Yesterday was Jerry's check up with his primary care doctor. Besides his weight issue, Jerry has diabetes with neuropathy in both legs which makes him a fall risk. Jerry was diagnosed with diabetes in 2001, with a glucose of 600+ at that time and with an A1C over 10.
His glucose is now bouncing between 140 and the upper 200s each morning. He has never been very good at managing it. He takes 100 units of insulin at each mealtime. He doesn't use sugar, but piles on the Splenda (bad stuff that Splenda). He won't get up and move around or exercise, instead asks everyone else to get him this or that. Trust me, we have had many 'conversations' over these issues.
This morning he got up with a changed outlook. He said his doctor did not lecture him at all yesterday. She just told him about a new insulin that also helps keep a person's appetite in check. They didn't even weigh him yesterday which I was disappointed about. I would like to have a beginning weight for him.
So, we really had a good talk this morning about changing bad habits. Getting up and walking even if it is just up and down the hallway inside the house for now. Something is better than nothing. Both of us are so out of shape.
His attitude the past 5 years is somehow, by osmosis I guess, I am supposed to make him healthier. I have begged him to help himself. I can't do it for him. Thankfully this morning his is finally getting on board with me. I can cook healthier for us during the day, but I can't stop him from raiding the refrigerator during the night. I can't even force him up out of his chair during the day.
I also have diabetes. My daily glucose runs around 90 to 100 every morning. My A1C is steady at around 5.6 every 3 months. But...... thankfully my doctor caught my diabetes in the early stages. I, too, have weight issues that if I don't take care of now, my diabetes can get as bad as Jerry's. Both of us take 500 mg of Metformin in the morning and the evening. My GI doctor told me that if I can lose 50 more pounds, then I should be able to go off the Metformin. I do not take insulin at all. Even when I have been in the hospital I refuse it.
Weight and exercise are the two best things to combat diabetes. But you have to do it for yourself. You can't expect your spouse, children, or doctor to do it for you. Even the medication you take will not combat it fully. Oh, to an extent it will, but you will be taking that medication forever, and more and more of it if you don't start helping control the diabetes with your food and physical activity. Nor will it happen by just wishing it or thinking about it.
I prefer action on my part to make myself healthier. At least I always have in the past. It has just been in the last 5 years that I have allowed myself to get so unhealthy.
Our goal is to start slowly and build up. Today we will walk up and down the hallway a few times. Next year at this time we want to be walking around parks and lakes. Baby steps, gradually building up to your goal is much better than trying to do it all on the first day. Pace yourself and over the long haul the baby steps will become second nature and so will the next step and the next, until before you know it you are at your goal. A year is going to pass whether you take those baby steps or not.
As of today, we will also be taking our glucose every few hours as his doctor requested for him to start doing yesterday. I want to do mine every few hours also, just to know how my glucose reacts after meals and different foods.
Getting healthy takes a lot of effort. But like we were discussing this morning, when God made man He made him to be physically active doing manual labor daily. We weren't born with a gym membership. We need to be using our bodies the way they were meant to be used to get our daily physical 'exercise', meaning good old fashioned manual labor -- walking, working in the garden, doing house chores, and all the other things that require us to move our muscles.
The foods He gave us to eat were raw, fresh foods. Meats were mostly red and the fats our ancestors ate were what came with the red meats. The reason man has gotten so sickly over the past 100 years is because he thinks he can redesign our natural eating habits by feeding us processed, man-made, pasteurized, microwaved, and chemically laden (preservatives) foods. It isn't working obviously.
By the way, I threw out our microwave a couple of months ago. Jerry wasn't so happy about that, but I definitely feel liberated!
His glucose is now bouncing between 140 and the upper 200s each morning. He has never been very good at managing it. He takes 100 units of insulin at each mealtime. He doesn't use sugar, but piles on the Splenda (bad stuff that Splenda). He won't get up and move around or exercise, instead asks everyone else to get him this or that. Trust me, we have had many 'conversations' over these issues.
This morning he got up with a changed outlook. He said his doctor did not lecture him at all yesterday. She just told him about a new insulin that also helps keep a person's appetite in check. They didn't even weigh him yesterday which I was disappointed about. I would like to have a beginning weight for him.
So, we really had a good talk this morning about changing bad habits. Getting up and walking even if it is just up and down the hallway inside the house for now. Something is better than nothing. Both of us are so out of shape.
His attitude the past 5 years is somehow, by osmosis I guess, I am supposed to make him healthier. I have begged him to help himself. I can't do it for him. Thankfully this morning his is finally getting on board with me. I can cook healthier for us during the day, but I can't stop him from raiding the refrigerator during the night. I can't even force him up out of his chair during the day.
I also have diabetes. My daily glucose runs around 90 to 100 every morning. My A1C is steady at around 5.6 every 3 months. But...... thankfully my doctor caught my diabetes in the early stages. I, too, have weight issues that if I don't take care of now, my diabetes can get as bad as Jerry's. Both of us take 500 mg of Metformin in the morning and the evening. My GI doctor told me that if I can lose 50 more pounds, then I should be able to go off the Metformin. I do not take insulin at all. Even when I have been in the hospital I refuse it.
Weight and exercise are the two best things to combat diabetes. But you have to do it for yourself. You can't expect your spouse, children, or doctor to do it for you. Even the medication you take will not combat it fully. Oh, to an extent it will, but you will be taking that medication forever, and more and more of it if you don't start helping control the diabetes with your food and physical activity. Nor will it happen by just wishing it or thinking about it.
I prefer action on my part to make myself healthier. At least I always have in the past. It has just been in the last 5 years that I have allowed myself to get so unhealthy.
Our goal is to start slowly and build up. Today we will walk up and down the hallway a few times. Next year at this time we want to be walking around parks and lakes. Baby steps, gradually building up to your goal is much better than trying to do it all on the first day. Pace yourself and over the long haul the baby steps will become second nature and so will the next step and the next, until before you know it you are at your goal. A year is going to pass whether you take those baby steps or not.
As of today, we will also be taking our glucose every few hours as his doctor requested for him to start doing yesterday. I want to do mine every few hours also, just to know how my glucose reacts after meals and different foods.
Getting healthy takes a lot of effort. But like we were discussing this morning, when God made man He made him to be physically active doing manual labor daily. We weren't born with a gym membership. We need to be using our bodies the way they were meant to be used to get our daily physical 'exercise', meaning good old fashioned manual labor -- walking, working in the garden, doing house chores, and all the other things that require us to move our muscles.
The foods He gave us to eat were raw, fresh foods. Meats were mostly red and the fats our ancestors ate were what came with the red meats. The reason man has gotten so sickly over the past 100 years is because he thinks he can redesign our natural eating habits by feeding us processed, man-made, pasteurized, microwaved, and chemically laden (preservatives) foods. It isn't working obviously.
By the way, I threw out our microwave a couple of months ago. Jerry wasn't so happy about that, but I definitely feel liberated!
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