Let's Do It

There is no time like now to start over on a clean slate.

I had initially started this blog as a means to documenting my fight against type 2 diabetes with the goal of reaching a stage where I don’t take any more medications for my diabetes. Instead, mainly through a vegan diet and exercise, maintain my sugar at normal levels. I will give the reason for a vegan diet in a separate post.

As you may have read from the previous post, there was a big hurdle that I had to cross health wise last year. Well, now since I am well again from that ailment, it is back to the original quest, shall we say :-)?

I sincerely hope that what I share here may serve as an inspiration/motivation to others who are facing similar challenges in their fight against diabetes.

I am going to keep note of my sugar levels in the morning and evening levels on a daily basis in the initial stages, so that I am able to identify patterns in the sugar levels and what is beneficial or isn’t in keeping the sugar levels on their course.

Historically, I haven’t been doing a good job of maintaining my diet and exercise plan and there are huge spans of times when I have a lot of trouble gaining control over my mind, giving in to temptation, laziness to exercise, and craving for all kinds of food that are unhealthy (meat, fat, sweets, diary) and are detrimental to keeping control on the sugar levels. I think many of you will agree with me on this.

But, just as I have been doing for so many years, the best thing to do when you have fallen down is to get up and resume the fight. Eventually you will get it right.

Hope, perseverance and dedication in generous doses is what moves us forward over all kinds of hurdles we face in our lives and it wont ever fail in helping us in whatever we are attempting to do. This constant fight we have with our mind is lifelong in everything we do. I think we will do well enough if on average we are ahead in this fight with our mind.

With that, I shall end today’s post. I will try and be up to date on the posts, will post links to other articles that will be useful. I shall also post recipes that will be perfect for people suffering from diabetes from my food blogs.

Come, let’s fight this battle together and get by with a little help from each other.

Back to the Present!

I am back after a long long time, and happy to be alive and kicking!

I underwent a few surgeries in 2009 for diverticulitis. Complications occurred due to infection and I went through a critical patch.

The sugar levels shot up after surgery as they normally do, which isn’t good at all for a diabetic if not managed properly. So in addition to increased levels of oral medications, for the first time I had to take 20 units of insulin daily to keep the sugar within reasonable levels.

Due to the high sugar levels and the seriousness of the surgery, it took me months to recover and a long time to get back to being normal. It is now one year since my surgeries and I can still feel the after effects of the surgery at times. I was really scared wondering whether I will ever become completely alright.

When I admitted myself to the ER, I weighed 337 lbs and my sugar levels weren’t optimal either. I lost 61 lbs during this time, to 276lbs. After I completely recovered, the insulin intake was stopped and oral medications were reduced since my sugar levels started dropping very low.

I felt good about my sugar levels, which were now normal with the most minimal dosage of medications.

Then I had this strange period of time when, after having lost all this weight, I went into a binge-eating mode where I couldn’t go through a day without consuming chocolate (usually a 100g bar of Cadbury’s bar or sometimes two), gorge on fatty and oily food, desserts, and all my food had to be really spicy with a lot of chili powder. Normally I am not a person who likes spicy food much.

This was a period of time where I lost all sense and control of my diet and my sugar levels. I didn’t go to the doctors, since I was scared going near a hospital after going through what I did, and even small things that reminded me of the hospital and surroundings used to make me anxious.

Fast forward almost 4 months later to today, and I am now almost back to where I was in 2009, weighing 324lbs and sugar levels that are high and very sensitive to anything to I eat. My H1AC level reading was 8.3. The results from the blood test my new doctor ran woke me up alright!

Hence I thought it was very important that I focus on my health again, which includes my obesity and my sugar levels.

I want to revive what I had intended to do in 2009 - bring my health back in order, especially my obesity and diabetes and I am hoping that I can stay right on track this time around. There is no looking back as that is a waste of time.