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Message: <blockquote data-quote="misterjohn" data-source="post: 1946617" data-attributes="member: 493891">Hello everyone.I’m a newly diagnosed pensioner. I’ve been hovering in the pre-diabetic spectrum for three or four years.... but now, according to two HbA1c tests (taken a month apart), I have just crept into the diabetic part of the spectrum. I have a meeting with the Diabetic Specialist Nurse after Christmas (but before the new year).The initial reaction I had to the diagnosis was not shock.... because I had been classed as pre-diabetic for three or four years. I was quite low for a day or two. I put my situation down to relaxing an iron grip on my diet; for three months I had dropped my self-imposed embargo on bread, cakes, biscuits and crisps. Not having exercised much also didn’t help either (I normally cycle a couple of days a week).My current concerns are as follows:1). The measurement of blood sugar.I have been measured on the haemoglobyn scale. The result print-outs quote measurements on this scale, viz. 41 > 47 mmol is prediabetic; 48 mmol and above is diabetic. However, the measurements I see on this forum (and the measurements my diabetic friend quotes)  seem to be on a different scale altogether, viz. 4.5 mmol to 8.5 mmol. My personal initial diabetic measurement is way, way off this scale. I was diagnosed as 50 mmol and confirmed as diabetic with 51mmol a month later (according to WHO guidelines).  Should I therefore be dead??!! Can I make it to the New Year? Nowhere can I find a simple, clear explanation of these scales. 2).  I am a single, elderly male.  Now, though I say it myself, I think I am in pretty good condition, viz. I am not overweight. I’m tall, mobile, etc.So, I’m thinking that maybe my situation is worse than the average (since, rightly or wrongly, I associate diabetes generally with being overweight and being inactive...  and that a successful prognosis would involve cutting down on food in some way ... and exercising more).Since I don’t eat a huge amount.... and I’m not overweight, should I be worried more than the average newly-diagnosed diabetic?3).   Finally, being elderly, male, and single.... and still working, albeit part-time on a voluntary basis in a demanding job, it may be no surprise to learn that I can’t cook. I live on TV dinners.... or frozen meals that I heat up in the evening. I also eat out at a very cheap café (no fried food, no fast food..... just plain cooking).I am not a big food fan. I think that time spent in choosing menus, preparing food, cooking food, entertaining with meals (in short, everything connected with the popular trend for TV cooking shows, TV chefs, etc) is time utterly misspent and wasted. I know this is not, by any stretch, a popular view...... I rarely find anyone who agrees with me. But I put it like this:  I don’t imagine anyone on their deathbed saying “Oh, I wish I’d eaten a greater variety of pizza”, or “I wish I’d learnt how to cook meals with cuscus.” (Likewise, I don’t imagine anyone expressing regret at not having studied Ancient Greek hard enough). My point:  do I now have to reverse a lifetime lifestyle of minimising the importance of food in my life? Do I have to become interested in cooking, in menus, in preparation? Or is there an effective short-cut (a brand which, for example, provides ready meals for diabetics)? I get that I will have to change my diet. I’ve already banished bread (I LOVE toast), crisps (I LOVE Pringles), biscuits, cakes, puddings (of any sort), sweets of any kind...  I am sharply cutting down on potatoes and rice. I get that I will have to exercise more (I’ve enrolled at the local gym.... and swimming pool).  But do I have to get swept up in the minutiae of meal preparation? home cooking? etc.Thank you for reading this.</blockquote>

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