About a year ago, almost to the day, I was first diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. About a year ago, almost to the day, I have received my second blood test where I did not, in fact, have Type 2 Diabetes.
Started with an A1c (blood glucose percentage for the last 4 months) that pegged all known instruments at almost 13%. If sugar where alcohol, I'd still be in jail. Today, after being off the meds that I was taking to get that down for 6 months, I'm at 5.6. 5.6, for those that are wondering, is considered good. Not even pre-diabetic.
1 year. That's all it took. Well, it took more than that, but not much. Regular excercise, trying very, very hard to keep my diet in check and regular excercise.
I know there are a zillion people out there that suffer from this. Some of them can't control it due to other medical factors. Some can't control it because of other reasons. For those of you that can't, you just keep doing you, follow your doctors instructions and do what you are doing to keep it in check.
For the rest of the people that have been diagnosed; why do you still have it? Please excuse me for a minute while I climb upon my grand ol' soap box, won't you.
- Excercise. This one is easy because you know what you need to do? Get off the couch and go for a 20 minute walk, and make it brisk. You have the 20 minutes. Trust me.
- The drive-thru is a lie. Besides the fact that it takes longer than actually going inside, it’s over-processed crap full of all of things that are driving your blood glucose up.
- Diet. Try to work into a diet consisting primarily of proteins, vegetables and fruit. Have some beans in there too. Stay away from the baked goods, processed anything, frozen dinners and anything that has ingredients that you can’t pronounce.
- For good measure, exercise.
Honestly, this is all I did. Granted, I started on the diet about 7 years ago, and really knuckled down about 2 years ago, and again about a year ago. Am I perfect? Fuck no. Am I doing better than you? Most definitely.
You shouldn't have to take a pill or a needle to do what your body does for you by design. If you do, and don't fall into the categories that I listed above, then you are definitely doing something wrong. This isn't easy to fix, especially if most of your meals come from drive-thru windows and are washed down with corn syrup laden drinks, but you will find that it is easier than you think.
There is no reason to have this. I did because I was lazy and eating poorly and used to weigh 320 pounds. And smoked a pack a day. But, here I am, 220 pounds, not smoking and riding my bicycle 70-100 miles per week. Check my Strava and you'll see that I have, really, riden almost 1300 miles this year.
Turn off the TV, cut cable, shop for your food around the outside edge of the store, only get coffee at the donut shop and get off your ass! You can do this!
Please allow me to dismount my soapbox. Thank you.
I will be going back again in 3 months for another check to make sure I haven't gone off the rails. But this is who I am now. This is how I eat, how I exercise, how I live.
Finally, there was some strange results from this test. With all of my cycling and driving to work in a car without tinted windows (and about 5 hours a week with the top down), my vitamin D levels came back in the mid 20's. Good is 30 – 100 on whatever scale they use to measure that. Yes. You read that correctly. A guy that spends 20 hours a week outdoors, while living in Arizona, is vitamin D deficient.
Well, at least I beat Diabetes. #boom.