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.

New diabetes diagnosis

At a recent routine physical exam, my doctor gave me a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.

I wasn’t entirely surprised by it given some symptoms I had been having for the past month (also part of the reason I scheduled the doctor’s visit) and mom’s history with diabetes.

I can’t say I was really bothered by the diagnosis. I certainly wasn’t upset or angry about it. My initial reaction was more of an “Aw crap” type of mildly annoyed reaction.

Doctor put me on metformin for blood sugar control and I got one of those blood glucose meter things. I’m supposed to test my blood glucose levels in the morning for the next few weeks to establish a baseline fasting glucose level before heading back to the doctor for a follow up visit.

Right now the hard part is remembering that I have it and that I have to think about what I eat now, especially the high carb foods that I have a small addiction to. From what I’ve read so far, diet is all about reducing/cutting out the carbs. Low carb is going to take some getting used to.