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How does Food Affect My Daily Routine

Last night I made it through my first, entire #dsma chat.  I have participated before, but have never been able to make it all the way through.  It was fun, but it definitely hurt my eyes really bad afterwards because there was just way too much to read and try to respond to.  I mentioned that this chat gave me a lot of blog ideas because at certain times, when you live just a normal life, except you have diabetes, you don’t have much to blog about.  I know that this whole food thing is something that people feel very strongly about.  I read a lot of blog posts and tweets about food and how it affects some of your daily lifes, but to me, it doesn’t affect me much at all.  This is also one reason that I am about 60 pounds overweight and haven’t had the best blood sugars lately.

Once I went on the pump, that is when all of my weight gain began, because I never thought twice about eating something in particular again.  When I was on MDI, I thought about if I really wanted to eat something quick because I knew I had to take a shot.  However, with the pump, I know there is nothing to it, but a few buttons and that’s it, now I can have that quick snack or extra serving if I wanted to.  At times I think about going back to MDI because of how much less I ate and the more that I took care of myself.

I want food to be more of a hassle in my life and other diabetes related things.  I want to be hassled and bothered by them for some time because for the past few years, I haven’t let diabetes get in my way, and I think my health and my care has gone down because of that.  I have two weeks before my next endo appointment, and they will be looking at my weight very carefully, if it is not down some, they are going to take action because it’s been about 2 years that I kept saying I would lose weight on my own.

Starting today, I am going to act like I am still on MDI, however, I’m on a pump.  I will calculate my own bolus and match it up with the pump to make sure that I still know how to do it.  I will not eat anything unless I test my sugar.  I will not have a snack just because all I have to do is hit a few buttons.  For the next few weeks, I am going to live different.  I am different because I have diabetes, I have to eat a different way…….. not because I have diabetes, but because I need to lose weight!

Living Normally With Diabetes

I have been living with diabetes for over 6 years now, my 7th diaversary is coming up on April 3, right around the corner.  I try not to celebrate or give this day any special attention because it’s not a fun day to remember.  Remembering being rushed to the hospital with a blood sugar of over 850 is not something that I like to remember.  It definitely was the first day of a new life, and a new beginning for me.  Unfortunately, the life hasn’t been so great lately.

We all handle our diabetes situations differently, believe in different methods of management and believe in different advocacy struggles.  The tagline of my blog is, “Living Normally with Diabetes”.  So what exactly does that mean?

What it means to me is going to be completely different than what it means to you.  What I mean by this is that I have diabetes, but I still live a normal life.  I have some additional things that I have to do on a daily, hourly, basis that others may not have to do, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t live a life just like everyone else.  I eat whatever foods I want, I can go on whatever rides I want, I can go to places I want, I can do the same “normal” things that you can do, except I have diabetes.

I’ve been talking lately about lifestyle changes, because without a full-blown change of the way that I live, I am not going to be healthy in older ages.  I can’t just say that I’m going to lose weight, and then not do it, because that has been going on for way too long.  I need to make a change in my lifestyle, as in, not wanting to eat a second portion, or not wanting to go out to dinner every other night, or buy lunch everyday at work.  These lifestyle changes are not easy to make, but I am making strides in doing this.

Anybody else that is trying to make lifestyle changes, best of luck to you, because it’s not easy!

Following Up on My Lifestyle Changes

So it’s been a week since my last post when I discussed my new lifestyle changes to lose weight and be a “better diabetic”. Over the week, I did a lot better with what I ate and did overeat. Until tonight. Tonight it was rainy and ugly and stormy and I just wanted to grab some takeout and bring it home and relax and not have to worry about cleaning anything up.

My blood sugars have also been doing a lot better over this time period. I have been testing a little more often but still not as often as I should be. I was disappointed that I couldn’t get to the pool tonight to exercise. The exercise bike that I have is a spinning bike, so it is a pretty intense workout and I am just not ready to do that yet, I know another excuse.

Well, I just wanted to check in and let you all know that I am still doing well on my diet, I’m down about 2-3 pounds since last week, so I am getting there.

Have a great week

Lifestyle Changes – Day One

Diabetes Lifestyle ChangesToday started day one of my true beginning of a new diet.  As I told you yesterday, I am going on a pizza strike.  Not only a pizza strike, but all bad foods strike.  I had a lot of time to think about life things this weekend and my health was what on my mind a lot.  I realized that the way I am living, I won’t be living as long as I want to, unless I make some serious lifestyle changes.  I was able to do this a few years back and lost a lot of weight and had my A1C under 6.5 for a year straight.  I haven’t done that since, about 2-3 years.  The number one goal of mine for the rest of this month and then April as well is to pack a lunch everyday.  This part is easy because I create 5 inividual lunches every Sunday for the week, but I don’t always bring them, or when I do, I decide that I don’t feel like eating it.  Too bad, I’m eating it!

This is also a way to save money because I am not getting any younger.  There are plenty of things that I need in life that are more important than going out and buying a slice of pizza or a sub for lunch.  I am 100% totally dedicated to the diet and lifestyle changes this time.  Previous times that I did this, I was not as dedicated and it was just a half-ass effort, not anymore.

Today is day one, and tomorrow will be day two and that is exactly how I have to look at it.  Eventually it will be day 365 and I will have lost about 40 pounds.

Have a great Monday everybody.

My Strike Against Pizza

On Friday at work I had a quick discussion with one of my co-workers about diabetes.  He knew enough about it, but not everything there was to know.  We had a quick chat about how I need to lose weight in order to get my diabetes under better control.  Him and I both eat at this pizza place near the office, which has the best pizza and meatball subs I’ve ever had!  He came up with the idea that we should both try and lose 10 pounds in the month of April.  I said Deal!

The way we are going to do it, which we may not make the 10 pounds, but we made a deal that we won’t eat pizza for a whole month.  It is going to be tough for me to do, especially on days that I forget to pack a lunch, but then I did some quick calculating.  Not only will I lose 10-15 pounds by bringing my own lunch, I will save approximately $100-$150 a month on not paying for lunch.  The costs of the lunch ranges from $5-12 and I usually eat out 3 days a week.

So, that is my plan for the month of April, but why not start today?  Today I start my strike against pizza.

Scary Low Blood Sugar at the Driving Range

Low Blood Sugar at Golf CourseToday was such a beautiful day and I was sitting at home just doing laundry and cleaning up all day, so I decided to take some time to go to the driving range.  I haven’t been able to golf for a few weeks and I have a golf tournament the second weekend of April, so I need to get back into golf shape.  Overall, not too bad.

Anyway, before I went there I had some chicken and pasta for lunch. I didn’t test my blood sugar before I went out to the driving range, not a good idea.  Once I got there, it was really hot out there, so I began to sweat right away and I could feel the blood sugar dropping.  I didn’t bring any candy or Gatorade with me, because I figured it would only take me about 15-20 minutes to go throw the bucket of balls.

I hit the first 10-15 balls normally, and then I felt it getting really low, so I didn’t want to exert too much energy, so I did a quick hit drill where I just lined the balls up and continued in a swinging motion.  This helped me get through the bucket balls a lot faster.  Now I had to drive home.  Luckily I live on the golf course and I didn’t decide to walk there like I initially was going to do. As soon as I got home, I drank some orange juice and ate a few cookies and then it was all good.

The blood sugar dropped quickly because I didn’t think it was that bad, and I just spent the money to buy driving range golf balls, so I didn’t want to just not hit them.  I know exactly what you’re thinking, because I thought the same thing, is a $4.00 bucket of driving range golf balls worth passing out from a low blood sugar?  Absolutely not!

I survived it, and sometimes I test my limits, but I know that I shouldn’t.

I am typing this at almost midnight Saturday night, and it is a lot more relaxing writing blog posts on a Saturday night then going out I think.

Tomorrow I’m going to tell you about a diet idea that one of my co-workers came up with because he was concerned about my eating habits and my diabetes.

Re-Design In Process

I am in the process of re-designing the site.

Hang with me.  If you see things that are messed up and don’t look right, please let me know so I can make sure that I get it all working properly.

I wanted to make the design a lot more simple and easy.

Have a good one.

I Am Motivated by a Bravo TV Start

Amanda likes to watch this Bethenny Ever After, or whatever it is called on Bravo, so as the good boyfriend I am, I watch it with her.  I don’t like these shows at all, but I still watch them, mainly to make fun of these people.  Especially these Housewives shows because these women are living in a fantasy world and I would love to just smack them into reality.  Anyway, the reason that I am mentioning this is because this Bethenny lady motivates the hell out of me!  She has so much passion and enthusiasm for her product lines and her personal brand.  She was  talking about having someone write a blog for her about food.  I don’t know what it was, but she  really motivated me and that is why I am writing this blog post right now.

On to other things, I had my follow up visit for my knee today.  I had my MRI last week and the doctor took a look at the MRI results today and I do NOT need any surgery.  Thank goodness!  I do have a partial meniscus tear, but not serious enough to have surgery.  The doctor felt that I should just rehab it for about a week and do some light lifting with the legs.  I am allowed to start golfing right away and I can even play in the co-ed softball league again.  But, I’m not sure if I should play this week in the softball league or take another week off.

Last bit of news, I rescheduled my endo appointment for April because I have a few days off during that time period and it’s always best to have appointments on my days off.

So, have a great week everybody.

Medco Pharmacy and Tier 3 Drugs

On January 1, 2011, my insurance, United Healthcare, who uses Medco as their mail order pharmacy, made the decision that the type of insulin that I use, Novolog is a tier 3 drug.  What does that mean?  That means that instead of last year when I paid $25 for a 3 month supply, I now pay $150 for a 3 month supply.  I noticed that Humalog, which I used to use before I went on an insulin pump, is still a tier 1 drug and still costs only $25 for a 90 day supply.  When I asked why Novolog was bumped up to a tier 3, they said they didn’t know, which I didn’t expect that exact person to know, but somebody had to know and there had to be some sort of documentation out there on why this was bumped to a tier 3.

I still have not been able to find any information, so I am just curious as to why one is considered one thing and the other is not.  I don’t think there is some sort of huge conspiracy here, I just want to know.  Is there a possibility that it could be that more people use Novolog, so that way they charge more for it?  Or they don’t have a good relationship with that manufacturer and they don’t get as good of a deal on it?

Does anybody have any information on this?

Different Kind of Doctor’s Appointment

This week has been filled with different kinds of doctor appointments other than diabetes.  I did something to my knee in a co-ed softball league a couple of weeks ago.  The same knee that I tore my ACL on 9 years ago.  Seems like I may have partially re-torn it, or tweaked it a little bit.  But I had an appointment with an orthopedic doctor and it’s weird going to doctor’s visits that have nothing to do with diabetes.  I was impressed however, that when the doctor saw me, right away he said, “Ah, Minimed insulin pump.”  Made me feel good about this guy that he knew what an insulin pump was, and also the brand.

I had to get an MRI on the knee yesterday, but there were some issues so I had to reschedule it for this Saturday.  I haven’t had an MRI in a long time, but I hate them.  The worst part about this injury is that it pretty much has me doing no exercise at all.  I can ride a bike, but at a slow minimal speed.  I can’t play softball, I can’t golf, I can’t walk far distances or run.  I can swim, but I haven’t had a chance to get into that workout schedule.  I’m up when my girlfriend leaves for work, so I am really going to try and start going to the pool at that time and getting a few laps in for some exercise.

Well, until I hear more from the doc about the knee, I will just be worrying and hoping that I don’t need any sort of surgery.

Have a good day ya’ll