Man, it's been a roller coaster these last few months!
Since June 1, I've lost 74 pounds. (306 to 232.) During that time, I've beaten high blood pressure and cholesterol, and possibly sleep apnea. (I'm scheduling a sleep study to confirm that.) My diet is night-and-day different, yet I can still eat just about anything I want... though what I want is different now. But the biggest event happened today.
Those with diabetes measure their blood sugar to see how much glucose is in their blood at any given time. You can do this on a daily basis, but there's also a blood test to get your A1C value. This is the state of the sugar in your blood over 3 months, and doesn't fluctuate hour by hour or day by day like you'll see on a standard blood glucose monitor. An A1C value of 6.5 or above means you're diabetic. A value of 5.7 to 6.4 indicates that you are pre-diabetic. Normal A1C is below 5.7.
Today, I my A1C tested at 5.2.
FUCK YEAH.
Now... my doctor explained how "officially" removing diabetes from my chart works, back when he removed high blood pressure and cholesterol from my chart: I get my A1C below 5.6, then I stop taking my diabetes medication, and then we wait. For a year. And we test my A1C every three months during that year. If a year goes by and my A1C remains below 5.7, THEN we remove it from my chart. Until then, it's not official.
But to hell with that. Today, I fucking beat diabetes! The rest, as they say, is just administrative minutia.
For the curious, here's how I got here:
- I began on June 1. I accidentally forgot to eat for three days because my life went to shit and didn't notice the normal warning signs of not eating because... I felt like that all the time. That made me realize that, yes, I was actually capable of intermittent fasting, specifically OMAD (One Meal A Day), so I tried that for a while.
- Eating one meal a day (targeting 1,250 calories) and drinking a fuckton of ice water, I lost an average of 5-7 pounds per week, around 36 pounds in the first month. I checked with my doctor and a dietician throughout the process, and though they warned me the weight loss would eventually slow down and that I needed to start using a glucose monitor to ensure my blood sugar didn't drop too low, they gave their blessing.
- After a few gastrointestinal issues (kinda like dumping syndrome due to osmosis, with the excess food acting as the solute), I switched from OMAD to multiple meals but still targeted 1,250 calories.
- After discovering I was losing muscle mass and was particularly susceptible to head rushes and dizziness, I upped my caloric intake to 1,500 per day and those issues went away. I've been testing 1,400 calories for the past week or two and that appears to be the sweet spot for me, though YMMV.
- I stay reasonably active. I haven't really set aside the time for exercise that I'd hoped to do; that's still a habit I'm trying to form. But I try to make sure I hit at least 6,000 steps per day, and some days I go over 12-14,000. A reasonably active job or a child makes this easy, and I've got both. Walking for 30 minutes each day is enough to be "active" enough to be reasonably healthy in this regard. If you can add on more walking, or biking, or chasing your kid around while laughing, so much the better!
After 3 months, I dropped from 44" jeans to 36". My shirt size went from XXL/XXXL to XL, and my shorts/underwear size went from XL/XXL to L. Nothing I've purchased in the last three years fits, and half the stuff from before that is now too big. If you'd like to learn more about my journey, here's a write-up of my three month progress I posted on Sep 1, plus a bunch of lessons I learned along the way.
I haven't really had to give up any foods. I can have almost anything, though I still target 1,400 calories per day and try to keep my macronutrients to roughly 1/3 each of carbs, protein, and fat. Some days are better than others, but I don't beat myself up for cheating or if my macros don't line up the way I want. A "bad" day of calories (usually due to stress-snacking) means 1,800 calories instead of 1,400, and that's if I snack a lot. A "normal" day used to be ~5,000 calories. I've been known to polish off an entire bag of Double Stuf Oreos (2,100 calories) and half a gallon of milk (1,200 calories) in one evening. Not anymore! I do sometimes find myself making... DECISIONS. Like I LOVE milk, but I just don't drink much of it anymore because an 8-ounce glass is 150 calories, and I'd usually rather spend those on something else. But tonight I had a cup of milk to celebrate, along with some ice cream, because I'm allowed a splurge once in a while with a big event like today's. And it only pushed me 186 calories over my daily target, so "good enough". ;-)
My snacks used to be whole candy bars, oreos, strawberry newtons, and ice cream, with no attention paid to serving sizes. Today, they're fresh or dried fruit, a can of V8, some dried meat, and sometimes a small amount of cheese. (A Babybel or string cheese.) I'll still eat treats like ice cream (love me some Ben & Jerry's Phish Food!) but I pay attention to serving sizes, total daily calories, and macros. And after a while (1-2 months), that becomes much easier because your stomach shrinks and you just don't have room for what you used to eat. Sometimes, a "serving" is too much! (A serving of spaghetti, sauce, and some ground beef, olives and sauteed mushrooms is double what fills me up!) Losing weight, getting healthy, and beating things like high blood pressure and diabetes doesn't mean you can't enjoy food. It just means you have to change your habits, and once you do, you find that you're pretty satiated with the new ones, once you get used to them. Your tastes also change, and you discover new things you love that are far healthier. I just had a fresh mango for the first time in my life and it was AMAZING. (I'd only ever had mango IN things, if at all.) Strawberries were always too tart for me unless I added sugar, but now I enjoy them with some cheese or as a topping. I have so much "new" food to discover now!
You can do this! It can be hard to start, but once you do, you'll wonder why you never did it before. And you'll feel amazing!
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