Exercise and Diabetes Archives - Page 4 of 6

New Condo, New Start

June 15, 2010June 15, 2010 Chris Stocker

I recently moved into a new condo and now I finally have everything moved in and set up the way that I want and am sleeping here every night. Every time that you move it gives you a new start and a chance to get into better habits. These habits can be anything from a better cleaning schedule, making the bed, better organized, better diet, work harder, and these are everything that I am trying to do.

The fridge is filled with healthy food only. If there isn’t bad food in here, then there is no urge to eat at late at night. The only urge that I really get is to have a bowl or two of Frosted Flakes at night for a snack. Since moving in, I have been extremely motivated. I have completed more work at home than I have in about 3 months I think. I am eating a lot healthier. My meals still aren’t as healthy as they can be, but I am only eating one serving, so I will start losing weight just by cutting back the 2-3 servings I usually eat.

I had a real rude awakening the other day that I went to the grocery store. I never step on those scales at the store, but I was like, screw it I haven’t weighed myself in a couple months and my eating habits had been out of control. As much as I don’t want to share this number I will….that scale said 267! In 2004 before I was diagnosed I weighed 205, after losing the weight because of being sick for 3 months my weight went down to 175. So, that is over 60 pounds gained in 6 years, not very good.

I don’t think that the Publix scale was very accurate because just yesterday, which was about 3-4 days after the Publix encounter, my scale said 244. So unless I lost 23 pounds in 3-4 days, one of these scales is wrong. The picture says it all.

Results of My Endo Appointment

March 25, 2010March 25, 2010 Chris Stocker

I had my endo appointment earlier today, so I wanted to share the results from it.

Going into the appointment I knew that my A1C was going to be bad and that my weight was too much and that my blood sugars were all over the map and that my doctor was not going to be very happy with me. Luckily my doctor is diabetic herself, so she knows what it is like to live with diabetes. I explained to her different things that were going on with my life that may be affecting my blood sugars and them being high too frequently. Losing a job, starting my own company, working 80 hours a week and not eating or exercising properly, were all the reasons that I gave her, which I know are not excuses.

She told me that my A1C was 7.9 which we were both surprised at after looking at the blood sugars from my graphs. We adjusted by basal rates again, which now total 66.6 units of insulin a day. I do not like that number, but that’s what I am going to try my new basal rates at. I use so much insulin, it’s ridiculous. Almost 70 units from basal and about another 100 units a day from carbs. That is why I am changing my reservoir every 1.5 – 2 days.

My blood pressure was a little high again, which has been 3 out of my last 4 visits. I explained that I drink a lot of coffee, I mean a lot of coffee and that can be affecting the blood pressure. I schedule my appointments early in the morning, so everytime I have an appointment, I have usually just finished a large iced coffee. So my blood pressure could be high from that. Next visit she wants me to come in and not drink any coffee before hand so that we can get a better reading on my blood pressure.

That was really about it. She wanted me to exercise more, but not too much was discussed. She also though that I should take more breaks from my work by taking a quick 10 minute walk which will give me my exercise needed and also reduce my stress levels. Next visit, 6 weeks.

Start to a Good BG Roll?

March 23, 2010March 23, 2010 Chris Stocker

I have my first endo appointment in almost 6 months on Thursday. I have to get my blood work done tomorrow, so I am a little nervous. I already know that my A1C is going to be high, probably around 8. I haven’t had one that high since I was first diagnosed. Yesterday was my best full day of blood sugars and I am going to try and copy it as much as I can for as long as I can.

First, to start the day, I actually ate breakfast. It wasn’t a very healthy breakfast, a donut, but it was something in my stomach. For lunch I had a chicken sandwich, not fried, grilled, so it was healthy. For dinner I controlled my portion size and that was very tough for me later on at night. I had one beef slider, a salad, and some brown rice. Very small portion for me, I would normally eat about 3 sliders, 2 bowls of salad and 2 servings of rice.

For a snack at night, which I didn’t even want to eat, but my blood sugar was going down I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Why was my blood sugar going down finally? Because I did this weird thing called exercising for 45 minutes. First time that I had an intense exercise in months, seriously, months. I went for a nice, fast 2 mile walk to start it off then came back to do some crunches, push-ups, leg raises and then did some curls.

I think that I have found the fix to always saying that I don’t have time to exercise. Here it is. I am backed up on some of my favorite podcasts all the way back to January because I never have time to listen to them, because when I do work, I don’t fully concentrate on the podcast or my work. So, if I don’t have time to listen and don’t have time to exercise, why don’t I just do them together? My new goal is to exercise my way through 2 separate podcasts, which are anywhere from 20-30 minutes each. Last night I made it through two episodes of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast.

Let’s hope that this keeps up and I can start to lose some weight again before I head back up north to New York and home to visit family.

Time to Catch Up on Doctor’s Visits $$$

March 3, 2010March 3, 2010 Chris Stocker 1 Comment

I haven’t been to the doctor in a while. Not just my endo, which was October of last year, but any other doctor. This week I am setting up appointments with all the different doctors that I need for yearly check-ups. The problem is that I don’t even have names of doctors to go and see down here in south Florida. Even though I have been living here for 5 years, I was always using my doctors from back home in PA until last year when I wasn’t able to travel up there as much because of work related reasons. I haven’t even had a general health physical / check up in almost 4 years.

I have just set up an appointment to go see an Ear Nose and Throat specialist because my ear is still clogged and it’s been almost a month. I am still coughing every so often, so it was freaking me out. I was concerned that I had something more serious then just a simple clogged ear that Mucinex D is going to help with. Stacey gave me a heads up about getting it checked out because it could potentially be mono and I don’t think that I want to deal with that. I never had mono, but my girlfriend has had it and she has been sick for a while as well as her mom, so who knows.

The other appointment that I set up is a dentist appointment. I don’t have any delta insurance, so it is going to be expensive. I tried to get private dental insurance and I told them I was diabetic and at least they didn’t hang up on me and tell me that they couldn’t help me, they actually gave me a quote, $350 a month for insurance. Umm..no thanks. It would make sense if I have to get all kinds of work done to my mouth, then I think I would pay for the insurance. My first initial visit is going to cost $160, and that is just an evaluation and x-rays. Then I can come back for a cleaning which is going to be approximately the same price, a little lower. So that is $300 right there, but I won’t have to go back for at least another 6 months, so it just makes more sense for me to go without the insurance. Type 1 diabetes and your teeth I know are important because of all the additional risks I have for being diabetic. I don’t mind spending the money on things like that.

My endo appointment has been scheduled and is at the end of this month. Before I get to that visit though I have to get blood work done, and I’m sure it is going to be a lot because I haven’t had any done since September of last year. I know right now that my A1C is going to be bad, I’m guessing around 8-9. After my initial A1C at diagnosis of 14.7, 6 months later it was down to 9, I haven’t gone abouve 7.5 in 5 years so that is going to be rough for me to handle. I have made changes to my diet and also added more walking into my life to at least get some exercise because I wasn’t getting any at all.

While at the endo, I will be asking for a referral for a family doctor because I would like to get a physical or check-up once a year to make sure everything is going good. I have slacked big time in this area of my diabetes management, but I am taking control of things again, my diabetes was starting to control my life a little, but not anymore.

The final visit that I need to make is for my eye doctor. I just re-ordered more contacts because my prescription expired in about 2 days before I ordered them, so I am right on pace for the once a year eye doctor appointment.

Well, I am really far behind on work, so I need to catch up, so have a great day everybody.

Eating Healthy for Diabetes Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive

February 18, 2010February 18, 2010 Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Being diabetic, we all know that we need to eat healthy and exercise. Well why is it so difficult to actually follow through on this? I have said plenty of times that this is the time that I am going to cut back on my bad eating habits and increase the good eating habits. I can’t just stop eating bad one day and then switch to eating good, it just doesn’t happen. The easiest way for me to get back into eating habits is to eat the things I have been eating, but cut down on the portion control. Eventually, I will not require as much food to move away from the table and I can begin eating healthier things. The other bad part of eating unhealthy is the amount of money that I spend eating out. I eat out for lunch on average 3 days a week. One day, I will eat bad and spend about $10 and the other 2 days are split between Subway and Quiznos, which are both about $5 each. That right there is $20 a week, $80 a month, almost $1,000 a year. I could pay off a credit card in a year with that amount of money!

So, yesterday was the tipping point for me. I went to the store and bought stuff to make my own Sammie’s and oven roasted chicken breast subs and flat bread salads. I paid about the same amount of money, but will have enough food to last me about 2 weeks worth of lunches. I used to always say that it costs so much more to eat healthier, well not exactly. If you do it properly, then it doesn’t. Living with type 1 diabetes brings a lot of expensive situations, but eating does not have to be one of them. I bought a package of pork tenderloins (6) for $5.50, a box of boil in a bag brown rice $2.50, package of steamable veggies $1.99 and made 5 days worth of lunch for under $10! When I go out for lunch and buy stir-fry it costs me $10 for one meal.

On a side note, here are some pictures from Daytona and a few videos, hope you enjoy.

No A1C Test for a While

February 3, 2010February 3, 2010 Chris Stocker 4 Comments

Not having insurance for some time really sucks. Sorry to be so blunt about it, but it does. For those of you in that boat, you know what I mean. I was insured the entire time I was diabetic, so I had no clue how it would actually feel. I could only imagine, but now that my COBRA should be kicking in soon (fingers crossed), things may be getting better. I have not had an A1C test done or seen my doctor since October. I was seeing her on a regular monthly schedule. The very first thing that I am going to be doing when I get that confirmation letter that I am covered again is schedule an appointment with her.

I know that my A1C is not going to be good this time around. I am not even going to try and make myself believe that. Over the last month, my overall sugars have been crap! Below are snapshots of my 7 day, 14 day, and 30 day average levels, respectively. As you will see, not that good.

The 7 day average is mainly due to two bad sites and being sick. My last A1C was 6.9. I was happy with that at the time because the one before that was 7.1, so it was declining. Unfortunately, that is not going to be the case. At least one of my top 10 goals of 2010 should get accomplished. These elevated blood sugars can be explained with two simple words: diet and exercise. Actually, those words may not be as simple as we think. Let’s get into details.

Diet

If you do a search in the dictionary for the word diet you come up with 11 different varieties of the word. Yea, 11! You can choose whichever one you want, but I have decided to go with this one:

“a particular selection of food, esp. as designed or prescribed to improve a person’s physical condition or to prevent or treat a disease: a diet low in sugar.”

That sounds exactly like what I am trying to do. I select certain foods to make me lose weight and keep my blood sugars normal. That part seems easy to do, but it’s the management of it that gets me every time. I feel that I don’t have the time to make a healthy dinner every night. Well that’s just BS because the time that I spend sitting in a restaurant or waiting in line at a fast food joint, I could have spent cutting up some veggies and grilling or boiling some chicken. One tip that has helped me in the past with this is to just put my laptop next to the grill and do some of my consulting work while the food is cooking. Getting something accomplished while making a good, healthy meal.

The next part that ruins my diet every time is the cravings. One craving will kill a whole week’s worth of dieting. I always get cravings for Chinese food, which is my number one craving. I used to crave Taco Bell all the time, but I fought that one off, so I know it is possible to do it with this one as well. A good way to fight off these cravings is to cook up some veggies myself, grill some pork loins and then make my own stir fry with brown rice, there’s my craving fix.

The final struggle to my diet woes is portion control. Even when I do cook a healthy meal, let’s say for example that stir fry I just spoke about. It doesn’t make it healthy when I eat 3 plates of it when I should be eating only 1, maybe a half of a second plate. The way I always justify it to myself is that, well it’s healthier than eating 3 servings of Chinese food, which that logic needs to go, which I know this, it’s just the fact of actually doing it.

These 3 things are what are killing my diet, but I know what I need to do and will need to work harder to stop doing these things and I should be ok.

Exercise

This one is simple and easy to explain, laziness. I make way too many excuses because I am so busy. I work 3.5 days a week on site at Volvo Aero Services and then am doing about 50-60 hours a week worth of consulting or web design work, so there is very little time to fit things in. I also have season tickets to the Florida Panthers so there are nights that I can’t exercise because I don’t get done working until about 5-5:30 and have to leave for the game at 6:30. So that gives me one hour to either cook a good dinner or exercise, and typically neither one of those even happen.

I am sure that I share these same problems with everybody. If it was simple and easy, I’m sure we could all get over these hurdles easily, but they are not simple and easy. It makes it a lot easier however having the supporting cast on here that we all have. Every day that I am living with being overweight is just hurting me in the long run.

It all comes back to my 3 words of 2010 and getting it done!

Diabetes Makes Me Think A Lot

January 28, 2010January 28, 2010 Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Last night I started to think about some things, usually not good when I do this kind of stuff. Diabetes makes me think a lot. Let me exaplain the background of the story first and why it came about. Over the last, I’d say 2-3 weeks I have fell in love with this new bbq sauce. It is the Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey Chipotle. I am not getting paid by them, nor have I received anything for free, even though, I will admit I wish I did! This bbq was found randomly because a local grocery store, Albertson’s, is closing down. I tasted it, and that was the end of that. I have eaten it on literally everything. Salad, sandwiches, steak, fries, crackers, bagels, EVERYTHING!

Last night we decided to look at the ingredients and the very first one on there was high fructose corn syrup. Hmm, probably not the best thing for somebody, especially a diabetic. So my girlfriend asked, “is it healthy for your to be eating this much of this when you have diabetes?” My quick reply was no, “no definitely not, but it is amazing!”

About 2 hours later that situation popped into my head and I started to think about it. Has that ever happened to you? Somebody says something to you, and it means nothing but then some time passes and you actually think about what they really said. And on went my brain.

How much are my “live for right now” decisions hurting me in the long run? When will I get back in to see my doctor? Can I get private dental insurance as a diabetic? Why can’t I just stick to my diet? Why am I asking so many questions?

Those are just a few of the thoughts that went flying through my mind last night. Usually it gets me into a little bit of a down mood, but last night I snapped out of it pretty quickly. They have recently built a new Dollar Tree across the street from where I am living, so I wanted to walk there and get exercise. Amanda and I also decided to stop into Office Depot because there was a paper shredder there that I wanted last week. It wasn’t on sale anymore. This is when my mood changed.

As I was walking out the door to leave I glanced down and just so happened to see a different paper shredder in the ad for even less money. So I went and asked an employee if they had more because I didn’t initially see them the first time I looked. They did, but they were all on top of the shelf. As I was waiting for somebody to climb up and get the shredder for me, Amanda brought my attention to a $200 desk on sale for $45. It is a large desk, with storage, and lots of room for lots of stuff I have. SOLD!

The desk was already assembled, but I had to take it pretty much completely apart once I got it home in order to get it upstairs to my make-shift home office. And if you are wondering, didn’t you say you walked to the store? Yes, but we had her brothers come pick us up with the truck. I am working on-site today, so I won’t get to use the desk until tonight, but a good desk makes you do a lot better work. Or is that just me?

Sorry about the 2 or 3 different things I was talking about in this post, but that was everything that happened to me yesterday. Good thing I started a diabetes blog a long time ago to get this stuff off of my mind and know that there are others going through the same crap.

Just another day in the life of a diabetic!

Weekend Filled with Work

January 22, 2010January 22, 2010 Chris Stocker 2 Comments

Here it is another Friday and another week gone. Where has the time gone. This had been one of the busiest and craziest weeks of my life. Everything from battling high blood sugars, extrely high blood sugars, meetings with clients, writing proposals and contracts, actually doing the consulting work, exercising, dieting, losing weight, 3 am bed times with 7 am wake-ups. What a week!

I used to get so excited about Fridays and the weekend starting. But now? Not so much. I used to be able to relax on the weekends and go out on Fridays and Saturdays and have a good time. I have decides not to do that anymore. I will only go out one of the two nights and not even late either. Instead, I have a lot of work to get done in such a small amount of time.

Currently I am writing 2 daily blogs, I do on site consulting for about 25 hours a week at Volvo Aero Services and managing some other consulting services, trying to exercise and eat healthy, which is almost impossible when you’re working at a pace like this.

But you know what? This is the life that I chose, so I am not complaining about it because I love it! I’m doing what I have always wanted to do, screw the sleep. I know that it’s not the best for my health, but ya know what no matter what I do, there will always be something that is not good for your health.

Last thing I want to mention. This Sunday I am going to the 25th anniversary of the Chili Cook Off. Google it because I am typing this on my WP app and can’t add a link. It features Zac Brown Band, Gloriana, Sara Evans, Montgomery Gentry, and Rodney Adkins. Should be a great time.

Have a good weekend y’all.

Not a Great Weekend For Diet and Blood Sugar

January 18, 2010January 18, 2010 Chris Stocker

This weekend was not so good for the blood sugars or my diet. My levels were running up close towards the mid 200’s on average all weekend. Last night after dinner my blood sugar was over 400 for about 3-4 hours be fore it finally came down in the middle of the night. When it is that high the first thing that I do is change my site. It’s weird though because my sugar was 115, and then I ate a salad and about 30 minutes later I changed my site and about 30 minutes after that I had chinese food for dinner.

That leads into why my diet wasn’t so good this weekend as well. Last night I had chinese food from Pei Wei. On Saturday I didn’t get home until 6 and had to leave at 6:30 for the Panthers game, so I had to stop at Burger King quickly to pick something up. I know I could have eaten a little better while ordering from BK, but I was starving and haven’t had BK in forever so I decided to go with two of their spicy chicken sandwiches and a junior whopper, like I said, not the best decision I ever made. Friday night was even worse. I went to a friend’s naturalization party, I know who has ever gone to one of those before! It was a place in Boca Raton called The Lodge. The beer is not normal beer, so it was a little expensive, but the food was amazing. We had some BBQ chicken nachos and a grilled chicken sandwich. My blood sugar was about 300 at the end of the night, but the amount of food that I ate was incredible.

I’m becoming thirsty right now thinking about all of these high blood sugars! I might even have to go to the bathroom soon too. Funny how thinking about certain things makes your brain want water and go to bathroom.

The weekend was very busy, so fast food just seemed like the right option for me. I started doing some side work at a local fitness center helping out with directing sports during birthday parties and events for the little kids. I coach football, so I enjoy doing these things on the side. At the same time trying to keep up with the consulting work because unfortunately that doesn’t stop after 5 p.m. on a Friday.

Speaking of work, it is time to get back to it. I hope everybody’s week is off to a great start. See you all on Twitter throughout the day. I’m going to have a nice little surprise for everybody on Twitter on February 1, so if you’re not following me yet, you better get to it, because the contest will be on Twitter only!

My Three Words of 2010

January 13, 2010January 13, 2010 Chris Stocker 1 Comment

I have been extremely busy since the end of the year up until just the last couple of days. I was either sick, spending time with my family up north or just doing regular holiday type things. During this time I decided to step away from the computer and take a break, just get away if you will. I have been catching up on e-mails that I have just been flagging that I wanted to go back and read. I subscribe to Chris Brogan’s blog. He writes great material if you are into the whole social part of social media. He came up with his 3 words for 2010, as he has done over the past few years and this has inspired me to do it as well. In today’s blog on here, you will read about how these words affect my personal life. On my business blog today as well, I am writing about how these three words affect my business. If you would like to read that as well, go to my Chris Stocker Inc blog. Now, onto the three words: growth, dedication, health.

Growth

When I sat down to think about words that could describe what I want to either accomplish or work at this was one of the first ones that popped into my head. Even though I have been 6′ tall since the 8th grade and haven’t grown since, well not vertically at least, that’s not the growth that I mean. I want to grow as a person, a human being. Over the years I have caught myself saying to myself, “how would you feel if somebody did that to you” and I look back at situations and feel horrible. Whether it is yelling at a customer service rep over the phone, it’s not their fault, they are just doing their job, or getting impatient at an elderly person driving in south Florida (for those of you that live here you know that’s at least once before every stop light!), or even being short or rude with Amanda or family or co-workers.

In 2010, I want to work hard to not be that type of person and to grow into becoming a bigger and better person at heart. Be more considerate, take others feelings into affect more often. I don’t want this to sound like I’m some inconsiderate prick right now because that’s not the case, but there is always room for improvement and that is where I want to be.

Dedication

What’s the point of having goals and setting benchmarks if you don’t have the dedication to stick with these things. How are you to lose weight when you can’t dedicate 30 minutes a day to exercise or eating a healthy meal. In 2010 I plan to work hard at dedicating myself to tasks that I put my mind to, no matter what it is. Exercising, work, business, relationships, anything. There is no more laziness in my life. Sure there will be things that I have to give up, but what I gain from them will help me get back what I am missing. What do I mean by that? Here is a perfect situation that usually happens every day. I have two options, watch tv and spend time with Amanda or work out and be healthy. If I make the decision to work out then I am losing out on that 45 minutes of spending time with my girlfriend. Well in the long run, by working out and spending that 45 minutes to exercise, I am saving myself who knows, maybe 1-2 days or even months added onto my life in order to spend more time with her in the future. Dedication is about being able to see the long term goal and pushing yourself to get to it. Knowing that what you are missing out on now will come back ten-fold in the future.

Health

I think this word pretty much summarizes the entire thing. This year I have set some goals for my diabetes, in regards to my weight and A1C. With plans that I have worked out already, this should be manageable. Becoming a healthier person will make me happier, feel better about situations and I feel grow as a person. I will need dedication and growth within myself to get to this healthiness that I am seeking.

As you can see all three of these words fit together in the end. Do this exercise yourself if you haven’t already. Also, like I said if you would like to see how these three words relate to the other side of my life and how they all interact with each other than check out my other blog as well.

Have a great day everybody.