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Tag: weight loss

New Condo, New Start

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.

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.

Review From Doctor’s Visit Last Friday, To Symlin or To Not Symlin

Chris Stocker 3 Comments

Friday brought me another doctors visit. Let’s go through the checklist for the visit.

Insurance card, ID, meter, pump, clean socks, clean feet, food log, reasons for why I didn’t wear my cgm all month long.

Ok I have everything I need so now I can go to the visit, let’s check my sugar one more tome before we go. Ut-oh I ran out of strips. Once again I don’t have an extra box at work or in my laptop bag.  Going into the visit, I wanted to accomplish a few things.  They were to get my basal rates at right levels, get my morning sugars lower, figure out a better diet plan, learn more about temp basals and square wave boluses.

To start the visit off, I had weight a few pounds lighter than the last visit, even though that scale is way off.  Next came time for the blood pressure, not so good, it was 140-80.  I don’t know why it was so high.  I have been a little stressed lately with less sleep and some things going on at work.  Once the doctor came in the very first thing we discussed was why I didn’t have a lot of readings from the CGM.  So good thing I prepared for that one.  But I told her straight out that I just didn’t wear it as often as I should.  Then we started to look at the levels from the meter.  At previous visits, I had brought in 3 or 4 different meters and gave them the readings from those because I used different meters at different places.  That was one of the things from last visit I tried to stop and attempted to use the same meter almost every time, and I was pretty successful at doing so.

Now it was time to take a look at the bolus readings from the pump.  There were a lot of 25 unit (max) boluses without even having a blood sugar reading.  She did not like that very much.  The reason for those is when I know I am eating bad, and I don’t test before I eat, I just take 25 units, then will test later and correct from there.  Usually because I know I am eating enough carbs to cover that 25, which at my ratio, 5:1, that is at least 125 carbs in one meal, not too good.  There was even one in there just from last week that was two different 25 unit boluses within an hour of each other, (Olive Garden visit).

The last part of the visit was doc and I discussing the possibility of using Symlin.  The reason being is because she wants me to lose weight and she thinks just by my eating habits that I am not going to be able to do that.  This was brought to my attention with my previous doctor as well, and I had decided to throw the sample away and lose the weight myself.  Pretty much the same result this time.  I told my doctor that I want to attempt to lose the weight myself and by the next month if I don’t lose weight, then I will go on the Symlin.  I really don’t want to do that, but if I have to then I will.

Which leads to me to my question of the day.  How many people out there are currently or have previously used Symlin?  How did it make you feel?  Did it make you lose weight?  Was feeling like crap worth the weight loss?  Please let me know your experiences with Symlin.