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Too Fat for OmniPod

Chris Stocker

It’s been three straight days going to the gym now, and I feel great.  For the first Monday morning in I don’t know how long, that I weighed myself Friday morning, and then again Monday morning, and I weighed less than I did on Friday.  It was very exciting to see that on the scale.  Basically, I made a decision after having to explain something to my girlfriend that made me realize, ok you need to get serious.  This is what happened.

Amanda recently was hired as a fourth grade teacher and had to go to some training on Saturday and when she was there one of the girls she met and went to lunch with pulled out a meter and tested herself.  Amanda asked if she wore a pump because she didn’t see anything and the girl explained that she wore an Omnipod and Dexcom.  Amanda then asked me, “Why don’t you get the Omnipod, it seems so much better.”  My answer, which was the last reason I needed to lose weight was, “Basically, I’m too overweight, and I eat too much and I use too much insulin, so I would be changing it out every single day.”  I go through the 3.0 (or whatever the exact number is) reservoir for the MM Paradigm every 1 1/2 days.

By the way, I am still collecting requests for free website upgrades, re-designs, blog setups, etc. for a contribution for Diabetes Month. Contact me today with your requests.

Have a great day.

My Thoughts On Stolen Content

Chris Stocker

I know there has been a lot of talk about stolen content.  Anybody that steals content should be punished by having their site banned by Google and their hosting company taking their website down.  Unfortunately, this happens so often every single day that it is nearly impossible for it to happen.  First, just actually finding the content is difficult, and then taking actions to get the site penalized, is even harder.  Honestly, people steal ideas all the time for blogging.  If you say that you haven’t then you probably just haven’t realized that you do it.  I’ve taken ideas that people blogged about and wrote my own post about it.  But that is the biggest difference, I write my OWN post about it and gave mention to the person who wrote it the first time or came up with the idea.  (For example, this post has been talked about by fellow D-OC’ers, this isn’t my idea to just write about this today)

Let’s look at the good side of this first, and this relies on an if.  IF the person stealing the content has a link back to your site, then they are at least giving you credit where credit is due.  Also, let’s look at the technical side of this stuff and why they are stealing the content.  This becomes a search engine 101 reason.  The more content you have on your site about what you are selling or what your site is about, the higher Google will rank you, bottom line.  Here’s the catch.  Google does not like duplicate content.  If there is the same content on 2 different pages on the internet, Google will only show one of them.  Guess what, if you posted it first and your site has more authority for the post, which it will especially if there is a link back to your site, then Google is not even going to show the stealers website!  So people are not even going to see the content anyway.  And once Google finds this out, they will ban a site, pretty much forever, then its game over.

The bad part is obviously when somebody steals the content and they don’t give you the credit for it.  Scott had a great blog post about things you can do and the proper steps to take in order to get the website down.

COBRA Insurance Coverage Runs Out Nov 1

Chris Stocker 3 Comments

My COBRA coverage runs out November 1.  Normally I would be concerned and upset about this, but, my new insurance kicks in on November 1, so it’s all good.  I have now been with my new company for officially 90 days, so health insurance kicks in at the beginning of the following month, which would be November.  I am excited about this because it is a better plan than I had before and it also includes vision and dental which I did not have at my former employer because they were cheap asses.

I can’t wait to get new contacts, glasses, dental appointment, re-order my testing strips, pump supplies, insulin, etc.  But I’m also a little nervous because this first orders with insurance companies are usually a little scary and something always goes wrong.  My new insurance is from United Healthcare.  Who else has them?  I’d love to hear your feedback on them and how they handle fellow diabetics.

I have not been to a regular doctor’s appointment for a physical or a dentist or eye doctor in a long time.  A regular medical doctor has been almost 4 years since I saw one, yes I know, that is not good at all.  Dentist has been probably about 2 years and eye doctor about 18 months.  I’ll be making appointments for all of them soon.  Well I hope you all have a great night.

Weekend in Tampa and Site Re-Design

Chris Stocker

This weekend was a fun filled weekend in Tampa.  This is my first time ever going to the Tampa area and I must say, I’m not impressed at all.  Especially where I stayed, near the airport.  Very ugly, nothing to do, nowhere to go and the roads were very confusing.  On Saturday I went to Busch Gardens, and it is usually an ordeal trying to get into the park with my diabetes bag and all of the goodies inside of it.  Either, this security guard didn’t care or Busch Gardens in general did not care.  My bag included about 4 infusion sets, 2 reservoirs and a vial of insulin, extra strips, a meter, my infusion set injector, candy (Skittles and Sour Patch Kids of course), and a few other odds and ends.  When I walked up to the bag check counter, he opened it up, looked for 2 seconds and said, ok your good.  Well that was easy.

Sunday, we went to Bradenton beach area for a little before driving back home.

Last night was packed with sports, the Eagles and Phillies were on at the same time.  On top of that, the Panthers had their first game of the season, so I DVR’d that because I only have two tv’s in my living room.

The Life of a Diabetic - Diabetes BlogWell, this week my website might be up and down due to a re-design.  you will see some new colors and new logo.  Please take a look at the new logo below and much thanks and appreciate to Sarah from Sugabetic for this total concept and design.  I tweeted this the other day, but she is freaking awesome with Photoshop.

Well, I hope everybody has a good Monday and a great week.

My Announcements I Promised October 1

Chris Stocker 3 Comments

Another late night post, sorry ya’ll.  I will be going away this weekend to Busch Gardens in Tampa.  I am very excited because I haven’t been to Busch Gardens in almost 15 years.  The last time I went, it was the one in Virginia though and I don’t remember too much about it.  I am leaving as soon as I get out of work tomorrow night and I haven’t even packed for the trip yet.

Well, I promised some new announcements on October 1, but I wasn’t able to get online to post anything and majority of the items have been pushed back, but I will still announce them and estimated release dates of things.  Let’s get started.

  • In the month of November, I want to be able to do something for people with diabetes.  We all want to do something, but finding that something may be difficult.  I figured, what do I do best in life? I do SEO and web design for a career, so how can I use that? We always talk about how blogs help us in so many ways.  What about those that read blogs and want to start one, but haven’t gotten around to do it, or don’t know how to.  Well in the month of November, I will be building 20 new diabetes blogs for people that (1) currently have a blog and want a new design or site, etc. (2) create a completely new blog for people that want a blog.  If you want to be included in these 20, please contact me. By the way, I’m not charging, it’s free.
  • Now that I work full time for a top online marketing agency, I no longer am running my business full-time.  However, I still do make money from affiliate programs (you click on a link and purchase something and I get paid).  Any money that I do make from these programs, 50% will be donated to JDRF.
  • The new #dsma is fully functioning.  I’m not at home during that time to participant, but I read the whole chain that night when I get home and get a chance to catch up.  Don’t forget to send all of your ideas to Cherise for #dsma chats.
  • All of your #bgnows are going to become a lot more useful.  The beta version of the #bgnow tracker is almost ready for launch.  Basically, it will pull all of your #bgnows into an exportable excel sheet, including graphs, and along with date and time of your tweet.  Stay tuned for a more accurate release date.
  • I’m currently writing a diabetes book, and I promise it’s not going to be like most diabetes books that are out there, because let’s face it, most suck!

Well that is it for my news, exciting or boring, take it as you wish.  Have a great night everyone.

Busy Day Today

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

Sorry that this post is so late at night, but I had a long day and just got around to it now.  I was at work until 6:15 tonight and then I started my Spanish classes at my job tonight, so that didn’t get over until almost 7:45.  After that, I came home, ate, relaxed for a few minutes then got a haircut, showered and now here I am.  I am excited to be taking a Spanish class.  This is the first class that I’ve taken since I graduated college a few years ago.  I have a textbook and everything!

Before class started, around 5-ish, I noticed that my blood sugar was down at 103 and I didn’t have any candy or anything.  When I went upstairs at 6 for the class, I saw that there were chocolate chip cookies, so I ate two of them to keep my blood sugar steady during class.  When I got home, my pumped beeped and I was out of insulin.  It totally slipped my mind that I was supposed to rewind my pump and put in some more insulin at 6:00 before the class.  Ooops.  When I came home tonight before dinner, it was up to 387.

Big jump, but it is my own fault.  I was not able to make it to the gym today, but I ate healthy for lunch and for dinner, so that is at least one goal that I wanted to accomplish.  I still feel that I am just accepting the fact that I didn’t have time to go to the gym, even though I could have forced myself to go, I was just so exhausted and I didn’t think it would be a good idea.

Well, have a good day tomorrow.  Phillies begin their World Series journey tomorrow.

Excuses Are Like….

Chris Stocker 2 Comments

Today was one of those reality check days for me.  It wasn’t a bad day, but it was a day that consisted of a lot of thinking about some serious issues and concerns in my life.  The two main were wealth and health, and there is about 5 variations to each of those, but I’m not going to get into all of them here.  First up is my health, because that obviously comes first.  My blood sugars have not been very good over the last several months and there are two main reasons for that.  Lack of exercise (what a surprise) and overeating (what a surprise as well).  If you have been reading this blog for a while you are probably thinking, we hear this same shit over and over Chris.  Well ya know what, you are 100% correct and I hear it from myself all the time to and I am just sick and tired of hearing it, saying it, using it as an excuse, and typing it.

There are no excuses for the way that I have been treating my health, as there is nothing wrong and doing whatever I want.  The buck stops here (no pun intended for my northern readers that are out enjoying the beginning of bow hunting season).  I have literally thrown out everything in my house that is not good for me.  I know it is a waste of money, but I don’t even care anymore about that.  If it’s not good for me, I am not going to buy it or put it in my house.  I kept some sugary stuff for low bg’s, but the “healthier” things such as orange juice, other types of juices and of course some Skittles (those will NEVER go away).

I am also trying to save some money for some important things in life, wedding, house, and most importantly a mother-effing boat!  In order to save this money, I have to cut out a lot of extra spending which is pretty much eating out several nights a week which leads to the over eating and then also leads to the lack of exercise because by the time I get home from eating out, I don’t feel like going to the gym anymore.

I have plenty of motivation to do all of these things that I want to do, but I just haven’t turned the motivation into action yet.  Tonight I have.  I am blogging for the only the second time in almost 2-3 months, I am going to the gym, I’m not eating out, and I am eating healthier then I usually would.  I said this same thing two weeks ago and it only lasted two days, but this time I know it is different, I feel like I’m Lindsay Lohan and going to rehab only to get arrested 2 days later.

Long Term Achievement is Made Up of Short Term Goals

Chris Stocker 4 Comments

Achieving something does not happen automatically.  In order to get to the end, you have to follow a certain path.  There is no written path, well there can be, but I choose to create my own path, thanks to Robert Frost in fifth grade.  Small steps are needed to reach a larger achievement.  This is for anything in life, but since this is the Life of a Diabetic, lets relate it to my diabetes.

This food that I am about to eat, is it going to help my overall goal of losing weight and lowering my A1c?  Will testing my sugar before I eat instead of just guessing what it is, or just inputting a blank bg reading on my pump before I eat help my longer goals?  These long term goals can seem like they are almost impossible to achieve if you look at the end result.   So instead, let’s just create smaller goals that will equal to your larger goal.

So if I want to lose 3-5 pounds this week, then I need to accomplish that a daily basis, not on a weekly basis.  Take it one step at a time, that is the only way to get there.  I am writing this post also as a note and motivation to myself, because I am so focused on the end result, that I fail all the small little steps in between which will never lead me to my destination. I have an A1c test that I need to get done over the weekend and have my first endo appointment in nearly 9 months, so I am scared about this appointment, because I feel that I am letting myself down and letting my doctor down who is trying so hard to get me under control.

There are no excuses for the decisions that I have been making that result in my weight gain and lack of exercise.

Let’s end this on a positive note. I ate a salad for lunch today 🙂

Take care ya’ll

Been a Long Time

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

Wowwwwwww. This may be the longest that I have ever gone without blogging since I started back in 2005.  I don’t really have any excuses for why I have not been blogging.  I have been busier than I have been in years, but that is still not an excuse.  My blood sugar has not been as good as I want it to be either.  I haven’t been tweeting lately either, but I’m still there reading tweets.  I am working on a few diabetes projects right now and hopefully by the beginning of October I will be able to announce some of them to you all.

I will try and continue to blog some more and let you know how things have been going with me.

Until then, have a great evening.

Diabetes Projects All Over Now!

Chris Stocker 1 Comment

It seems that lately over the past few months there are more and more diabetes projects and awareness campaigns and chats either starting, or just becoming a lot more popular with more and more people.  And ya know what?  I LOVE it!  I absolutely love that there are so many different awareness campaigns and chats.  The part that I don’t like and what sucks the most is that I can’t keep up with all of them.  Remember the diabetes blog week?  Yeah, I’m STILL trying to read through those freaking posts.

So this is what I want, and I know this post is going up late at night, so I will re-tweet it out tomorrow as well, but I want you to just leave me a comment or shoot me an e-mail with diabetes related things that you have either started or actively participate in.  For example, TuDiabetes or #DSMA, or whatever the heck else you have going on.

Thanks all.