The Ketone Kops
Member
- Messages
- 6
Hi there and welcome to my personal odyssey through the choppy waters of diabetes mellitus.
57 years old and you can call me podgy. Committed smoker, enthusiastic drinker, first into the pie shop, and last out of the curry house - all round a bit of a slob. Despite all of the above and not being renowned for my, ahem, personal fitness I nonetheless managed to negotiate my first half century on the blue planet having only ever had to visit hospital twice, once to have my tonsils and adenoids out as a boy, and the other to have a ‘Beckham’ boot fitted in my late 40s having broken a metatarsal in an unseemly drunken incident. So, having seemed to have defied the laws of nature, the physicians’ advice, and the statistician’s prognoses, I believed I must be constructed from some rather superior DNA, until that is, I was diagnosed as being DB2 by my doctor in late January at the age of 56. I had been losing weight slowly over a period of about eight months for no discernable reason. This in itself was quite welcome at first as I’ve always been on the well nourished side, but my weight had gone from 13st 11lbs to 13st 3lbs, (I am a tad over 5ft 7in by the way) and I had started to feel rather strange and lethargic roundabout Christmas. I began to fear there was something seriously wrong and went to the doctor. We did the blood test and two days later a fasting blood test, and there it was staring me in the face: blood glucose of 11.9 mmol/ L (9.4 mmol/ L fasting) and HbA1c of just over 9. So, rather than being superior, my genes it seems, were anything but - in fact I was a classic, textbook, late onset diabetic. Cholesterol and triglycerides levels were also found to be somewhat elevated but they had been so since my 40s. I was referred to a specialist who performed a thorough examination and confirmed the GP’s diagnosis, and couldn’t wait to dish out the pills, recommending Pravastatin and Glucophage. Now, I have always tried to use medication only as a last resort, and only go to the quack when the Grim Reaper has me by the throat, so the prospect of a life on pills went very much against the grain, and I resolved to try and do things on my own terms. My GP insisted I see a dietician if I declined the medication, and told me to buy a blood sugar monitor and test daily to make sure things were not getting any worse in the meantime. It was now the end of February and I couldn’t get to see the dietician until April and couldn’t work to how to use the damned machine either. During this two month period I cleaned up my act considerably based upon reading I had done on the internet some of which was on this helpful forum. I have done a detailed account at the end of the post.
* * * * *
After a couple of months of improved behaviour, I finally got to see the dietician, and I trotted off to London in late April - and here’s where it starts to get interesting. She weighed me and then perused the haematology report and said: “I don’t think you’re diabetic at all. I think we can cure this with diet - in two months.” I had to admire her confidence. Her aim was firstly to get my BMI of around 30 down to about 25, this I was told would “thin my blood”. The excess glucose I was carrying was making my blood viscous. I was placed on a savage regime and had to lose 10 Lbs of flab. Basically she asked what I was eating and drinking and a bit about lifestyle, and laid out a very specific, personalised diet plan. I won’t go too far into the details of this because we are all different, and anyway I wouldn’t like to diddle her out of fees (if anyone in or around London wants to consult her they can get in touch via me). Anyway basically the diet revolves around loads of fibre, lots of fruit, and low animal fat, oh, and plenty of water. Importantly I had to eat five times a day rather than the two or three I had always done. I was allowed two pints + two glasses of wine per day max (though I have teetered over the white line of sobriety on one or two occasions!). I was allowed a snack post-pub and this is usually a few bits of chicken or cooked meat and a slice of WM toast.
On my second weekly visit I had lost 2.5 Lbs and my random glucose was 7.7. I’m not clear how much of the improvement was down to what I had done in the intervening couple of months however. On my third weekly visit I had lost a further 1.5 Lbs and glucose was 7.2. On inspection in the mirror later that day I noticed that one of my chins had disappeared, and the new Levis I had just bought were beginning to require a belt. On my fourth weekly visit I had lost another 1 lb and glucose was, wait for it – 5.3. I told the nurse her machine must be faulty so she did another strip – 5.3 bang on. You could have knocked me down with the proverbial. After having seen the nurse use the machine I also managed to work out how to do it at home and began to take regular readings which varied from the about 6.0 to 7.7. The 5.3 it seems was a bit of a one-off, but it helped me to believe I was on the right track. After two months I made my target weight (though I had to take my watch off to do it). Cue brief celebration. I arranged to visit the quack for a second set of fasting bloods, and the results were amazing: fasting blood sugar was down to 6.0 and more importantly the HbA1c had fallen from 9.9 to 6.6. Not only that, but my blood pressure had gone down from 155/85 in February to 129/85!!! Ta-daaa. The new haematology results were then sent off to the specialist who has now withdrawn his Metaformin recommendation because of the “. . . important change in his (my) diet and lifestyle.” So there we are. It can be done without pills. Clearly I will have to keep up my improved behaviour, but now that the underlying glucose levels are down to near normal I can allow myself a bit of latitude.
SOME OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS: Diet, weight, exercise and smoking are vital areas, but stress and lack of sleep are huge factors as well, as both can lead to elevated sugar levels, and an adrenaline surge will release glycogen into the blood stream which will send your BS off the scale. It is as important to relax and to sleep well as it is to attend to all the other areas. Diabetes II is not a disease, it is merely a symptom of decreasing efficiency. If you buy a new car you will get 150BHP and 40 MPG. After 50 years you’ll get 130BHP and 30 MPG.
Well there it is, and I haven't had a pie since February. Details of my purge are below. I hope this may perhaps be of use to someone.
Best,
Matt
(aka The Ketone Kops)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Step 1: was to eliminate my Trebor extra strong mint habit. These were replaced with sugar free mints. OK I might end up with two heads because of the chemicals, but desperate times etc. Oh, and the discretely hidden bags of Wine Gums and fruit sweets in the car were binned.
Step 2: was to eliminate animal fats wherever possible. Very hard. I worshipped at the alter of butter. I lathered it on toast, I fried with it, cooked with it, I’d even have bathed in it if I could. But desperate times etc. I found Olivio Gold and Bertolli to be about the best butter substitute flavourwise, and not too bad chemically. Also I began to trim the excess fat off beef, ham etc, though I drew the line at chicken skin.
Step 3: was to eliminate bad carbs wherever possible. I’ve never been a sugar freak and I don’t hanker after deserts much so that bit wasn’t too hard, however I used to allow myself one bar of chocolate a week and giving that up was a killer. Ho-hum. Wholemeal bread was the key to my personal salvation. Let’s say that word again people - WHOLEMEAL. Now when you first get diagnosed, shopping becomes more like am investigative science documentary than a satisfying hunter-gatherer experience. When you buy stuff you MUST read the label. “Wholemeal” bread 90% of the time is not whole meal at all. It is a mix of wholemeal and refined flour – the thing you’re trying to avoid, so you must try to find bread which is entirely wholemeal or whole grain flour. Allinsons and Vogel both pass muster, but my favourite by a distance it the Duchy Original seeded bloomer. Vogel makes unbelievable toast by the way. Wholemeal pasta isn’t hard to find, but I don’t like it much. I try to avoid rice as it has little nutritional benefit, but if I have it I go for anything other than long grain. Spuds are ok as long as they have their skins on and not fried or mashed, but I generally avoided them too.
Step 4: Alcohol. Yikes. Now, before diagnosis I drank every night. Four of five pints of real ale. After diagnosis I still drink every night but have cut down on the beer and substituted dry white wine or white spirits with slimline mixers. Basically I cut down from 9 or ten units a day to 6 or 7, and halved my beer carb intake.
Step 5: Smoking. Before D-Day I did nearly two packets of Silk Cut Silvers a day. With the aid of e-cigs I have cut this down to just over 20 a day. I came close to violence on a couple of occasions but was not arrested at any point.
Step 6: Exercise. Ten years ago I was reasonably fit; I walked the dogs EVERY day for 45 minutes at a brisk pace. I was also doing three half hour sessions per week on a cross trainer at home. Back issues and the death of my doggies meant I had ditched the cross trainer and cut down on the walkies. In short I had let myself go, and so, the final piece of my Damascene conversion was getting back to the walking – EVERY day, and back on the cross trainer three times a week, building up slowly towards three 30 minute sessions. Also about ten minutes of moderate repetitive weights X 3. After the two months of my improved regime I was feeling generally a little better, though some days, for no apparent reason I felt yucky, and had difficulty concentrating.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
57 years old and you can call me podgy. Committed smoker, enthusiastic drinker, first into the pie shop, and last out of the curry house - all round a bit of a slob. Despite all of the above and not being renowned for my, ahem, personal fitness I nonetheless managed to negotiate my first half century on the blue planet having only ever had to visit hospital twice, once to have my tonsils and adenoids out as a boy, and the other to have a ‘Beckham’ boot fitted in my late 40s having broken a metatarsal in an unseemly drunken incident. So, having seemed to have defied the laws of nature, the physicians’ advice, and the statistician’s prognoses, I believed I must be constructed from some rather superior DNA, until that is, I was diagnosed as being DB2 by my doctor in late January at the age of 56. I had been losing weight slowly over a period of about eight months for no discernable reason. This in itself was quite welcome at first as I’ve always been on the well nourished side, but my weight had gone from 13st 11lbs to 13st 3lbs, (I am a tad over 5ft 7in by the way) and I had started to feel rather strange and lethargic roundabout Christmas. I began to fear there was something seriously wrong and went to the doctor. We did the blood test and two days later a fasting blood test, and there it was staring me in the face: blood glucose of 11.9 mmol/ L (9.4 mmol/ L fasting) and HbA1c of just over 9. So, rather than being superior, my genes it seems, were anything but - in fact I was a classic, textbook, late onset diabetic. Cholesterol and triglycerides levels were also found to be somewhat elevated but they had been so since my 40s. I was referred to a specialist who performed a thorough examination and confirmed the GP’s diagnosis, and couldn’t wait to dish out the pills, recommending Pravastatin and Glucophage. Now, I have always tried to use medication only as a last resort, and only go to the quack when the Grim Reaper has me by the throat, so the prospect of a life on pills went very much against the grain, and I resolved to try and do things on my own terms. My GP insisted I see a dietician if I declined the medication, and told me to buy a blood sugar monitor and test daily to make sure things were not getting any worse in the meantime. It was now the end of February and I couldn’t get to see the dietician until April and couldn’t work to how to use the damned machine either. During this two month period I cleaned up my act considerably based upon reading I had done on the internet some of which was on this helpful forum. I have done a detailed account at the end of the post.
* * * * *
After a couple of months of improved behaviour, I finally got to see the dietician, and I trotted off to London in late April - and here’s where it starts to get interesting. She weighed me and then perused the haematology report and said: “I don’t think you’re diabetic at all. I think we can cure this with diet - in two months.” I had to admire her confidence. Her aim was firstly to get my BMI of around 30 down to about 25, this I was told would “thin my blood”. The excess glucose I was carrying was making my blood viscous. I was placed on a savage regime and had to lose 10 Lbs of flab. Basically she asked what I was eating and drinking and a bit about lifestyle, and laid out a very specific, personalised diet plan. I won’t go too far into the details of this because we are all different, and anyway I wouldn’t like to diddle her out of fees (if anyone in or around London wants to consult her they can get in touch via me). Anyway basically the diet revolves around loads of fibre, lots of fruit, and low animal fat, oh, and plenty of water. Importantly I had to eat five times a day rather than the two or three I had always done. I was allowed two pints + two glasses of wine per day max (though I have teetered over the white line of sobriety on one or two occasions!). I was allowed a snack post-pub and this is usually a few bits of chicken or cooked meat and a slice of WM toast.
On my second weekly visit I had lost 2.5 Lbs and my random glucose was 7.7. I’m not clear how much of the improvement was down to what I had done in the intervening couple of months however. On my third weekly visit I had lost a further 1.5 Lbs and glucose was 7.2. On inspection in the mirror later that day I noticed that one of my chins had disappeared, and the new Levis I had just bought were beginning to require a belt. On my fourth weekly visit I had lost another 1 lb and glucose was, wait for it – 5.3. I told the nurse her machine must be faulty so she did another strip – 5.3 bang on. You could have knocked me down with the proverbial. After having seen the nurse use the machine I also managed to work out how to do it at home and began to take regular readings which varied from the about 6.0 to 7.7. The 5.3 it seems was a bit of a one-off, but it helped me to believe I was on the right track. After two months I made my target weight (though I had to take my watch off to do it). Cue brief celebration. I arranged to visit the quack for a second set of fasting bloods, and the results were amazing: fasting blood sugar was down to 6.0 and more importantly the HbA1c had fallen from 9.9 to 6.6. Not only that, but my blood pressure had gone down from 155/85 in February to 129/85!!! Ta-daaa. The new haematology results were then sent off to the specialist who has now withdrawn his Metaformin recommendation because of the “. . . important change in his (my) diet and lifestyle.” So there we are. It can be done without pills. Clearly I will have to keep up my improved behaviour, but now that the underlying glucose levels are down to near normal I can allow myself a bit of latitude.
SOME OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS: Diet, weight, exercise and smoking are vital areas, but stress and lack of sleep are huge factors as well, as both can lead to elevated sugar levels, and an adrenaline surge will release glycogen into the blood stream which will send your BS off the scale. It is as important to relax and to sleep well as it is to attend to all the other areas. Diabetes II is not a disease, it is merely a symptom of decreasing efficiency. If you buy a new car you will get 150BHP and 40 MPG. After 50 years you’ll get 130BHP and 30 MPG.
Well there it is, and I haven't had a pie since February. Details of my purge are below. I hope this may perhaps be of use to someone.
Best,
Matt
(aka The Ketone Kops)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Step 1: was to eliminate my Trebor extra strong mint habit. These were replaced with sugar free mints. OK I might end up with two heads because of the chemicals, but desperate times etc. Oh, and the discretely hidden bags of Wine Gums and fruit sweets in the car were binned.
Step 2: was to eliminate animal fats wherever possible. Very hard. I worshipped at the alter of butter. I lathered it on toast, I fried with it, cooked with it, I’d even have bathed in it if I could. But desperate times etc. I found Olivio Gold and Bertolli to be about the best butter substitute flavourwise, and not too bad chemically. Also I began to trim the excess fat off beef, ham etc, though I drew the line at chicken skin.
Step 3: was to eliminate bad carbs wherever possible. I’ve never been a sugar freak and I don’t hanker after deserts much so that bit wasn’t too hard, however I used to allow myself one bar of chocolate a week and giving that up was a killer. Ho-hum. Wholemeal bread was the key to my personal salvation. Let’s say that word again people - WHOLEMEAL. Now when you first get diagnosed, shopping becomes more like am investigative science documentary than a satisfying hunter-gatherer experience. When you buy stuff you MUST read the label. “Wholemeal” bread 90% of the time is not whole meal at all. It is a mix of wholemeal and refined flour – the thing you’re trying to avoid, so you must try to find bread which is entirely wholemeal or whole grain flour. Allinsons and Vogel both pass muster, but my favourite by a distance it the Duchy Original seeded bloomer. Vogel makes unbelievable toast by the way. Wholemeal pasta isn’t hard to find, but I don’t like it much. I try to avoid rice as it has little nutritional benefit, but if I have it I go for anything other than long grain. Spuds are ok as long as they have their skins on and not fried or mashed, but I generally avoided them too.
Step 4: Alcohol. Yikes. Now, before diagnosis I drank every night. Four of five pints of real ale. After diagnosis I still drink every night but have cut down on the beer and substituted dry white wine or white spirits with slimline mixers. Basically I cut down from 9 or ten units a day to 6 or 7, and halved my beer carb intake.
Step 5: Smoking. Before D-Day I did nearly two packets of Silk Cut Silvers a day. With the aid of e-cigs I have cut this down to just over 20 a day. I came close to violence on a couple of occasions but was not arrested at any point.
Step 6: Exercise. Ten years ago I was reasonably fit; I walked the dogs EVERY day for 45 minutes at a brisk pace. I was also doing three half hour sessions per week on a cross trainer at home. Back issues and the death of my doggies meant I had ditched the cross trainer and cut down on the walkies. In short I had let myself go, and so, the final piece of my Damascene conversion was getting back to the walking – EVERY day, and back on the cross trainer three times a week, building up slowly towards three 30 minute sessions. Also about ten minutes of moderate repetitive weights X 3. After the two months of my improved regime I was feeling generally a little better, though some days, for no apparent reason I felt yucky, and had difficulty concentrating.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
