Getting blood sugar under control

Two weeks post diabetes diagnosis and my blood glucose level is starting to get to a much more respectable level. Fasting blood glucose (FBG) has been under 140 for the last few days and I’ve been able to keep my blood glucose levels below 160 throughout the day for the most part. Still needs to go lower though, but at least progress is being made.

I’ve been using a program called OnTrack on my Cliq to keep track of things. It’s a pretty handy little program that’s very customizable so you can track all kinds of things. You can even email logs and charts with it.

So far the biggest challenge has been cutting back on the carbs (which has drastically cut down/out much of what I used to eat) and the sweets. Drastically reduced are most of my beloved starchy foods like rice, pasta, potatoes along with all the things that fuel my sweet tooth, particularly chocolate.

The new focus on diet has put me back in the kitchen though, which is a good thing. The last few years I’ve been pretty lazy about cooking for myself and not doing much in the way of being creative in the kitchen. Starting to reacquaint myself with my cookbooks, looking at different recipes with an eye towards low carb modifications. Picked up a few new ones too.
There is more emphasis on veggies in what I cook. This had started somewhat with joining Ambrose Farms CSA, but now even more so.

I’ve been making an effort to try to be more active, although those efforts got hampered somewhat from catching a cold last week.

The metformin I’m on has a few unpleasant GI related side effects, but I’ve found that as long as I eat a good amount of food before I take the pill, I don’t really encounter them. If I don’t eat enough, hoo boy look out.

On the plus side of all of this, I’m down about 20 pounds since the beginning of the year. Ironically that was one of the things that prompted me to see the doctor, leading to my diagnosis.