Lows and Basal Testing

Doing things "one day at a time" is not just about losing weight, but about overall health and accomplishing things that I've just put aside in life.

I've done fairly well to be disciplined and not eat after 8pm, BUT like all things I've been thrown some curves. Namely, A TON OF LOWS. I went through my meter's history and 16 out of my last 50 readings were under 90. I woke up last night at 2 am with a reading of 37! The night before 40. And the night before that 3 readings in the 60s before my head even hit the pillow. OH and I'm sitting here sipping a half glass of OJ because I'm clocking in at 91 after 2 hours of volleyball and my track record doesn't exactly indicate that I'm going to hold steady!

This all means that, while I've not eaten between 8pm and bedtime (most nights), I've been eating sometime between midnight and 7am most mornings!! One seems to negate the other, no? So, this week I'm aiming to get in two overnight basal tests. Tomorrow night (Wed) and hopefully Friday or Saturday night. Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm exercising after dinner, so it's really hard to gauge and I think I can only take one night of up every hour and still make it to work on time! Hopefully, since I'll still be keeping up with the absence of food after 8pm, having my basals in order will make it a little more fruitful!

I really hope I can wake up to each alarm tomorrow night... getting half way through the night and having to do it again just isn't going to work for me!!

How often do you do basal tests?

My job can be pretty exciting...

when we're up to stuff like this. Scroll down the page to the video player and then choose "Fitness Challenge" from the list of videos.

The kickoff was today and we saw over 150 people join the challenge! That's 150+ people either controlling or preventing Type 2 diabetes (There may be a few T1s in the mix as well). That's 150+ people trying to improve their health and a city joining together to get healthy! The community that I work in has the third highest incidence of Type 2 diabetes in the Commonwealth, which is staggering. Our programs aim to lower this rate, by teaching people to be healthy and work to prevent T2 diabetes. (We offer programs for T1s as well).

There should be a rule against food commercials after 8pm! It certainly would help!! I'm trying not to be really really hungry, but I think I should probably crawl into bed if I expect to make it the rest of the night!
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Bernard commented on my last post and reminded me of our meet up with Allison in Boston. I never blogged about it and wanted to share this photo of Bernard and Allison at Harvard!

Better late than never...

This blog's changing :)

To track the changes I'm making this year, I've added three columns to my blog. The left-hand column will contain the usual blog stuff, such as links and previous posts, etc. The right hand column is for my One Day at a Time progress.

I thought about this and wondered, "Why do I feel the need to share this info?" And I don't really, but I think it's a good way to keep myself somewhat accountable--because this community is really great about commenting and encouraging each other. I also think it's a great way to look back and see what I've been able to do. So, I won't replace the information to the right each time, but instead I'm going to add to it each time and keep a running list of what's been changed.

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If it hasn't already become clear, I'm also attempting to be a little more present here too. This means more commenting and more posts. To those of you who are still reading despite my long absence and irregular posts, thanks for sticking with me! Leave a comment and let me know you're still here!

The how...

But first, on a diabetes related note:

Has anyone heard of Monogenic Diabetes? A client's father just recently came to the office with an article from a People magazine about this. I'm unbelievably skeptical. I think it comes with the territory-- you know loads of pills to reverse diabetes, that don't reverse diabetes. But, they seemingly have a legitimate website and JDRF's support? So, check it out, let me know if it's bogus, etc.

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One day at a time. What does that look like? For me, right now, it's making one change at a time. I started yesterday and for the next week and a half or so (depending on how well I do, I guess) I'll be cutting out all eating after 8pm. I don't think I really ever thought about what time it was when I wanted a snack. I am hoping that this will teach me to be more aware of that and to really cut back on some of those calories and carbs that slip in after dinner. Exceptions will have to be made. For instance, yesterday I didn't really manage to get dinner or lunch, but instead three small snacks leaving me somewhat unsatisfied when I got home around 10, so I had a small piece of chocolate before watching an hour of tv. This wasn't a failure to me. So, I'll be taking things into consideration and of course, being reasonable where diabetes is concerned (Last night, I did end up low in the middle of the night).

This is my strategy. Small changes; one at a time. Other changes will include portion sizing and types of food that I'm eating as well as packing lunches and eating more veggies, BUT now is not the time to think about those things.

One thing that I am trying to curb right from the beginning is to eat when I'm hungry and not just because it's lunch time or dinner time. I think having this attitude towards food throughout, will really help me in the long run.

A little Help, please

A client called the office today and she was looking to purchase a pin for a mother whose son was recently diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and couldn't find any high quality pins. She is specifically looking for the gray/silver ribbon with the drop of blood. Does anyone know where one could be found? She and I have both searched the internet. I thought someone might have purchased one in the past. Thanks in advance!

One day at a time

I tried to lose weight in 2007 and failed, so why not give it another go?

My attitude this year has to be, "One day at a time." I don't see how else it's going to work for me. I'm overwhelmed with loads of changes I'd love to make, but I know that I'm not going to be able to do everything. I just need to take it slow and not give up.