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Category: Exercise and Diabetes

Getting Serious with Wii Fit

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

On Saturday I decided to set up my Mii character for the Wii fit. My girlfriends mom wanted the Wii fit Balance board for Christmas so that is what she got. I wanted to start losing weight and getting back into shape but we just moved out of the condo so I no longer had the free gym to go to anymore.

Why not use the Wii fit then? I wasn’t sure how I was going to utilize it so I went through every game, exercise, stretch, a strength and made a plan. I made a simple plan. Do 3 options from every category. This is a total of 15 exercises whether it be yoga, cardio, or strength training. I jump rope for about 10 minutes total and also do abs or about 10 minutes. It’s taking me about 45 minutes to complete everything.

I’ve started to eat better as well. Smaller portions but eating carba and protein and lots of fiber. I’ve been eating a snack at night peanut butter sandwich with some sort of fruit whether it is a banana or strawberries or kiwi, something to get that sweet tooth satisfied. It’s been working just within the 3 days of doing it. I feel a lot better already. I’ve been doing it at night so I’m wide awake until Bout 2 am again but it’s allowing me to catch up on a lot of stuff. I just cleared out 60 emails last night dating bal to Thanksgiving.

December 1 Already, Seriously?

Chris Stocker

I can’t believe that today is already the first day of December.  How crazy is that?  I am so glad that NaBloPoMo is over!  Like I said, I’m still going to try and do it, but at least there isn’t any pressure to get a post done.  Well, my diabetes has been talked about a lot lately, so I am going to get back into that starting today.  I have put on a lot of weight since I have been laid-off, probably a good 10-15 pounds.  It hasn’t affected my sugars that much, but I know it isn’t helping them at all.  I have been getting no exercise at all, just walking from parking lots to stores and walking from my car to the entrance of the Bank Atlantic Center for the hockey games, that’s about it.

I am going home for the holidays, well the day after Christmas, and my goal is to lose 10 pounds before I go up there.  That gives me 26 days to do so, and 10 pounds may seem like a lot, but it’s not.  One full week of exercise and I can guarantee this weight will be gone.  Although I have been posting blogs, I have not logged into my Twitter account in almost 2 weeks.  So I don’t really know what is going on in everybody’s world.  I am going to spend some time this weekend catching back up on all the blogs that I have missed in that time period.

As of today my insurance has ran out. I was not able to get blood work done before the insurance ran out because of some scheduling conflicts on my own part.  My own fault.  I am awaiting to receive paperwork on my Cobra insurance.  I need to get that as soon as possible so I can fill it out and get it submitted as soon as possible, that way I don’t some how go beyond that almighty 63 days of continuing coverage.  If that happens then the insurance companies will send out a rep and put a big red stamp on my forehead that says “Pre-Existing Condition”.  All insurance execs should have to go through what the guy in Saw VI went through, that’s how I feel.

Well, until tomorrow, have a good one.

A New Week, A Lot of Work

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

A new week, a lot of work.  I decided to take kind of a 3 day weekend from working on things.  I turned my laptop on for about 30 minutes since Friday and that was to just write blog posts of Saturday and Sunday.  So now I have a lot to catch up on.  I have created a new exercise plan as well and I am going to stick to it.  If I can dedicate 30 minutes a day to write a blog post every day, I can dedicate 30 minutes a day to exercising as well.  I’ve put on too much weight over the last 3 weeks.  I just need to get back down to a manageable level of weight, basically so I can fit into all of the clothes that I don’t fit into anymore.

Last night’s game with the Bears and Eagles was a great game.  We won and that was awesome, but it was also great to see Cutler throw a touchdown for Diabetes as well.  The best part of the game last night was when it was over.  McNabb went over to Cutler and pulled him away from the cameras and talked him for several minutes.  This gave me the chills.  Cutler isn’t playing that great right now, but neither are his teammates (as a former QB myself, I could tell a lot of receivers were running wrong patterns and it’s not always his fault).  And the city is going to start turning their back on Cutler and McNabb of all people know how that feels.  I think that was a stand up classy thing for McNabb to do.

Moving on, my niece will be 3 weeks old tomorrow, I can’t believe that.  Tomorrow is also the birthday of the twins.  When I refer to “the 11.13.09 002twins” this is what I mean.  My aunt, who was more like a sister to me, has 4 little girls, and they have called me Uncle Chris since day 1 and I have called them my nieces, so I still call them my nieces even though they are really cousins.  Confusing?  I know.  Here is a most recent photo I have my new niece.

Well, now it’s time to get back to work.  Have a great, short week.

How NaBloPoMo Has Changed My Diabetes Outlook

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

Making the commitment to post at least once a day for the whole month of November is tough, really tough.  I am not going to lie, it has been overwhelming.  For a few reasons, such as not having anything interesting to say everyday, being busy, not used to posting on Saturday and Sunday, and that’s pretty much it.  Hmm… you know what that kind of sounds like?  Managing my diabetes.  It’s not always fun and interesting, too busy to check sugars, and not being as good with management of Saturday and Sunday’s.

NaBloPoMo has taught me a lesson about diabetes management.  If you are determined, you can get it done.  It’s an everyday thing and if you skip a day, you lose, you don’t win.  It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.  Slow and steady, one post at a time, one blood sugar check at a time.  Plan out your post topics, plan out your meal / exercise plans.  Isn’t it funny how something like this NaBloPoMo can change your life?  Thanks Kerri for introducing NaBloPoMo to me.

Diabetes is a lifetime commitment.  For some guys that can be a very scary word, women as well.  You start to get the shakes and lightheaded and freak out and just want to run away when you are you are committed to something for life.  It’s going to have it’s ups and downs, highs and lows (literally), but at the end of the day, if you take care of what you need to, it will all be ok.  I know I’m now going into how this is like a relationship now, but with diabetes, NaBloPoMo and relationships, they all have some similar concepts and it makes it easier to think about controlling my diabetes.

Well you all have a great weekend I have a lot of stuff to get done today.  There’s good news in the employment category, but some bad news along with it.  Will post about it in a few days.

Take care everyone!

Diabetes Inventory Day – Time to Count

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

Today it is diabetes inventory day.  How often do you do this?  I usually do it once every 3 or 4 months just to see how much I have and how much I will need to re-order.  Typically, I have a lot more infusion sets than I do reservoirs because I don’t change my site everytime I fill a new reservoir.  This is mainly just due to laziness.  Sometimes it is because I just can’t do it.  I may be driving and filling a new reservoir, or at work, or somewhere that I just don’t feel comfortable or have the opportunity to change the infusion set.  When I get a 90 day supply of my pump supplies the reservoirs are usually gone in those 90 days, but the infusion sets usually last about 5-6 months so I always have enough infusions.  Do you re-use your reservoirs at all?  I do from time to time just so I don’t run out.  Right now I don’t have insurance (looking into picking up Cobra), so I doubt I will be buying supplies any time soon.

I plan on counting everything diabetes related that I have.  Test strips, lancets, syringes, pen needles, infusion sets, reservoirs, sensors, IV prep pads, IV dressings, alcohol swabs, and anything else that I have in my diabetes cabinet.  I am hoping that I have enough of everything to last me at least 90 days because most companies will give you insurance after 90 days of employment.  It’s ironic that I worked for a company that helped uninsured people and now I am one of those uninsured.  My main concern is being able to get insulin.  I really need to work on exercising and eating less so that I use less insulin, especially until I am insured again.

I have no excuses anymore for not going to the gym.  I don’t have a job right now, so I have all the time in the world to go, but I am constantly doing things on the internet now.  These are productive things, so I’m not just sitting online all day looking at Twitter, I am trying to get things accomplished and do work on my clients sites.  That’s also one reason that I have decided to do the diabetes inventory later today because I have the time to count each and everything that I own.

I’ll give all the numbers tomorrow.

Lack of Exercise Has Brought Weight Back On

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

In a post I did earlier in the week, I explained that I was working a lot and not really sleeping at all.  Well, along with that I have been working right through exercise time as well.  My exercise has consisted of throwing footballs and doing a little jogging at football practice when I am coaching, that is about it.  I also have not been eating healthy again because I haven’t really gone to the grocery store in a long time.  I don’t really have the funds right now to go out and by $100 worth of groceries.  Business is good, but there are plenty of other things that require my money at the current time.  Back to the subject, I have put some weight back on unfortunately.  Not a lot, I am still down a few pounds from back in September when I got serious about losing weight, but still not down to what I want to be.

I have a monthly goal of losing 5 pounds before every doctor visit, which at this time is every 4-6 weeks.  I may have to cancel my next visit that is scheduled for later this month because I may not have insurance coverage at the time, we shall see and I should have a better answer shortly about that situation.  Once again, if anybody has information about being on Cobra, I really need your help.  I’ll post more tomorrow, but I no longer work at the diabetes supply company that I worked at for 2 1/2 years.

I will get back into my workout habits again, it doesn’t take much for me to get back into the gym, it’s just making sure that I continue to go everyday, well at least 5 times a week.  I also need to cut back on my coffee intake and fast food.  Lately I have not been cooking breakfast, instead I have just been going to Dunkin Donuts and getting a large coffee and a sausage biscuit (it’s only $0.99 so that’s why.)

Here is my goal and I will keep a daily record on my blog of this starting on Friday November 6, 2009.  I’m going to look for a cool WordPress plugin, if anybody knows of one, let me know, that will put a chart or graph into my blog and I will add it into here.  But I will keep track of my daily calorie intake, as well as how much exercise and energy drinks that I intake.

Diabetes Doesn’t Make Sense Sometimes

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Sometimes diabetes just doesn’t make any sense.  As soon as you think you are understanding it, there it goes again.  Most recent example was last night.  Throughout most of the day my sugar was low, I was eating glucose tabs and Skittles all day at work because it just kept going back down.  When I got home at about 5:30 and went to the gym my blood sugar was right around 110 or so.  I ate, then worked out at the gym for 45 minutes went to Wal-Mart and Target and then came home and checked my sugar and it was up to 230 – something.  Unbelievable.  I didn’t even eat anything that would have caused it to go high like that.  Like I said, it confuses me at times.

Then there are times like Sunday when I went to Olive Garden.  It has been well documented on what happens to my body and sugars when I go to Olive Garden.  I overeat and then next thing you know my sugar is soaring over 350 just about everytime.  So I took just a little more insulin than usual but spaced it out a little more this time with a wave bolus.  Well, instead of my sugar getting up to 350, it was about 300 points lower, about 67 when I tested 3 hours later.  What the heck is that all about?  I have no idea.  Once again, diabetes confusing me.

I guess if I was wearing my CGM I would be able to catch these things a little easier.  But I’m not wearing it.  The sensors that I have are expired, even though I think that they would still work, I have just been too lazy.  I’m not going to get more sensors until next year because of the whole deductible thing.  There was a span in there that I didn’t test for close to 4 hours, so that is my own fault.  Especially when at work I test once an hour, so it’s almost like I am wearing a CGM.

Please remember to dedicate at least one blog post to getting diabetes awareness into the faces of professional athletes so we can have even a bigger voice.

Thank you all.

“Liv-abetic” As Opposed to Diabetic

Chris Stocker

I was saying the word diabetic a lot over the past few days.  Well a lot more than normally.  Probably because I was having a few conversations with people about diabetes and my life of a diabetic blog and my insights on diabetes and healthcare.  After saying it a lot I thought, I never realized how much the word “die” is in this word.  And with the ignorance that is out there about diabetes, most people think that it is a death sentence and they are scared of it.  So I started to say I’m not a diabetic, it’s more like a “live”-abetic.  Because that is exactly what I am doing I am living, not dying.  The life of a diabetic is no different than anybody elses, we just have to do a few more things.  I’m just a high maintenance person I guess, my blood sugars require a lot of attention and my supplies are expensive.

Many newly diagnosed type 1 diabetics that I have met and spoke to are scared that they are on a clear path to living a shorter life.  Absolutely not is my first reaction.  I suggest that they be careful where they read their information on the web.  Too many articles, newsletter, and diabetes information or dis-information as I feel, have a negative tone to them.  They may or may not be done purposely like that, but they still are.  For instance, there could be two articles about diabetes and heart disease.  One will talk about how diabetes increases the rate of heart disease and risk of death.  Or you can have the same issue talked about in a way that explains, watching your diet, managing your blood sugars and exercising will decrease your risks.

Now these two things sound almost exactly the same, and to you maybe they are, but to me they are not.  I am a firm believer that you can control your diabetes, your diabetes doesn’t control you.  So, for this exact reason, I believe information should be written in the fashion that the author should explain what you can do to lower risks (you controlling your diabetes) as opposed to explaining what diabetes will do to you if you don’t do these things (diabetes controlling you).  I hope this all makes sense, because it makes great sense in my head, but it doesn’t always come out correctly.

I hope you all have an amazing day and wish you all the best in keeping your blood sugars at good numbers.

Results From Endo Appointment

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

Today’s post, although later is about the results from my endo appointment today.  I just came home from football practice a little bit ago, so that is why it is such a late post tonight.  But anywho, onto the appointment.  A diabetic’s mandatory meeting.

I was actually on time so that started out well.  I handed my pump and my meter to the receptionist so they could pull the numbers off of the two.  For some reason, my meter decided that it didn’t want to work anymore and wouldn’t give the readings so they were going to give me a new Freestyle Lite meter.  I told them to just keep it because I have plenty of meters at home, leave it for somebody that needs one.  [Plus didn’t know if I’d have to report that to the FTC also 🙂 ]

Next up was the blood pressure.  If you recall from my last endo appointment, my blood pressure was a little high, 140/80.  I was very stressed out that day and was running around like crazy before the appointment.  Today I wasn’t stressed at all, it was a perfectly fine day.  My blood pressure was 122/70, perfect.  So there was nothing to worry about with that.  For some reason they weighed me after the blood pressure.  The scale at their office is always about a 10 pound difference then any other scale I step on.  Their scale last time said 254 when mine at home said about 244.  Today, their scale said 246.  So even though I’m not that heavy, I am obviously losing some weight.

As I explained recently, I have had a month full of highs and was trying to figure out why that was happening.  I discussed it with the doc today and we both agreed on all the possible reasons that I mentioned.  Probably a site issue.  We eliminated those highs so we could see patterns in normal days.  Overall, the sugars were pretty damn good.  Just those few high days did it to me.  Like usual my sugars overnight are killing me, literally!  We increased my basal rate during the late night / early morning hours to 1.8 and kept the rest of them at 2.2 – 2.4 depending on the time of day.  We also increased my carb ratio to 1 unit of insulin for every 4 carbs at night time and kept it at 5 carbs the rest of the day.

I felt very good after leaving today’s visit.  Things are going good and somethings are getting even better.  My goal for next month’s A1C is to have it below 7.  I have busted my butt exercising and eating better to do this, but I can’t stop now I have to continue.  Well, next appointment isn’t until end of November, so I’ll update you again after that appointment.

Endo Appointment Tomorrow, Charlie Kimball Friday

Chris Stocker

I received a phone call today from my endo’s office to confirm my appointment for Friday and I was confused.  I said, there’s no way that I could have scheduled an appointment for that day because Friday is Charlie Kimball’s race down in Homestead – Miami that I am going to so I can’t have that appointment.  She said, well I don’t think that we have any other openings.  I said, you don’t understand, I can’t miss this race, I am going to meet Charlie and be at the race.  So she said she would look and see where she could fit me in and give me a call back.  5 minutes later I get a phone call and somebody had cancelled for tomorrow, so it looks like now I have an appointment for tomorrow.

First thing that I am going to explain to the doc when I get in there is come straight out and admit that it hasn’t been a good month for me.  In fact, a pretty effin’ bad month.  I had a lot of highs, some major lows and just been all over the map with my sugars.  However, I did manage to find more time for exercise and lost some weight.  I put a little on over the last week, but I had lost enough before that to still be down some weight since the last visit.  The last thing is to explain that I haven’t worn the sensor at all for multiple reasons.  For one, it started to fall out all the time.  Secondly, the ones that I had expired way back in May and never realized it because I just kept thinking, well I still have 2 full boxes.  I will probably still attempt to use them though.

I must also remember to get new prescriptions from her however because I am almost out of insulin.  That also reminds me that I better re-order very soon because there is always an issue, especially when I need a new prescription sent in.  The first time that I had to send in a new prescription, it took me almost 2 weeks to get my insulin delivered, not good customer service in my eyes.

Today’s post a little short because I just got back from the gym and I am tired and I am trying to cook dinner and do laundry and have a lot of work to catch up on tonight.  So you all have a great day and I will have a better post tomorrow.  Hopefully something positive from the endo appointment.