Got my first 3 month HBA1c results this morning

Well as you all can see from below I was diagnosed a week before Christmas just 3 months or so ago with an HBA1c of 91mmol/mol (10.5%) and a fasting of 9.4 mmol/L

So today I toddled down to see my DSN to get the results from a blood test I had taken on 26th March and it was hard work not to ring up at the beginning of the week to get the results. So my DSN was very pleased to see me and was really happy.

My HBA1c result has reduced to 40 mmol/mol (5.8%).

I showed her my fasting readings plotted alongside my percentage weight loss graph and she couldn't believe it either. You can see that I have lost over 20% of my body mass and managed to hit my target of being below 14 stone at the review (I am now 13st 13 lbs and 12 Oz as of this morning) . I have lost 3 stone 10 pounds (52lbs 24kgs) in the 3 months. She now doesn't want to see me until my annual review

Sorry I know it is a little bit of showing off but actually I'm quite proud. Another 2 stone to go though so will let you know when/if I ever reach it.

Thanks guys. I do appreciate that I am very lucky and many of you have it much worse than I seem to even if my diagnosis results were pretty poor

Thanks Kat now have to prove I can keep it up for life

Karbstruck said:

Wonderful results! Congratulations. You deserve to feel justly proud of such a great effort.
Just wondering how you did the graph.
I was diagnosed with Type 2 about the same time as you, but my recent HbA1c was 6.9%, so I would be interested in how you achieved your results. Was it just LCHF diet and exercise? Any tips would be helpful.

Click to expand...

borofergie said:

Great result, and if I may, from one geek to another, beautiful graph work.

What was your strategy for getting your BG under control?

Click to expand...

Hi @Karbstruck and @borofergie

I will try and answer your questions below

The graphs where all produced from libreoffice (a office type program which is free I may add and opensource). I used the spreadsheet part for this.
I capture all of my blood results, exercise, diet, weight etc in it and calculate lots of different numbers in it. Here are a few rows from Aprils spreadsheet so you can see its basic structure:


The hours after eating is all calculated automatically and the yellow highlighting of the first reading of the day is also automatic. The pre-prandial flag helps me calculate the hours after eating

I take my BG levels many times a day. First thing (fasting), before eating, 1 hour after eating, 2 hours after eating (occasionally 3 hours after eating depending what I am seeing on the meter). I will also test after exercise just to track what my bg levels are at the end.


The spreadsheet then has another set of columns which I use to calculate my average value across the last few months. I do not just do the simple mean but look at how long I was at the value and factor this in that looks like the following in the spreadsheet (mathmatically I integrate the curve


Once I have the running average (over the last 3 months) I used the that to estimate my HbA1c and also at +20% on readings and +40%
using these formulae My +20 estimate for my HbA1c came out at 39 while my clinical test was 40 so not bad. I only started testing in February so I had the whole of January when I didnt know what my BG levels were doing because Type 2's do not need to test. I think clearly I have shown when we do we can make a large difference

I then have a set of sheets that display graphs for me each month and one of these is the fasting weight loss graph (I have a separate sheet that holds weight data). I always weigh myself in the morning between exercise and breakfast. Just how my day pans out getting ready for work and after my morning exercise.

Here is my April BG level graph against time



So that is how I manage my data.
I will put my approach in the next post as this is long enough

If anyone wants my abomination of a spreadsheet let me know and I will create a clean version or even a java application as I think this would be more manageable in the long run as the spreadsheet is a little fiddly at times

My lifestyle before diagnoses (one week before xmas) was pretty awful. I got up, dressed, showered, 4 weetabix for breakfast with 2 deserts spoons of sugar (or 4 slices of white bread toast). Drive to work (75 mins) sit at my desk and rarely move from it except to get cups of tea or hot chocolate. Lunch time would be a cheese and ham baguette and a couple of chocolate bars then sat at my desk until I would leave work at about 7pm or 8pm. Then drive home (60 mins) and have dinner: huge plate of chips with some meat, and a large portion of something sweet. My drink with my dinner would be a pint of milk or a pint of coke/orangeade... Then it was either off to the sofa or sit on the computer and either play world of warcraft or work on my latest project. Then off to bed and start all over again. A lifestyle that I expect many recognise unfortunately.

When I was diagnosed, which wasn't unexpected as I had issues getting to work without wetting myself (I needed to go for a wee every 50 mins), I was still left in shock. I saw the doctor a week earlier when he did a finger prick test and I came out at 24mmol/L which meant nothing to me at the time and tested for ketones (there weren't any). He asked me to do a fasting blood glucose and HbA1c blood test with the nurse and gave me a prescription for 2x500mg metformin if the results of diabeties comes out positive and a load of literature from diabetes.org/nhs and for getting myself on courses etc. So I had all this information and just sat in limbo for week until the 18th December when I rang the surgery and got told yes my result indicated I was diabetic. So straight round, got the tablets, and decided "right time for a lifestyle change". The first thing though was to understand what I had and not just in layman's terms. So I got my daughter's biomedical science texts (degree) and read these cover to cover in the areas around the function of the liver and pancreas. I also researched metformin to understand what it was doing to help my body cope. I ordered a static stand for my bike which my wife wrapped up as a xmas pressie and up until xmas I started to cut down my portion sizes. So breakfast went from 4 weetabix with sugar to 2 weetabix no sugar through stages (still not had toast since the day of diagnosis). No chocolate bars or cakes, and my meal sizes were reduced. I added the only real veggies I like to my diet (raw carrots) and I scoff them even today. I also research nuts and found that hazelnuts were full of monunsaturated fats and arginine which stimulates the pancreas to produce more insulin and started adding these to my diet.

So not a huge change up to this point. After xmas I found that I wasnt fit enough to actually get on my bike and cycle for even 5 mins. Now that was more of a shock than the diagnosis. So I had to start gently using Wii fit plus (where I recorded my weight changes originally). I would start with managing about 10 mins of exercise at most. Within weeks I was doing 20 to 30 mins of jogging around the room before breakfast. My diet I also changed. I went thought the OMG carbs moment and my lunch went to a handful of chicken, 6 carrot sticks, 4 raspberries, 6 blueberries, 12 hazelnuts! I had this every day for the month of January and I cut my breakfast down to just one weetabix. The evening meals was a small portion of chicken casserole, shepherd's pie, etc (normal food) with more carrot sticks

Ok got to walk the dogs. Will continue in the next post when I get back

OK back from walking the dogs!

In the middle of January I got back on my bike as I now seemed fit enough. Every evening I added an extra 20 to 40 mins of cycle alongside my run around the lounge before breakfast. So now I was doing low calorie (although more than the newcastle) and a substantial amount of exercise (well for someone that had done none for 18 years).

After 2 more weeks of this I bought myself a test meter (originally and aviva accu-check and later an SD CodeFree and I now buy strips by the bulk - 500 the last lot). It was whilst I was trying to understand what numbers I should be seeing that I found this site as there is a confusion of different numbers out there with little explanation of when to test and what to test. The diabetes course I attended told use the safe area and what we should be under before eating but not what to expect with real numbers. This site has been a great source of information as you all know.

At the beginning of feb I started to get this burning sensation in my veins all over my body and short of breath as well as needed to wee in the middle of the night (never needed to do this even before diagnosis) and cramps in all muscles in legs and arms! Only way I seemed to have to clear it was to get back on my bike and really get my heart rate up and this would reduce it for a while until it came back in a vengeance. Worked out that the Metformin was blocking the liver from removing the large amounts of lactic acid I was generating due to the change in ratio of ATP:AMS it causes.

I stopped the metformin and went back to the doctors who asked mee to try the slow release which was better but still got some symptoms in my calves and feet so they took me off them completely and when I showed him my first few days of readings he was already happy not to put me on anything else.

At this point I started to understand my numbers and the exercise/food I was taking so I changed my approach slightly. I had just reached 2 stone lost (14kg) and decided it was time to slow the weight loss down. So I kept my diet the same in type and added more in portion size and I also started to target my exercise. I would add some exercise as my numbers rise and not just jump on the bike about an hour after. Additionally I exercise to my meter. So I can eat what I like but I pay it off to stop my numbers rising (as you all know I an eat magnum ice creams and my bloods stay within 8 now). I carried on this approach for the next 2 months slowly increasing my food levels and my exercise levels and still maintaining a 2 pound a week weight loss.

I have changed my targets nowadays - I will not go to bed if my BG Levels are above 5.7 and I aim to have my BG levels under 5.5 at 2 hours (not always possible with some meals.

BTW my waist has dropped from a 44in to under 38 inch and still shrinking and my abdomen is now hollow because when I lay down it collapses and leaves my hip and ribs sticking out. Before my belly used to hold the duvet about 3 foot from the bed


My unplanned (initially) panic driven approach has really boiled down to 2 things
1. Calorie restricted rapid weight loss
2. Increased exercise and also targeted exercise to ensure my BG levels are always in safe zone and that my livers glucogen stores are always depleted so it is continuously converting fat.

I do not low carb but neither do I high carb. In the beginning I did about 60g of carb/day but now I do about 150g/day. I have also introduced bread back into my diet (around beginning of march) although bergen soya and linseed and rye but I have also had the occasional crumpet. The first time this spiked me up to 10 but now I don't even see it on the meter and that is because my pancreas is "programmed" for higher carb levels than it was.

Hope that helps somebody - it is my wacky individual approach which has worked for me

A