods to control diabetes type 2, we, the patients suck pond water. The compliance levels to diet and exercise are nearly zero. No wonder they pump us full of insulin and metformin! What else can they do?!
Anyway, I wish there was an honest (not run by a nurse or a diabetes expert) support group in my city. I don't want to hear about insulin, metformin, or the f****ing food pyramid or plate portion picture. I want to talk to other diabetics (type 2) about how they are coping day to day with this condition. I know of people taking 200 units of insulin daily and still walking around with high blood sugars and developing all kinds of nerve damage and kidney failure. I want to hear from them.
Oh well, until I find such a group, this blog will have to do.
Thank you for stopping by!
Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Just about 6 weeks
This coming Thursday will mark my 6th week of intermittent fasting (IF). It has gotten so easy that I can now ignore any kind of food during my fasting time (18 hours). Also, I began to decrease the amount of food I eat during my eating window (6 hours). Several times during this 6 week period, I've done 19/5 days; that is, 19 hours of fasting with a 5 hour eating window and I even did a 20/4 day one time. I finally lost some weight although it's not enough for me to brag about (4 lbs). The thing is, those 4 lbs came of pretty much without me noticing or suffering.
The primary purpose of IF was to control my diabetes by giving my body a break from insulin production. About 3 weeks ago I began to walk during my lunch hour and have done it consistently to today. Here's something however; if I walk as fast as I can for say, 20 to 30 minutes, my blood sugar actually goes up! I've tested this twice. Everywhere I checked on the web, I read that this rise is temporary. We'll see in about one and a half hour from now when I check my postprandial blood sugar. It better not be super high!
****UPDATE****
Yes indeed, the postprandial reading was 20 mg/dL lower than the reading right before I ate my lunch. Interesting!!
I went to the doctor for my 3 month check up. My HA1c was 9.5. Much higher than I hoped but much lower than the last time I went in. Part of the problem was that in the last 3 months, I experimented quite a bit with food, medication and fasting. For one, the insulin was making me ravenously hungry. I wish I had started this IF as soon as I left the doctor's office last time. That's ok though. I expect my A1c to be around 6.5 when I go back in June. My blood pressure was much better too but still a tad bit high. Again, I think that the next visit will be a really good one.
Thank you for stopping by!
The primary purpose of IF was to control my diabetes by giving my body a break from insulin production. About 3 weeks ago I began to walk during my lunch hour and have done it consistently to today. Here's something however; if I walk as fast as I can for say, 20 to 30 minutes, my blood sugar actually goes up! I've tested this twice. Everywhere I checked on the web, I read that this rise is temporary. We'll see in about one and a half hour from now when I check my postprandial blood sugar. It better not be super high!
****UPDATE****
Yes indeed, the postprandial reading was 20 mg/dL lower than the reading right before I ate my lunch. Interesting!!
I went to the doctor for my 3 month check up. My HA1c was 9.5. Much higher than I hoped but much lower than the last time I went in. Part of the problem was that in the last 3 months, I experimented quite a bit with food, medication and fasting. For one, the insulin was making me ravenously hungry. I wish I had started this IF as soon as I left the doctor's office last time. That's ok though. I expect my A1c to be around 6.5 when I go back in June. My blood pressure was much better too but still a tad bit high. Again, I think that the next visit will be a really good one.
Thank you for stopping by!
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
A day in the Intermittent Fasting life.
I am so happy with the results of Intermittent Fasting (IF) that I can't stop talking about it. By the way, please don't do anything based on what you read here. These are my anecdotes and I am not trying to push IF or anything else on you. At the end of the day, I AM under the care of a physician, and although he may not condone me doing IF, if I get in trouble, he is there to bail me out.
As it turns out however, I am far from being in trouble. Let me walk you through yesterday's IF:
I ate my first meal at noon. My meal consisted of
* Three bananas
* Two Carbmaster peach yogurt (disgusting) to which I added cinnamon and 1-2 tbsp chia seeds.
* A small serving of Cheez Its
* A large salad (A bag of salad bought at Dillon's (Kroger)) with Italian vinaigrette dressing.
* 3 cups of cooked white rice. I am guessing here, I didn't measure but it was one cup uncooked.
* 7 meatballs in tomato sauce that I made myself from tomato paste. I made it myself to control sodium.
* 5 large slices of summer sausage. They sell two kinds around here; one thicker than the other.
As you can see, this is a ridiculous amount of food. This is the first time I added bananas and yogurt in an attempt to boost my potassium intake. The chia also packs in the potassium and a ton of other nutrients.
My eating window closes at 6 but by 5 I still felt stuffed so around 5:20 I stopped at Taco Bell and bought a couple of soft tacos, mostly so I could take my metformin, which I take at both meals.
When I got up this morning, my blood sugar was 180. Yes, far from perfect but I will confess to you that before IF, EVEN WITH INSULIN, my fasting blood sugar was creeping up into the upper 200's. Now I am not taking insulin. And this 180 reading is high. Yesterday my fasting reading was 140. I check my blood sugar before I eat my first meal and it is typically 20-30 mg/dl lower than my first reading in the morning. I am not eating as much food today.
So here are some observations:
I am eating WAY too much on my first meal and I need to scale it back. This is due mainly to the apprehension caused by my food addiction. I am beginning to differentiate real hunger from apprehension, which makes doing IF so much easier. So far, doing IF is by far the easiest way to change my eating habits. For one, I don't snack. After my first meal, I have no desired to eat anything else! For another, I have eaten fast food only a couple of times since I began and only because of extenuating circumstances. I don't know why but doing IF has compelled me to cook my own lunch.
I need to add exercise to my day. I was afraid to add exercise before I got used to IF. I feel that I may be able to add exercise now. I think I'll begin by walking but I have a NordicTrak machine at home and I think I'll start using that eventually.
I need to balance my meals better so that I don't load up in just one meal. However, I feel that if don't have to take the second dose of metformin I could do a 24/0 IF which means you only eat one meal every 24 hours. I think that once I consistently wake up with sugars in the lower 100's, I may go to one dose of metformin. In fact, my doctor originally put me on only one dose of metformin but his diabetes nurse doubled it because she felt me walking around with blood sugars in the mid to upper 400's was not a good thing (LOL! go figure!). I also think that doubling the metforming allowed her to give me insulin. Anyway, we'll see.
One other thing about IF that I must mention and that is how it affects the people around you. My family began to complain about me not eating with them. I mean, I do sit at the table but if they are not ready to eat within my eating window, then I just sit and visit with them as they eat. So they are adjusting as well as I. I sometimes move my window up an hour if I can so that I can eat dinner with them and sometimes they eat a little earlier to fit my schedule.
I am very excited about IF. I have been doing it for almost 3 weeks now and I am not even close to feeling burned out. On the contrary, I have more energy; noticeably more. My joints quit aching overnight. I am sleeping much, much more soundly and thus I wake up refreshed and rested. And, most amazing of all, my back pain completely disappeared!
Alright, I'll be quiet now. Thank you for stopping by!
As it turns out however, I am far from being in trouble. Let me walk you through yesterday's IF:
I ate my first meal at noon. My meal consisted of
* Three bananas
* Two Carbmaster peach yogurt (disgusting) to which I added cinnamon and 1-2 tbsp chia seeds.
* A small serving of Cheez Its
* A large salad (A bag of salad bought at Dillon's (Kroger)) with Italian vinaigrette dressing.
* 3 cups of cooked white rice. I am guessing here, I didn't measure but it was one cup uncooked.
* 7 meatballs in tomato sauce that I made myself from tomato paste. I made it myself to control sodium.
* 5 large slices of summer sausage. They sell two kinds around here; one thicker than the other.
As you can see, this is a ridiculous amount of food. This is the first time I added bananas and yogurt in an attempt to boost my potassium intake. The chia also packs in the potassium and a ton of other nutrients.
My eating window closes at 6 but by 5 I still felt stuffed so around 5:20 I stopped at Taco Bell and bought a couple of soft tacos, mostly so I could take my metformin, which I take at both meals.
When I got up this morning, my blood sugar was 180. Yes, far from perfect but I will confess to you that before IF, EVEN WITH INSULIN, my fasting blood sugar was creeping up into the upper 200's. Now I am not taking insulin. And this 180 reading is high. Yesterday my fasting reading was 140. I check my blood sugar before I eat my first meal and it is typically 20-30 mg/dl lower than my first reading in the morning. I am not eating as much food today.
So here are some observations:
I am eating WAY too much on my first meal and I need to scale it back. This is due mainly to the apprehension caused by my food addiction. I am beginning to differentiate real hunger from apprehension, which makes doing IF so much easier. So far, doing IF is by far the easiest way to change my eating habits. For one, I don't snack. After my first meal, I have no desired to eat anything else! For another, I have eaten fast food only a couple of times since I began and only because of extenuating circumstances. I don't know why but doing IF has compelled me to cook my own lunch.
I need to add exercise to my day. I was afraid to add exercise before I got used to IF. I feel that I may be able to add exercise now. I think I'll begin by walking but I have a NordicTrak machine at home and I think I'll start using that eventually.
I need to balance my meals better so that I don't load up in just one meal. However, I feel that if don't have to take the second dose of metformin I could do a 24/0 IF which means you only eat one meal every 24 hours. I think that once I consistently wake up with sugars in the lower 100's, I may go to one dose of metformin. In fact, my doctor originally put me on only one dose of metformin but his diabetes nurse doubled it because she felt me walking around with blood sugars in the mid to upper 400's was not a good thing (LOL! go figure!). I also think that doubling the metforming allowed her to give me insulin. Anyway, we'll see.
One other thing about IF that I must mention and that is how it affects the people around you. My family began to complain about me not eating with them. I mean, I do sit at the table but if they are not ready to eat within my eating window, then I just sit and visit with them as they eat. So they are adjusting as well as I. I sometimes move my window up an hour if I can so that I can eat dinner with them and sometimes they eat a little earlier to fit my schedule.
I am very excited about IF. I have been doing it for almost 3 weeks now and I am not even close to feeling burned out. On the contrary, I have more energy; noticeably more. My joints quit aching overnight. I am sleeping much, much more soundly and thus I wake up refreshed and rested. And, most amazing of all, my back pain completely disappeared!
Alright, I'll be quiet now. Thank you for stopping by!
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Intermittent Fasting
I tried Intermittent Fasting (IF) before. I did it for about 2 weeks and noticed that although I lost very little weight, my clothes began to fit better. Because I did not see any dramatic results, I stopped doing IF and moved on.
Now that I am checking my blood sugar on a regular basis, I was curious as to what would happen if I did IF again. As I am writing this, I am on my 7th day of IF. At first, my blood sugar did not respond in any significant way but yesterday and this morning, my blood sugar was significantly lower.
You can get tons of information on IF online. I am doing an 18/6 protocol. That is, I fast for 18 hours and then have a window of 6 hours to eat ANYTHING I want. How this works for me is that I eat my last meal of the day somewhere between 5 pm and 6 pm an then I don't eat again until noon the next day.
As far as diet protocols go, IF is the easiest way for me to change my eating habits. I am even fixing my own lunch and I am much more inclined to cook my own meals as opposed to eating fast food.
For me, the first few days of IF were the toughest. During the first few days, I tended to eat way too much food during my eating window. After the first 3 or 4 days however, I began to relax. I am now a little less hungry when my eating window opens and I am now eating smaller meals for my last meal of the day.
I am doing IF to see if I can control my blood sugar better. Many people do IF to lose weight. If I lose weight on IF it will be a bonus for me. I read somewhere that I won't see the real benefits of IF until I've done it for several weeks. I think last time I stopped too soon.
I already feel better after only 7 days and as I said, my blood sugar began responding in a positive way.
I will keep you posted.
Now that I am checking my blood sugar on a regular basis, I was curious as to what would happen if I did IF again. As I am writing this, I am on my 7th day of IF. At first, my blood sugar did not respond in any significant way but yesterday and this morning, my blood sugar was significantly lower.
You can get tons of information on IF online. I am doing an 18/6 protocol. That is, I fast for 18 hours and then have a window of 6 hours to eat ANYTHING I want. How this works for me is that I eat my last meal of the day somewhere between 5 pm and 6 pm an then I don't eat again until noon the next day.
As far as diet protocols go, IF is the easiest way for me to change my eating habits. I am even fixing my own lunch and I am much more inclined to cook my own meals as opposed to eating fast food.
For me, the first few days of IF were the toughest. During the first few days, I tended to eat way too much food during my eating window. After the first 3 or 4 days however, I began to relax. I am now a little less hungry when my eating window opens and I am now eating smaller meals for my last meal of the day.
I am doing IF to see if I can control my blood sugar better. Many people do IF to lose weight. If I lose weight on IF it will be a bonus for me. I read somewhere that I won't see the real benefits of IF until I've done it for several weeks. I think last time I stopped too soon.
I already feel better after only 7 days and as I said, my blood sugar began responding in a positive way.
I will keep you posted.
Friday, February 14, 2014
It's called Insulin Resistance
I didn't intend this blog to become a diabetes blog. You have to forgive me if I continue to rattle on about this damn condition. As I said before, I have thrown myself head first on trying to manage the thing and as a consequence, I have a few things to say:
INSULIN RESISTANCE.
In simple terms, I am told, my condition exists because my body cannot use insulin the way normal people's bodies can. It has something to do with burned out receptors and the like. The problem with type two diabetes is mainly that although I produce insulin, I cannot use it properly. So it is with a great deal of confusion that I consented to insulin injections. I mean, if it is a problem of resistance, why pump me full of more of it? What's the point?
At first, I believed the insulin was helping. My blood sugar did drop. However, as the treatment went on, my blood sugar began to settle at a certain level, far from the levels my diabetes nurse prescribed (basically, normal fasting blood sugar levels of 80-100). In fact, I realized that insulin had no effect on my blood sugar levels if I ate around 2500 calories a day. The response to this was to up the insulin. Sigh! I was told that maybe, I should go to pre-meal insulin shots. Still, no explanation at all as to why the insulin would work if my body is incapable of using it properly.
Meanwhile, my appetite shot up through the roof and I began to rapidly gain weight. More weight = higher blood sugars.
So I stopped the shots and kept on taking the metformin. Right away my unnatural cravings for food decreased. I read up about it on the web. Sure enough, when you have all this insulin floating around in the blood stream, NOT BEING USED, your body begins to crave food. At least that's what they said on the web sites I saw. What gives??!! This doesn't sound like a sensible approach to treatment!
Now, to be fair to the medical establishment, they are trying to help people like me who didn't have the wherewithal to avoid getting the disease to begin with. You see, diabetes type two is a 'life-style' disease. It comes about because we eat too damn much and we become obese.
So the good doctors and nurses don't have much to work with. The obvious answer is to exercise, eat less, eat better foods, and ultimately drop all the excess weight but really, who's gonna do that? If I could do that I would have done it already. So I don't blame them for throwing insulin at me in industrial quantities. In this regard, my question is why haven't we come up with better ways to treat diabetes????
EMOTIONAL SUPPORT
Let's face it; we don't become obese in a vacuum. There are many emotional and psychological reasons as to why we over eat. If being over weight is a huge contributor to the onset of type 2 diabetes then shouldn't that be the primary treatment option? I've noticed that there are no diabetes support groups out there. At least they are not jumping at me the way say, AA support groups do. There should many out there and we should be encouraged or forced to go to them the way other addicts do. I am just saying. Pumping me full of metformin and insulin will only get me so far.
SUGAR LEVEL TESTING
Where the hell are the tricoders of Star Trek fame? Is it or is it not the 21st century?!
I am done for today. Thank you for stopping by.
INSULIN RESISTANCE.
In simple terms, I am told, my condition exists because my body cannot use insulin the way normal people's bodies can. It has something to do with burned out receptors and the like. The problem with type two diabetes is mainly that although I produce insulin, I cannot use it properly. So it is with a great deal of confusion that I consented to insulin injections. I mean, if it is a problem of resistance, why pump me full of more of it? What's the point?
At first, I believed the insulin was helping. My blood sugar did drop. However, as the treatment went on, my blood sugar began to settle at a certain level, far from the levels my diabetes nurse prescribed (basically, normal fasting blood sugar levels of 80-100). In fact, I realized that insulin had no effect on my blood sugar levels if I ate around 2500 calories a day. The response to this was to up the insulin. Sigh! I was told that maybe, I should go to pre-meal insulin shots. Still, no explanation at all as to why the insulin would work if my body is incapable of using it properly.
Meanwhile, my appetite shot up through the roof and I began to rapidly gain weight. More weight = higher blood sugars.
So I stopped the shots and kept on taking the metformin. Right away my unnatural cravings for food decreased. I read up about it on the web. Sure enough, when you have all this insulin floating around in the blood stream, NOT BEING USED, your body begins to crave food. At least that's what they said on the web sites I saw. What gives??!! This doesn't sound like a sensible approach to treatment!
Now, to be fair to the medical establishment, they are trying to help people like me who didn't have the wherewithal to avoid getting the disease to begin with. You see, diabetes type two is a 'life-style' disease. It comes about because we eat too damn much and we become obese.
So the good doctors and nurses don't have much to work with. The obvious answer is to exercise, eat less, eat better foods, and ultimately drop all the excess weight but really, who's gonna do that? If I could do that I would have done it already. So I don't blame them for throwing insulin at me in industrial quantities. In this regard, my question is why haven't we come up with better ways to treat diabetes????
EMOTIONAL SUPPORT
Let's face it; we don't become obese in a vacuum. There are many emotional and psychological reasons as to why we over eat. If being over weight is a huge contributor to the onset of type 2 diabetes then shouldn't that be the primary treatment option? I've noticed that there are no diabetes support groups out there. At least they are not jumping at me the way say, AA support groups do. There should many out there and we should be encouraged or forced to go to them the way other addicts do. I am just saying. Pumping me full of metformin and insulin will only get me so far.
SUGAR LEVEL TESTING
Where the hell are the tricoders of Star Trek fame? Is it or is it not the 21st century?!
I am done for today. Thank you for stopping by.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Confusing InterWeb Interconnections
Since the advent of the World Wide Web in the early 90's (the Web, not to be confused with the Internet; one is a subset of the other), I have had a web site or a blog of some type. Most of my instances on the Web have died and gone away but some are still out there. This becomes a problem when a company which used to host my site gets absorbed by a larger company and my older stuff now lives all mixed with my newest stuff and new links take people to old sites.
Such is the case right now whereas some of my old profiles got brought back to life and my new links somehow take people to websites I no longer maintain. Case in point is Google. It seems Google now owns every company I ever hosted a site with. So, if I post a comment somewhere and you try to follow my profile you may find yourself at any of a number of old blogs that will confuse the heck out of you. Lately, I notice that people end up at my old gardening blog, which I no longer maintain.
I apologize for that. I am trying to create links on my old blogs and sites to direct people to my new blogs and sites but I don't know how effective that move has been. Sigh!
Such is the case right now whereas some of my old profiles got brought back to life and my new links somehow take people to websites I no longer maintain. Case in point is Google. It seems Google now owns every company I ever hosted a site with. So, if I post a comment somewhere and you try to follow my profile you may find yourself at any of a number of old blogs that will confuse the heck out of you. Lately, I notice that people end up at my old gardening blog, which I no longer maintain.
I apologize for that. I am trying to create links on my old blogs and sites to direct people to my new blogs and sites but I don't know how effective that move has been. Sigh!
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