NoMoreSugarBaby
Member
- Messages
- 11
Hi everyone,
Nice to meet you all. [squints] Good-looking crowd!
So, in December I had a Hb1ac test and it came back as 42.
This did not surprise me, for several reasons.
First, all my life I've had an extremely sweet tooth. In 2021, and especially over the summer months, my overindulgence in bad foods became so extreme that even I cared.
Over the summer, and well into the autumn, and to varying degrees ever since, I was sitting motionless on my couch trying to meet deadlines. I would sometimes keep working for 20 hours at a stretch, and on a couple of occasions, over 30 hours. I knew full well how unhealthy this was, but this was some of the most critically important work I've ever done, so I had no good choices.
I should add that I had been in the habit of exercising at least 30 minutes a day, at least 3 times a week. The minimum would be 25 minutes of HIIT followed by 30-35 minutes of calisthenics, including stretching. During the extreme summer of work, I fell below that, and I still don't always manage it as my workload continues to be extreme (though it is finally stabilizing). I know full well how bad this is.
In December I got tested, and was referred to the NHS's prediabetes program.
The program is very much geared towards weight loss. It involves the Oviva app, which requires you to start with a picture of yourself standing on the scale, showing your weight. I'm well within the healthy weight range and always have been, although my preferred weight is quite a bit lower than it is now. I'm preparing to start a calorie cut, but that's not especially for health reasons, it's just preference, and I do find that my blood pressure etc. is far better at the thinner end of the range.
It also gives you a lot of tutorials about healthy eating, and (to be fair) a tutorial each on weight maintenance, weight loss, and weight gain. There is some demonstrably bad advice in the weight loss section, as it suggests a ballpark calorie target that is far too low for most people (which is something that really grinds my gears, but I won't digress about it here). However, it does seem to try to be thorough about giving you all the information to make your own choices. I appreciate this approach, as I think it's much better than the "trickle truthing" by which a lot of public health advice gets communicated.
However, it's also fairly confusing due to the state of existing knowledge, I guess. Diet advice amounts to: go low carb, but don't go low carb, or maybe you could go low carb. Go low fat and look at traffic lights on labels, it suggests. Why - because low fat usually means lower calories? Or because low fat will somehow improve my blood glucose? It isn't necessarily clear.
So I have kind of tried to track my carbs, but not really. I started by reducing the amount of added sugar I take in, which is a huge change, but it wouldn't be enough even if I had cut out added sugar altogether, which I haven't. (I've had two cans of 7-up in the past week. 15g sugar each. Previously I would have consumed much much more. But I shouldn't be consuming any.)
Even by a conservative estimate, cutting out added sugar wouldn't be enough, as I need to cut starches way down and eschew potatoes and non-basmati white rice. Okay, I can do that. Or sort of do it. It's an improvement, but is it enough?
One concrete suggestion was to limit carbohydrates to 50g per meal and 15g per snack. That seems do-able, but it still adds up to fairly high carbs in any given day. But then again, it's not clear to me whether a low-carb diet is necessary or desirable for me.
Looking at the threads here, I guess you would all say that low-carb is The Way. I suppose if I'm going to continue here, this is what I've got to commit to. It may be the single thing that is necessary for me to succeed - if it's not already too late. Looking back I can say I've made drastic dietary changes in 3-4 months, but I guess I needed to be more drastic.
It does make me a little sad, because I don't have time to spend with friends or family, or to watch TV or listen to music or read books, or go out anywhere. It seemed like crisps were the one pleasure still available to me, and I have given in to them this week as well (150g eaten in the past week). I don't mean to moan too much, as I'm overall very privileged, and I also know that it's my responsibility to improve my life so that I'm not chained to my desk. Sometimes, however, you are up against circumstances and you have to make critical choices.
You also get a coach, and so they have texted me suggestions like "I can teach you to read labels so you know when you're eating added sugar! Did you know peanut butter can contain added sugar?" Yeah, I know, and even I wouldn't eat peanut butter with added sugar. I also once consumed a bag of commercial sweet-and-salt popcorn because that was the only food available (I'd taken a relative to hospital and gotten home late). To that, I got the suggestion that plain unsalted popcorn would be a great healthy substitute! I replied that that didn't sound appealing and I would rather snack on nothing (factually true) and I guess I lost the sympathy of my coach there. I mean... I don't have to be overjoyed at the idea of eating unsalted plain popcorn as a snack (if I had the time to pop it, which I don't). I just have to eat it, or not, and I choose to not.
So I guess the glucose monitor will arrive in a couple of days and I'll discover that nothing I've done has made a blind bit of difference because multigrain bread is still terrible.
Sigh... oh well, back to work.
Nice to meet you all. [squints] Good-looking crowd!
So, in December I had a Hb1ac test and it came back as 42.
This did not surprise me, for several reasons.
First, all my life I've had an extremely sweet tooth. In 2021, and especially over the summer months, my overindulgence in bad foods became so extreme that even I cared.
Over the summer, and well into the autumn, and to varying degrees ever since, I was sitting motionless on my couch trying to meet deadlines. I would sometimes keep working for 20 hours at a stretch, and on a couple of occasions, over 30 hours. I knew full well how unhealthy this was, but this was some of the most critically important work I've ever done, so I had no good choices.
I should add that I had been in the habit of exercising at least 30 minutes a day, at least 3 times a week. The minimum would be 25 minutes of HIIT followed by 30-35 minutes of calisthenics, including stretching. During the extreme summer of work, I fell below that, and I still don't always manage it as my workload continues to be extreme (though it is finally stabilizing). I know full well how bad this is.
In December I got tested, and was referred to the NHS's prediabetes program.
The program is very much geared towards weight loss. It involves the Oviva app, which requires you to start with a picture of yourself standing on the scale, showing your weight. I'm well within the healthy weight range and always have been, although my preferred weight is quite a bit lower than it is now. I'm preparing to start a calorie cut, but that's not especially for health reasons, it's just preference, and I do find that my blood pressure etc. is far better at the thinner end of the range.
It also gives you a lot of tutorials about healthy eating, and (to be fair) a tutorial each on weight maintenance, weight loss, and weight gain. There is some demonstrably bad advice in the weight loss section, as it suggests a ballpark calorie target that is far too low for most people (which is something that really grinds my gears, but I won't digress about it here). However, it does seem to try to be thorough about giving you all the information to make your own choices. I appreciate this approach, as I think it's much better than the "trickle truthing" by which a lot of public health advice gets communicated.
However, it's also fairly confusing due to the state of existing knowledge, I guess. Diet advice amounts to: go low carb, but don't go low carb, or maybe you could go low carb. Go low fat and look at traffic lights on labels, it suggests. Why - because low fat usually means lower calories? Or because low fat will somehow improve my blood glucose? It isn't necessarily clear.
So I have kind of tried to track my carbs, but not really. I started by reducing the amount of added sugar I take in, which is a huge change, but it wouldn't be enough even if I had cut out added sugar altogether, which I haven't. (I've had two cans of 7-up in the past week. 15g sugar each. Previously I would have consumed much much more. But I shouldn't be consuming any.)
Even by a conservative estimate, cutting out added sugar wouldn't be enough, as I need to cut starches way down and eschew potatoes and non-basmati white rice. Okay, I can do that. Or sort of do it. It's an improvement, but is it enough?
One concrete suggestion was to limit carbohydrates to 50g per meal and 15g per snack. That seems do-able, but it still adds up to fairly high carbs in any given day. But then again, it's not clear to me whether a low-carb diet is necessary or desirable for me.
Looking at the threads here, I guess you would all say that low-carb is The Way. I suppose if I'm going to continue here, this is what I've got to commit to. It may be the single thing that is necessary for me to succeed - if it's not already too late. Looking back I can say I've made drastic dietary changes in 3-4 months, but I guess I needed to be more drastic.
It does make me a little sad, because I don't have time to spend with friends or family, or to watch TV or listen to music or read books, or go out anywhere. It seemed like crisps were the one pleasure still available to me, and I have given in to them this week as well (150g eaten in the past week). I don't mean to moan too much, as I'm overall very privileged, and I also know that it's my responsibility to improve my life so that I'm not chained to my desk. Sometimes, however, you are up against circumstances and you have to make critical choices.
You also get a coach, and so they have texted me suggestions like "I can teach you to read labels so you know when you're eating added sugar! Did you know peanut butter can contain added sugar?" Yeah, I know, and even I wouldn't eat peanut butter with added sugar. I also once consumed a bag of commercial sweet-and-salt popcorn because that was the only food available (I'd taken a relative to hospital and gotten home late). To that, I got the suggestion that plain unsalted popcorn would be a great healthy substitute! I replied that that didn't sound appealing and I would rather snack on nothing (factually true) and I guess I lost the sympathy of my coach there. I mean... I don't have to be overjoyed at the idea of eating unsalted plain popcorn as a snack (if I had the time to pop it, which I don't). I just have to eat it, or not, and I choose to not.
So I guess the glucose monitor will arrive in a couple of days and I'll discover that nothing I've done has made a blind bit of difference because multigrain bread is still terrible.
Sigh... oh well, back to work.
