Douglas - You are a provocative poster; you always have been, in the time I have been here. In lots of ways I quite like that. It can initiate decent debate and flush out contra opinions. This forum (and all similar places) need a variety of posters, taking a variety of approaches. That, I believe, is critical for newly diagnosed folks who want to garner mixed options, which will allow them to formulate their own plans. It's not healthy to have one single message on a forum like this. If one approach suited everyone, this forum wouldn't exist. We would just read the leaflets we're given at diagnosis and skip happily off into the sunset.
But, moving forward, I also believe in exercising my pancreas (and allowing my liver to look after me), although maybe not quite as vigorously as you and
@Andrew Colvin do, on a regular basis. Once my numbers came into rein, my brain kept butting into my thought processes screeching "use it or lose it", when I considered carb consumption.
I thought I had stabilised my weight, but this morning I've lost again; bringing myself under 50kg. Being a shorty, my BMI is 19.1, so still in the healthy range, but I'm getting to be too boney. I would like to nudge up to just over the 50kg mark, and think I am going to use mainly carbs to do that - just up everything a bit for a while. I'm not expecting any detrimental impact on my bloods.
I've often referred to my relationship with diabetes as being like living with a pesky little brother. You know; someone who irritates the heck out of me, who has different interests, but is going to be with me for the rest of my life. Right now, after my last bloods, that pesky little brother is taking up too much head space, but he'll be back in his rightful place before long.
I'm also interested in your journey to living your dream. From memory, you're getting your metaphoric ducks into rows, so that your work life balance can swing well away from work?
I didn't set out to be provocative, and certainly this thread is just my story so far, and how I decided to find what works best for me, in the balance with everything else in my life.
I've never worried about my liver, I don't eat, it does what it does. It doesn’t seem to push me up, so if it's dumping, it's being it discreetly.
I've got my levels down to where I like them, I eat a good mixture of food, still much the same as the diet I originally posted, I just want to keep the ability to deal with food like the chinese I tried, if I need to. (I wouldn't be eating that much again though).
I'll always eat to my meter, and have been testing more when I've been posting here, and missing meals, or eating what I've described over the last few weeks.
It's all been ok, so I can't see the problem.
I've always planned to retire at 50, right from when I started working, diabetes made me realise I shouldn't put it off, just in case I wasn't able to do what I wanted to do later, but mostly it's the loss of weight that turned everything around, so I'm taking advantage now.
The houses are an investment, as well as a source of income, I already have one buy to let, which I renovated from the ground up a few years ago. (Before the diabetes hit)
Then I got all the tiredness, which was my biggest symptom, but fortunately that's in the past, then this new house came along at just the right time.
We also own my mother in laws house, who sadly passed away last year, that needs some work, so I have that one pencilled in for October onwards, then we'll let that out.
I'm self-employed, so I can juggle all the work around, and hopefully when the houses are eventually finished I can keep work done to the odd day here and there when I've nothing better to do, rather than because I need to.
All in all everything is going ok, and I can honestly say that being diagnosed was on balance a good thing, rather than a bad thing, as I wouldn't have made the changes.
I'd still be overweight, I may still have managed to retire, but I’d simply have sat around eating and watching tv.
Which is the point of this thread really.
Diabetes isn’t the end, it can be the start.
If you can deal with it in a way that puts you in control, and still have a good quality of life, it can be a positive factor in altering your life, not a negative one.
I'm home at the moment, but just about to go back to the house to finish more of the kitchen, and sort out the heating.
