Abracadiet, You Are Diabetic

For many years I was pre-everything. Prehypertension, prediabetic, pre-obese (this is a real thing).

Once, I was diagnosed fully with these conditions I could literally feel the changes in my body.

I promise after age 35 it seemed like I was falling off a cliff health-wise.

All those years of eating whatever I want to had caught up.

Luckily, physical activity was a big thing for my mother, so I would at least work out three times a week. But, then the pandemic hit and I just did not want to be as active anymore.

This feeling of true sluggishness came out of nowhere.

From there I started to feel so tired, I could not even eat, I was napping most of the day, even during my job working from home. I had zero energy.

Then I started feeling ill, so I had to go to the hospital, and my sugar was through the roof! My blood pressure was so high, that they thought I may have a stroke or heart attack at any moment. I was officially diagnosed as a Type 2 diabetic.

I was in the hospital for almost a week. Once I got out my mother helped me with cooking healthier meals and drinking less sugary beverages.

So, I stocked up on sugar-free sodas, and healthy tv dinners for lunch, and ate in more for dinner. Well…..this did not work because I was not aware of how damaging sugar-free beverages could be if over a moderate portion.

Then the “healthy tv dinners” were loaded with sodium and sugar. Then on the days, I would eat out, I would overindulge and instead of a 1-day binge, it was turning into 3 days a week. (I will discuss sugar-free, and foods labeled healthy in another post).

I was not getting exercise in as often either. Therefore, the symptoms that put me in the hospital the first time returned. But this time my mother came and put me on a personal nutrition plan. She has no degree in nutrition or physical exercise, but just a vast amount of experience of what she has seen work and not work.

Her plan worked, and it was very simple, but required consistency in making small effective changes daily. Little by little I went from drinking 3 sugar beverages a day, down to 1, then none, and was just drinking water. Then from eating a half family-size bag of chips to a quarter, and then switching over to a handful of pistachios with green tea, no sugar as a snack. All my food was homemade. I knew what was going into everything. Instead of take-out once a week, it was maybe once a month, and I would just eat half of what I ordered and save the rest for lunch the next day.

The biggest challenge was the exercise. But I just started with 5 minutes of exercise a day. That’s right 5 minutes. Then I increased to 10, 20, and 30 minutes. After a year of consistency, I was doing about 1 hour and 20 minutes 4 times a week. But, that is because I love music and found a way to incorporate it into physical activity.

With these changes, I have been able to be taken off diabetic medicine. But. It takes a lot of work!

Every now and then I want a big ice cream Sunday and root beer with fries, and within hours I will get “diabetic sick” and it can last a few days. For every one of these types of days I have, it takes 3 days to recover.

Therefore, I just practice better moderation with portions.

Those of you with diabetes or who know someone with diabetes, what changes have you or they made to have sustainable healthy behaviors?

Please share in the comments below.