Showing posts with label Diabetes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Diabetes. Show all posts

Thursday, August 07, 2014

Life By the Number

HR: 58
BP: 128/80
A1c: 6.2
Office Wt: 250
Home Wt: 247

You know all the crap you hear about wieght lose?  Take this pill! Use this system!  Eat this special food! Lose 10 pounds in 2 weeks!

All of that is horseshit!  You know the best way to lose weight diet and exercise.  Stop eating crap.  Get 8 hours of sleep.  Do Thrity minutes of vigorous exercise every day. ( Mastrubating to pornography doesn't count!)

All that stuff you mom told you about eating your veggies and not to drink some much soda pop really works.  Get over the fact you had a bad gym experience, when the class bully snapped your jock strap or pulled down your short exposing your raging hard on while you watched the girls in Coed swim class.  (Not that I dwell on that!  Although I am quite proud of the shocked looks I got. )

For those few readers I have left  paying attention,  my numbers are fan-fucking-tastic.  Six months ago I was at 6.8 for my A1c.   Try to think of your red blood cells as doughnut.  The A1c is a percentage of sugar covering the outside of the red blood cell, like the sugar on a doughnut.  Normal range is 4.8-5.9% , like a plain cake doughnut that a couple of sprinkles.  (Aside: If the red blood cell have too much sugar on their surface they can stick together just like real doughnuts.  Which lead to kidney damage, heart damage, blindness, loss of limbs, and death).  At 6.2% my donuts are lightly glazed. At 15.6% your doughnut have been through the Krispy Kreme Sugar Waterfall, dipped in chocolate, covered in rainbow sprinkles, then covered with doughnut crumbles.  Your blood has the consistency of pancake batter and it is only a matter of time before your heart explodes.

I have been working hard over the past two year to actually lose the weight.  A fat black guy walking through Wal-mart just seems a stereotypical at this point. (Aside: I get more looks from women theses day.  Evidently when you weigh 250 and everyone else is 350+  you look pretty damn sexy in some women's eyes)  I haven't weighed 250 since 1999.

How did I do this?  Little changes and small steps.  I can't gaurantee this will work for you but it worked for me so far.

1. A little willpower doesn't mean saying no to every piece of cake or twinkie.  It does mean not eating after 8 pm.  Realizing you don't need that bag of chips while you play video games.  Think before you eat.  Are you eating to cover something else?  Sometimes having an honest look at yourself is the hardest part.

2. Cut out all diet soda pop and artificial sweetener, anything with the claim of zero calories because sugar substitute are not your friend.   Artificial sweeteners trick the body into thinking it has sugar to burn.  When it can't find the energy your body craves more food.  All that fake sugar screws up your sense of taste as well.  Try cutting out all the fake sugar you have for two weeks then eat an apple, grapes or another piece of fruit.  (Really you should try this.  It shocked the hell out of me.)

3. Get some exercise everyday.  Start slow and let your body adjust.  When I started TKD I thought I was going to die, after six month it was wasn't that bad.  Sweat is your friend.  After my knee injury I had to start slow again and work up to what I do now:  35 minutes fast climb on a stepper, 1965 feet ascent.  (Aside: Since writing and editing I have upped to 40 minutes and now climb 2240 feet.)  I start with 15 minutes on the lowest difficulty and I thought I was going to die.  Every time my body got used to the work load I increased the time by 5 minutes or increase the stepper level.  It's about every two months or so.

4. Cut out the fast food.  Getting rid of the Burger, fries and pop can do wonders. Maybe having Fast Food once a month is a good goal to work toward.  Not all fast food is created equal.  A sub sandwich with unsweetened ice tea and no chips is better than double cheeseburger, large fries and a coke.  Packing a lunch will save you a bit of cash too.

5. Eating regularly breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Watch your portions You don't need as much food as you think you do.  The restaurants are lying to you.  No one needs a 16 oz steak.

6. Drink lots of water, Unsweetened iced tea, or plain coffee.  (Not any of that Iced Coffee with Whipped cream crap).  Maybe once a week I have a can (12oz - 355ml) of regular soda, but that is a rare special treat.  I think cutting out the diet and sugar drinks have helped me a great deal.  You would be surprise how many calories you down everyday in your drinks.

7. Weight yourself everyday and keep track of what is going on.  Your weight from day to day may change by 3 to 5 pounds.  There may seems to be no reason for it, but it happens.  I have stuffed myself and the next day I've been of the scale and it reads 2 pounds lighter.  Other days I barley had anything and gain 3 pounds.  This is normal.  As you body loses fat and gains muscle you may gain some weight.  If you are well hydrated one day and thirsty the next day, that can show up in your weight too.   Track your weight everyday, but look at the trend downward over the months.  

8. All of this will take time.  I can't help you if you want to lose 10 pounds in 10 days.  You didn't wake up 300 pounds one day.  You grew that way over time, it's going to take some time to lose the weight as well.  Be realistic.  Do not give up trying just because you can not  lose five pounds the that day.

9. You will slip.  Binge on a pizza.  Eat too much cake. You'll gain 5 pounds in a week on vacation that took you a good month and a half to lose.  Don't give up.  Get back on the horse.  rome was not built in a day and neither is a slimmer you.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

I'm such a fine peice of ass below the waist!

If am using a piece of exercise equipment and it breaks, does that mean I'm exercing enough to wear it out?

I mentioned for the past year I've been using a stepper to help control my diabetes.  It's working.  The exercise is doing wonders for my legs.  However, last fall I broke a cable in the machine, and couldn't use it for a couple of weeks.

My stepper is secondhand from a local sporting goods store. I've had it for over three or four years, but haven't really used it seriously until the last year.  The stepper has to be at least 10 years old and has seen better days.  You can't even find new steppers.  They have fallen out of fashion.  So I knew the day was coming.  Something would break and I would have to fix it or find something else to do for exercise.  Tonight the other cable broke.

It's always something.  I already have to talk myself into exercising each day.  I don't need any more obstacles or excuses to keep me back.  I was doing TKD at the university  until they changed the rules.  The new regulations added a degree of difficulty and extra expenses which made the MWF routine untenable.  Then it was swimming at the local rec center. Swimming was great but changes in my class schedule made it more difficult to stick with a routine.   Although, I do miss the ladies in the whirlpool afterwards.  (I'm quite the stud with the AARP group in the morning.)   So having a cable break in stepper is just one more thing.  F*CK!

Thank God for Sportsmith.  After searching for replacement parts online I found Sportsmith.  I should have order a second cable in the fall after the first break, but I was too cheap.  However, after paying ten dollars in shipping I should have added a second spare cable to my order.  This time I ordered three cables.   By God, I'm gonna ride this machine until it fall into dust!

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Life by the Numbers

Once again time to get the oil check.  This time my checkup is before what I called the Season of Food.  The time starting with Thanksgiving and runs until Valentine's Day.  It also happens to be the time Egg Nog is freely available in the Grocery store.  Everywhere you turn someone is trying to push something down your gullet: Thanksgiving, Christmas Parties, Work Banquets, End of the Year Functions, New Years, Super Bowl, My Birthday.  All I can say is THANK GOD for my Stepper, Exercise, and Modern Pharmaceuticals.

A1c :   6.8 (Down from 6.9)  Yippie!
BP: 128/80 (Was 122/80) 
Res: 16 (16)
HR: 62 (Was 80, I don't think the nurse can count.)

Cholesterol: 133  HDL: 34  LDL: 87  TRI: 60 

Bonus:  I lost 2 pounds, but I think It's just me pulling my keys, phone, wallet, pocketknife, and other crap out of my pockets before I step on the scale.

However, I have notice dropping two pants sizes.  My pants now keep slipping from my waist to my knees if I am not careful.   I must say I'm a fine piece of ass from the waist below,  but now it looks like I have a beer gut.   Tummy fat is always the last to go.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Life by the Number

BP: 122/80
HR: 80 Beats per Minutes
Res: 16
A1c:  6.9%!

Hallelujah!  A1c is below 7.0.  It has been a long road, and it is just a rest stop.  Giving up diet soda does wonders. And Exercise really does wonders as well.  Gotta keep using the Stairmaster in the basement.  Buns of steel here I come.  (I still have a Beer gut even though I'm not a big beer drinker.  I think it's the donuts for breakfast.)



Thursday, May 30, 2013



Life By the Number 2nd Qtr 2013
Wt: 265 lb  (Down from a high of 280 lb, but not as low as the 250 lbs I once was.)

BP:  138/90 -  That 90 needs to come down. Less caffeine and more exercise.

Heart Rate:  72 bpm -  More exercise since I have had this down to 60 bpm

A1c:  7.2%  This is not great but it beats the hell out of 7.7% and 7.6%

The 7.6 % was my own damn fault.  Not enough exercise since my swimming routine was thrown into Chaos due to a new blow hole in the back of my neck.  Plus donuts for breakfast are no way in hell a good idea. 

So I've spent the last 3 months working on the A1c.  I've cut out all artificial sweeteners, any diet with word diet.  So all my diet pop is now unsweetened ice tea.  I can live without the sugar but I need the caffeine.  It is amazing the change in my taste buds now that all the crap is gone.  Now that my body is not seeing all that fake sugar, everything tastes so much sweeter.  Fresh fruit, milk, bread, and raisins taste great.

I've been using my stepper 5 days a week and that has been helping as well.  I have lost weight and my buns are like steel.  Or course now it looks like I have a beer gut.  Curse you! uneven weight lose!

Saturday, August 08, 2009

If it's Saturday, it must be St. Paul.

I've finally got back to the twin cities, after finding half the world has moved here. The exception is my brother who just left a couple of years back. So on to the ramble.

The Drive was better than I thought, since I thought I would fall asleep behind the wheel after 2 hours to anywhere. However, I've found out some very nasty things.

One, it is possible to overdose on Sorbitol. One if my routines when driving is chewing Orbit Bubblemint and downing Eclipse Winterfrost mints like there is no tomorrow. Both have Sorbitol a sugar alcohol substitute. One of the reason I do this is to keep my mouth happy, thus causing me to stay awake and not run into the minivan filled with Nuns and orphan kids. (There's an express ticket to hell.) Since I'm diabetic I try to avoid sugar when I can, hence the need for the Sorbitol. However, soon after arriving in the Twin Cities part of my body feel like they have gone to another country and started drinking the pond water. The Odd thing is this happen the week before, and the week before that. Almost like clockwork.

Last time, this happen was in College when I would get a headache at 2 PM every Sunday and would clear up by dinnertime. Turns out that my body was going through Caffeine withdrawal. Hmmmmmmmm.....

Let's run it down. Two weeks, I drove to Des Monies for a conferences, then last week the HP and I took the kids to Adventureland. Both road trip with my usual routine, and a couple of days afterwards of me finishing off my supply of Eclipse mints. All followed by spending more time in the bathroom than a ten dollar hooker on payday. A little research and you guess it: Sorbitol! One more thing to scratch off the list. Other side effects: Gas. (Yeah, like I need that!), High Blood Sugar readings (Oh Shit, why don't you just say my head could explode.)
Truth to be told, the blood sugar reading are a result of my biochemistry and the sorbitol working together in interesting ways. Which leads me to my next point.

300 mg/dL! You gotta be Shitting Me! I admitt I have not been as diligent about watch what I eat, but I haven't had a donut in weeks and only one funnel cake in the past week. Some of this maybe the Sorbitol, but I hope it's not my pancreas giving up the ghost. I though I had this under control, before my lancet device failed. Which brings me to my next point. I'm sure all of you have seen those diabetic ads for all kinds of stuff. (Aside: I'm always tickled by the TV shows that have diabetic and ED ads in the same break time. Makes me think of old fat guys in wheelchairs with boners.) One of the ads is for the OneTouch Ultra Mini.

Sure, it's cute and small, but it's a pain in the ass. The unit is sold as being hip, small and convenient. I picked up one of these units for free at the local Hy-Vee store from the local rep pitching the product to the pharmacy customers. What they don't tell you is you have to dragging all the other crap with you: test strips, lancets, lancet device, and the case to carry it all. The picture makes it seem the unit carries the strips, HA! You load one test strip for each time you test. My old Accu-check Compact has all the test strips loaded into a drum so it's one less thing to carry. It's about three times the volume, but the case size for all the accessories is only 50% larger than the OneTouch. So I'm sticking with the Accu-check

Thursday, April 08, 2004

Blood Test Numbers

For those of you keeping track.


A1c is 5.8 (Down from 5.9) Normal is 4- 6.4

Cholestrol 210 (Down from 224 in 2001)
HDL 43 (Normal is 40 - 59)
LDL 145 ( It should be under 100 for me)

So here is the question 145 + 43 = 188, so what is the other 22? Chocolate Chips and Nacho Cheese?

So my doctor tells me I need Lipitor or Zocor. Go Figure. I should have Drank, Smoked and used Drugs...I probably be healthier and thinner. Life Mocks me in so many ways.

Saturday, March 27, 2004

Ok the 3 month Check up!

Heart Rate 66 beats per minutes ( Very Good! Down from 80 bpm )

Blood pressure 120/70 (Very Good! Down from 140/80)

Let's hear it for TKD

A1c: Waiting for Results ( April 2003 13.1 Very Bad!) (Oct 2003 5.9 Very Good) (Those Girl Scout Cookies will kill YA! I had to buy 12 boxes because my daughter asked sooooo nicely)

HDL/LDL: Waiting for Result.... ( Those French Fries will do me in!)

Weight: LOL 273# How in the HELL does that happen! I'm only 5'8!

And the Meds I take make me gain weight. Well it will more power behind each kick.

The Secret of Power = Speed + Focus + Technique