When I started my journey 3 years ago my goals were to reach 13 stone or 83kg and reevaluate when I reached that goal Goal Post and too stop taking insulin and injecting myself everyday. Both goals have not been reached until now, a lot of reevaluating has been done in that time, over the weight compromise's have been made as I have run and cycled trained hard raced hard and recovered /recovering from injuries along the way.Everything I have done and achieved has had either a positive or negative effect on my weight, believe it or not running is not the pathway to weight loss having learnt that lesson I become comfortable with my weight yo yoing between 98kg-104kg it is still frustrating at times but I am comfortable with where I'm at.
About 18 months I was given some devastating news for me and that was it was very likely that I would be on insulin for the rest of my life, I remember sitting with Dr Lorraine Albon crestfallen with that news and Lorraine trying to be positive and lift me. At this point life carried on, the highs and lows starting to accept the bad news and moving on.
I am not a good diabetic by any stretch of the imagination but am a lot better than I ever have been. over the past year I have been hit and miss with my insulin because I am only taking small amounts, so whilst my HBA1C is a little higher than it needs to be it has still been coming down which is good. When I saw Lorraine just over a month ago she put me on a new drug this tablet makes me pee more but importantly it pees the sugar out of my body it also uses up 300-400 calories a day. This drug is so new it has only been on the market for 6 months.
So today as I write this blog my first 28 days are up for this new tablet, I have had no side effects I clearly have been peeing more often (I wont go into any more details lol) but its all good news on that front my weight has come down from approx 103kg -104kg to 97.1kg today thats a weight loss of 6kg or nearly a stone which has been my up and down weight band, whilst always wanting to be lighter as long as I run and cycle I have accepted that weight band. This is weight I have put back on not new weight loss, when I hit 95kg I will then be losing new weight.
Whilst I had my appointment with Lorraine at QA Hospital I was also seeing the practice diabetic nurse at my local surgery, I have had so many blood test's in the past 2 months its unbelievable but when the results are so good then its worthwhile its worth noting that some of the bloods were to make sure I am good for Cuba, that is a major challenge and its important that we are all now happy that I can undertake this challenge without failing ill. I have everything I need to look after myself I will have plenty of water, isotonic tablets and energy bars and gels to make sure I get through the day and recover afterwards as well.
For the past 3 weeks I have not been taking my insulin (as requested) I have been checking my blood sugar levels twice a day everyday!!! (at least once a day at the very least!!) the results have been good my HBA1C has fallen steadily and is now down to 60 from 65 since the start of the year, the aim is be steady between 53-55. The confirmation came on Thursday just gone, I could also stop my other injection as this clashed with the new tablet so was not now needed.
I can now say that a long term goal that at one time was unattainable has not only become attainable because of the ground breaking research has now happened. I am a DIABETIC it is controlled by tablets and diet (hate that word) lifestyle. I am not insulin dependent anymore nor will I be in the future.
The lesson here is to not give up when you get bad news but to digest that information by all means have a little blow out (but know your boundaries) then reset your goals to something manageable something smaller build up the little wins so the bigger win becomes achievable.
As Trevor Silvester says "things are not meant to be easy just possible" Many of you have followed my journey read my blogs seen my run/cycle reports to know that I have not found this easy that it's required a lot of hard work to get where I am today. I have heard people say that I'm an instant/overnight success if I am its taken 3 years to become that and I am still not at the end of my journey.
So now is the time to take a deep breath take in the shock good news about my diabetes and reset my goals because the goal posts have shifted so much in the past month. As I always do I will make then now in public so you can see how my journey goes. I still have two goals one is ongoing and the other will be staying in range goal, so lets do that one first.
My goal is to never have to go back on insulin I will manage my lifestyle in such a way that my blood sugars stay within the band set by my Diabetic nurse. I will have to work hard at this and learn how to do this properly I have never been in a position where I have reached a health target before, I have said many many times how much I love learning new things about myself, this opportunity just opens up so many new learning experiences for me. I am very excited about this stage of my journey.
Goal Two, I was surprised when I read back that first blog (see link above) the weight goal was based on if I had surgery that would easily have been my weight goal if not a little lower. I will still stick by that statement for now but as always with big long term goals you have to break them down in to smaller chunks. My goal now is to reach 89kg or 14 stone (that's a scary target) I will then take medical advice at that point about my next steps. I do not have the weight of my Diabetes to fall back on because I have reached that goal, I will not use my running as an excuse not to achieve this goal. I have come to the realization that to help make my calf's stronger if I carried less weight then this MAY help.
So there we go goals reset with the issues I have to fight along the way, I will no doubt at times take some backward steps as long as I learn from them I will succeed in the long term. I would like to make two statements so we all know exactly where I an at this present time, the first one is I am still Diabetic and will be for a long time to come.
The second one is the problems I am still having at work I was hoping that they may have been fully addressed and a pathway forward found, this has not happened yet as I leave on my Cuba Cycle Challenge I know I have to return to work and it will not be easy addressing the problems. To help deal with them I will leave you with another Trevor statement that I live by "Be the the best you can manage"
The lesson here is to not give up when you get bad news but to digest that information by all means have a little blow out (but know your boundaries) then reset your goals to something manageable something smaller build up the little wins so the bigger win becomes achievable.
As Trevor Silvester says "things are not meant to be easy just possible" Many of you have followed my journey read my blogs seen my run/cycle reports to know that I have not found this easy that it's required a lot of hard work to get where I am today. I have heard people say that I'm an instant/overnight success if I am its taken 3 years to become that and I am still not at the end of my journey.
So now is the time to take a deep breath take in the shock good news about my diabetes and reset my goals because the goal posts have shifted so much in the past month. As I always do I will make then now in public so you can see how my journey goes. I still have two goals one is ongoing and the other will be staying in range goal, so lets do that one first.
My goal is to never have to go back on insulin I will manage my lifestyle in such a way that my blood sugars stay within the band set by my Diabetic nurse. I will have to work hard at this and learn how to do this properly I have never been in a position where I have reached a health target before, I have said many many times how much I love learning new things about myself, this opportunity just opens up so many new learning experiences for me. I am very excited about this stage of my journey.
Goal Two, I was surprised when I read back that first blog (see link above) the weight goal was based on if I had surgery that would easily have been my weight goal if not a little lower. I will still stick by that statement for now but as always with big long term goals you have to break them down in to smaller chunks. My goal now is to reach 89kg or 14 stone (that's a scary target) I will then take medical advice at that point about my next steps. I do not have the weight of my Diabetes to fall back on because I have reached that goal, I will not use my running as an excuse not to achieve this goal. I have come to the realization that to help make my calf's stronger if I carried less weight then this MAY help.
So there we go goals reset with the issues I have to fight along the way, I will no doubt at times take some backward steps as long as I learn from them I will succeed in the long term. I would like to make two statements so we all know exactly where I an at this present time, the first one is I am still Diabetic and will be for a long time to come.
The second one is the problems I am still having at work I was hoping that they may have been fully addressed and a pathway forward found, this has not happened yet as I leave on my Cuba Cycle Challenge I know I have to return to work and it will not be easy addressing the problems. To help deal with them I will leave you with another Trevor statement that I live by "Be the the best you can manage"
