Here is evidence that exercise does good things:

7:15am – just after getting up from bed, my blood glucose was 128.
7:45am – ate breakfast, 2 fried eggs and two slices of ham.
9:30am – went walking for one hour – 2+ miles
10:30am – blood glucose after walking: 108.

Blood Glucose Meter

Nice!

Well, that was a one day more than 2 weeks ago when I wrote that, and I am happy to say that my readings are holding.  My diet is still under control, and I am feeling very good.  Amazing what a little more exercise and living a reasonable lifestyle will do for you!

When my diabetes was out of control, I had a big problem with infections.  Almost any wound that I got, be it a paper cut, or even a scratch would most likely become infected.  For years, there was really no time that I didn’t have some sort of infection somewhere on my body.  It’s an uncomfortable way to live.  I am happy to say that for several weeks I have experienced no infections of any kind, and that is a good feeling.  Having a badly infected sore on your body is uncomfortable, to say the least.  Not having to worry about that is a big bonus for me.

I have gotten where I eat fish or some kind of seafood at least 4 or 5 times per week, and I am enjoying it.  Fish is good for your body, and you can have a nice meal without having your blood sugar go wild.  Of course, you can’t eat something like sweet and sour fish or anything loaded with sugar like that, but a nice piece of grilled fish, or even a fried piece of fish if you use the right kind of oil and keep it to a minimal amount is a nice meal, and healthy too.

I’ve also lost a few more pounds over the past few weeks as well.  I am not altering my diet to lose weight, but that is a nice side benefit.  I am modifying my diet to keep my blood glucose in reasonable control.  And, it’s working!

Not only is it just nice to see these normal levels of blood sugar, I also feel a lot better.  The good feeling is both physical and also mental as well.  When your glucose is out of control, you tend to be moody, get angry easily, etc. and I am glad to not have that problem anymore.  Who likes being angry?  I sure don’t.

Another major problem if you let your diabetes go uncontrolled is that you get a lot of infections, because your immune system has it’s guard down when your diabetes is out of control.  Even just a minor cut or scrape can easily turn into a serious infection, and that is certainly not good.  When my diabetes is out of control, I am very prone toward these kind of infections.

Anyway, I am feeling good.  I eat less than I used to and I enjoy life more.  I hope that I can continue to control this terrible disease.  I know that I will keep trying my best.

First step is that I got my blood glucose meter to check what my glucose level was.  It’s hard to improve if you don’t know exactly where you stand.  Oops.  There is a problem.  I don’t have any test strips.  So, I started looking all around Davao City, where I live, but I could not find any test strips for my meter.

I bought my meter when I lived in General Santos City, so I thought they would probably have strips there.  I called my sister-in-law who lives in General Santos and asked her to check around town to see if she can get me some test strips.  No dice!  Every store said that they were discontinued.  I did some research and found that the strips were still being made, these stores just discontinued them.

After this, I recalled, a number of years ago, a friend who also has diabetes was shopping for test strips, and was unable to get the right strips for his meter too.  We found out at the time that it seemed that stores would carry a certain brand of meters and strips.  After a few years they would change to stocking a different brand.  In effect, what they were doing was switching brands, because then you could not buy strips for your meter anymore, and you would be forced to buy a new meter, just so that you could get strips to test your glucose level!  Frankly, this is a scam in my opinion.  However, I have talked to other diabetics in the Philippines and they tell me the same story is happening in their town too.

Well, I broke down and purchased a new blood glucose meter the other day, and I stocked up on strips too.  I could not over supply myself on the strips, as they have an expiration date, so I could only buy what would be used within the expiration period.  Oh well…

A little over 2 weeks ago, when I started, I had allowed my blood glucose level to get to about 250 to 300 in the morning after I got up.  This is way above the 120 or so that would be normal, and it’s not healthy!  For a week or so, I have not checked my glucose, but this morning when I checked it, it was 188.  That is quite an improvement.  Yes, I still have a ways to go to be where I want to be, but I am on my way there.  My ultimate goal is to get it to 120 after sleeping, although I consider an intermediate goal to be 150.  In the next two weeks, I can reach my intermediate goal if I just keep eating right and not snacking. 

I must say that I’ve been really happy with my ability to maintain good eating.  For breakfast, I am having things like bran muffins and such.  For lunch, I make this my biggest meal of the day.  I’ve been having things like chicken and fish for lunch, although as long as what I eat is reasonable, and not necessarily perfect, I consider that OK.  For dinner, almost every night I’ve been having a salad, nothing else.  I have actually gotten to the point where I crave a salad if I don’t eat one every day.  This is coming from somebody who 2 years ago had never eaten a salad in his life, because I thought I didn’t like them!  Now, I am craving them!  Go figure!

The next step is also going to be increasing exercise.  Over the past 6 months I have gotten to where I have been leading a fairly lethargic lifestyle.  I used to exercise (primarily swimming) every day (at least 5 days per week), but I got out of the habit.  I had been just sitting in front of my computer working all day, then watching TV in the evening.  Not good!  My first move, 2 weeks or so ago was that I moved my exercise bike into my office.  I also have some weights in my office.  About 4 times per day, I get up from the computer, stretch, ride the bike or lift the weights for a while to break the cycle of sitting in front of my PC.  I am feeling better, and feeling ready to start doing some walking or swimming.  I will be starting that probably next week.  In my past experience, I would have to say that exercise made a huge impact on my diabetes, really dropping my blood glucose levels!

I’m feeling good, and I am feeling that I am moving in the proper direction.

For the last 8 months or so, I have again let my blood glucose levels go out of control.  It is so frustrating to me.  I have to work really hard to get my glucose into a reasonable or even normal level, so why can’t I maintain it once i get there?  I find it so frustrating!  Over the last week or so, I have again started making efforts to get back where I should be with my diabetes.  I certainly don’t want to let my glucose levels get out of control, why would anybody want that?  If I continue to do that, it will lead to medical problems, complications, even  an early death.  Hey, I have kids as young as 7 years old.  I want to be around to see them when they are adults.  Not to mention wanting to see the day when my wife and I can retire at our newly purchased land on Samal Island.  But, if I don’t get my health in control, and keep it there, I will probably never see those things that I long for.

My Dad died when he was only 55 years old.  I’m 45 now, and I certainly want to live longer than my Dad did.  I want to be here for another 25 or 30 years.  At the weight that I’ve carried all of my life, along with high blood pressure and diabetes, I feel that I’ll be lucky to make it to 55 like Dad did.  That is something I have to change.

Like I said, for a week now, I’ve been making steps toward better health again.  First thing I did was to move my exercise bike into my office where I spend the most time during the day.  They say that it’s a good thing for you to take a break from the computer once per hour or so.  So, what I do now is to take that once-per-hour break and during that break I either lift my dumbbell or ride the exercise bike.  I alternate the two in order to work different muscle groups.  My next step was that I made some modifications in my diet.  I have started eating 5 defined meals or snacks per day.  Before I ate only 3 meals, but I’d have constant snacks between meals it seemed.  Now, I eat smaller meals, but 5 times per day.  Usually my biggest meal of the day is for lunch now.  My dinner is usually just a salad.  And, I don’t eat anything after dinner.  I generally eat at around 7am, 10 or 11am, 2pm, 5pm and 7pm.  The mid-morning and late afternoon times are smaller snacks.  I try to keep the snacks healthy too.  I like to have a small amount of peanuts, or some tuna sashimi, or smoked salmon at those times.

One thing I intend to do is to write in this blog regularly.  I find that if I have to write down what I am up to, it helps keep me honest, and on track.  I don’t want to sit here and list a whole ton of junk foods that I just ate!  That would look bad, and worse it would make me feel bad just writing that down!

So, my goal for now is three-fold:

1. Continue to control the diet that I am eating.
2. Increase the amount of exercise that I am getting.
3. Blog about my health regularly.

I feel that if I can do these three things, I can re-gain the healthier lifestyle that was living about 2 years ago.

On an unrelated note, except that it’s in the area of health, I sprained my ankle this afternoon! Ouch! I can hardly walk. I was just sitting here typing on my computer, and moved my foot the wrong way, and felt it sort of “pop out” of place. Well, I hope it heals up soon. I injured my ankle about 10 years ago, and this used to happen to me a lot. It has not happened for maybe 4 years or so, so I hate to have it happen again! I can only hope that it does not become a regular event like it used to.