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Month: February 2011

Weight Loss Reality Check

Chris Stocker 5 Comments

I finally re-scheduled my endo appointment for the middle of March and of course, once again, I am nowhere near the weight loss goal that we had set at my last visit.  And to make things worse right now, I re-injured my knee and can’t really do any physical activity because I am afraid that I am going to tear my ACL again.  I will be making an appointment with an orthopedic doctor and hopefully there isn’t anything wrong and I will be able to get back to exercising like I was before.  I can’t jog, and I can’t even go for a nightly walk anymore because it hurts too much to even walk a long distance, hell, a short distance at that.  My only option right now is to just do sit ups and push ups at home and at least get some sort of exercise in.  I might try to ride the bike a little bit, but pretty sure that is going to cause pain as well.  My brother mentioned this to me, and I think he is 100% correct, my body is not used to dealing with this amount of weight, and I am at the highest weight level of my life, and my bad knee just can’t handle the weight and it’s due to happen some time soon until the weight is gone.

At times I really feel like an addict, like a fat addict.  I always tell myself, “I can easily lose 15-20 pounds when I want to, I just have to get serious about it, so I’ll just eat this fast food and work it off when I decide to start”.  These are the sort of things that I hear on Intervention or these other addiction shows.  It is sad, but yet, I don’t do anything about it.  Go ahead and search my blog, I have probably written nearly 50 posts about how I’m going to lose weight, but yet I still weight more than I ever did, and I don’t fit into half of the clothes that I own.

All that, and I haven’t even mentioned the affect it is having on my diabetes. Over the last year, I have probably had the worst blood sugars that I have had since I’ve been diabetic.  I know this, yet I haven’t done much to change it.  The last month, however has been a lot better, been able to keep them under 200’s a lot more frequently then before.  I read blogs and tweets about people being upset or cursing out diabetes when they see 180 on their meter or CGM.  I’m like…. WTF, when I see 180, I am happy, I’m happy that it is below 200.  What does this mean?  Does this mean that I have accepted high blood sugars, or that I am settling myself to levels that are not healthy and I should not be accepting of those numbers?

I’m not sure, all I know, is that this is a reality check.  Cleaning out a closet of clothes in which 80% of the pants and shorts that are in there do not fit anymore is embarrassing.  I will not be beat by all of this.  I will succeed, and I will prevail.

What Is Your Most Creative Fundraiser Idea?

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

It’s about that time of the year again to start preparing for the local JDRF walk.  I was really excited about this years walk because my mom and dad were thinking about flying down to Florida around that time and they were going to do the walk with me, so that would have been fun.  Unfortunately, the scheduling didn’t work out and they have to come down the following weekend.  I need to go online and create my team and start preparing the e-mails and letters and all the other fun things to try and spread the awareness and collect donations.  Sometimes it can be tough to ask for donations because it seems that there is so many other things going on.  Most people are still recovering from spending a lot of money on girl scout cookies.  At the same time there are other non-profits asking for money, so it’s usually tough to get a good amount of donations.

So, here is the question that I’d like to ask today.  What are some of the best, coolest, and most fun ways that you have ran a fundraiser and collected money to give to your favorite.

Please spread this around, because I’d love to hear all of your creative ideas!

Have a good day.

Forgot to Reschedule Endo Appointment, Oops

Chris Stocker

It’s been a while since my last A1C and my last endo visit.  I had an appointment scheduled in January, but it was cancelled because the doctor could not make the appointment.  My main doctor is on maternity leave, so the doctor taking her place has her own office and there was a scheduling conflict, so she had to cancel mine.  I just realized today that I never re-scheduled a new appointment, so I need to call tomorrow to make sure that I get a new appointment soon.

I was supposed to lose at least 5 pounds by next visit, and I guess you can say, luckily I got sick these last few days because I lost a few pounds, and now I am trying to keep them off.  Amanda and I are still settling into our new place and are cooking a little more often, but still not as frequently as we would like to.  Still wasting a lot of money and a lot of calories on take-out.

I am having some serious internet issues with Comcast right now, so I never know when I am going to actually have internet.  It works for a day, then doesn’t work for a few days, then works, etc.  Just one big viscous cycle, that I don’t like.  Anyway, my blog reader is up to close to 1,000 with a backlog of blogs, crazy huh?  I am determined to catch up on every single one of them, but it will definitely take some time, but I can get it done.

Well, time to get started on those blogs.

Stomach Pains Kept Me Worried

Chris Stocker

So the last few nights and days I have been feeling a little under the weather.  Starting Sunday night I had cramps in my stomach, but didn’t think anything of it.  Then Monday while I was at work, I started to get really sharp pains in my stomach.  Eventually it got to the point where I couldn’t sit at work any more and I had to go home and lay down because it hurt so bad.  All day yesterday my stomach would hurt anytime that I stood up for a long period of time or even just sat up.  So I just layed down all day long.  I was becoming worried that I was going to have to go to the ER because I had a fear that my appendix was bursting or something because my stomach hurt so bad.  All the pain was on the left side of my stomach though and I know that the appendix is on the right.

So today it didn’t hurt as bad and now tonight while I am typing this blog, it doesn’t really hurt at all.  I have an appetite and have been eating normally, so that also made me believe that it wasn’t my appendix.  My blood sugars were a little elevated during this time, which that always happens anytime that I am sick of any sort.

Well, I am still tired and body still feels week so I am going to lay down and watch Teen Mom with Amanda…. can’t believe that I watch this show.  Or is it more embarrassing that we watch Glee together also?  Well, we just decided this tonight because I loved the Katie Perry song from last week, ha.

Well, have a good week everyone.

Long Week, But Feels Short

Chris Stocker

Is it really Thursday night already? I could have sworn that I just woke up for work on Monday morning.  This week has been one hell of a week.  Traffic this week has been worse than ever, it is ridiculous.  Yesterday morning, there was a fatal crash on 95 involving a motorcycle, so my heart goes out to the family of the man that was killed.  It was pretty crazy to drive by that accident and see the motorcycle under the car, ya kinda knew what happened when you drove by.

It’s sad news and makes me realize that when my 35 minute drive takes me two hours, that I should just be happy that I got there safely.  This week has been hard for me though. I am leaving for work at almost 7:30 in the morning now and staying later, so by the time I get home, it is about 7:30-8 at night.  I lay down for bed around 11 now that Amanda and I are living together.  So that leaves me with 3-4 hours in the entire day that I am actually home and awake and have time to spend with Amanda.  This is the main reason why you haven’t seen me blogging or on Twitter a lot because I just don’t have the time.  I want to start my days at 6:30 in the morning now in order to get my blogs written and anything else that I have to do.

As I’m sure you can tell my diet has not been going according to plan with living hours like this.  But I am not killing my diet like I have before.  When we order out, I am eating only my portion and not finishing Amanda’s portion like I usually do.

Well, it’s Jers-day, which I can’t believe that I just said that and admitted to watching this show, but it’s funny, and it’s a good time to make fun of these people.

Done Moving, Never Done Unpacking

Chris Stocker

Well, I finally moved the rest of my crap out of my old condo on Sunday.  I thought moving all the stuff was brutal, but now I’m realizing that unpacking it all is even worse.  I am gone for nearly 12 hours during the day, so when I do get home, I don’t feel like doing anything at all, so I’ll most likely be living out of boxes until at least Saturday when I hope that I can get it all unpacked.  Amanda and I are both serious about losing weight and eating healthy and not spending as much money.  We have been together for over 5 years, but this is our first place together, so we are not all over the place trying to see each other and always going out to eat or bringing bad food home to eat.  For the first time in a very long time, I actually packed a decent, healthy lunch and I am excited to eat it today and continue to eat healthy at lunch.  Lunch and breakfast are my two main goals that I am trying to conquer right now.  My breakfast goal is to eliminate Dunkin Donuts to save money and calories.  My lunch goal is to pack a lunch, and not over eat at lunch time.  Dinner is a different story and will take a little longer to overcome that, but I will.

Let’s get into the blood sugars now.  My blood sugars have been a lot better over the last few weeks.  Now, even though I said a lot better, that does not mean that they are still good, it’s just that they are better than before.  I have managed to keep my sugars under the 225 range and under 200 for the most part.  But it’s still not where they need to be, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere right?  My internet was down for like a week at my new place and I couldn’t get Comcast out there soon enough to fix it.  I really, really, really, hate Comcast, but that’s a side note.

Well, I need to get ready for work, so have a great day everyone.

Reflecting on Direction of my Blog

Chris Stocker

Blogging two days in a row, wow you would think that I’m used to this!  Well, I am and it sure does feel good.  It feels good to get up every morning and type a blog post with a hot cup of coffee, and no snow, sorry people, I do live in Florida.  Over the last two months I had a lot of time to think about things going on in my life and what things can be eliminated and which I need to spend more time on.  Obviously the number one thing that I need to spend more time on is my health.  I also plan to start spending a lot more time on my book.

Then I came to think about my blog.  When I first started blogging I had no idea what was going on, I was just typing how I felt and about the things that were going on in my life, hence the name The Life of a Diabetic.  I began to think that a lot of my blog posts were, well, useless.  They didn’t talk about anything, there was nothing exciting, why would people want to read a blog about nothing at all.  But then I realized, it’s a blog about my life with diabetes, so not everything is going to be exciting and fun and interesting.

So that is exactly how my blog will continue to run, with a few additions.  The main addition is that I will be discussing some more controversial topics and creating discussions for your feedback and responses and dig into current events.  The other thing that I am going to do at least once a week is a spotlight on somebody doing something good for diabetes. It may be from a news article, or a blog post, or a tweet, anything.  I think it is always good to continue to spotlight those that are doing something great to support the cause of diabetes.

Well, I hope everyone has a good day today, it is going to be a long, busy, hard day for me.

Missing the DOC

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

This is pretty sad that I couldn’t even remember what my password was to log into my blog because that is how long it has been since I last blogged.  My new design was supposed to go live today, but I had a few issues with it and it some how did not save correctly and the theme was all screwed up, so here it is, still my own design.  It has been a crazy weekend and week so far.  I started to move into a new house with Amanda this weekend so I have some stuff at the new place and some stuff at the old place.  I hate having things in two different places because then when I need it, I don’t have it, especially when it comes to my diabetic supplies.  For example, on Sunday, I was sleeping at my old place and I had to insert a new infusion set, only problem is that my little blue injector buddy was over at the new place.  Luckily, I have two of them and one of them was in Amanda’s purse so I could just use that one.  But things like this make it annoying, but I work all day and am gone from 8 am – 7 p.m. every day during the week, so it makes it difficult to actually move after work.

I have not had many other things change since the last time you all have heard from me.  I am still not exercising like I should be, and still not eating healthy, but I am getting a little better at it.  Amanda and I have an office / exercise room in the new house, so it will definitely be getting used a lot more often now.  Amanda and I had been living in different locations since we have been together, so it was always a hectic life, now that we are living together, I think that it will give me a lot more time to cook healthier, exercise more, blog more, and get more things done.  I feel so disconnected from the DOC that I don’t even know what the heck is going on with everybody.  I’m losing Twitter followers everyday it seems because I am not on there that much anymore.  I have still yet to complete a #DSMA because there are always things going on Wednesday nights for me.  Starting next week however, I am going to be completing all #DSMA’s.

Well, it feels good to write a blog post, and I am going for as many posts a month that I can get.  As long as there is something to talk about then I am writing.

Have a great week everybody.