10: The 5.8 Syndrome

Journeying into the Fall of 2022, I continued working through the tenure track process and all the stress that ensued with that experience. Of course, with that stress, I started stressing about other things. For instance, what will my A1c do this time?

The first thought that went through my mind was, here we go again.

I've since decided to label this year as The 5.8 Syndrome!

From November 19, 2021, to November 18, 2022, the 5.8 Syndrome seemed appropriate. Thrown in the middle of all that was that my A1c had been 5.6 in May 2022. But that didn't seem to matter. Once again, my focus shifted back to the "woes me" mentality because I sometimes felt I wasn't eating that great due to stress from navigating the tenure track. Additionally, my weight was creeping up again.

By May 2022, I weighed 210 lbs. When I went in for my check-up in November 2022, I weighed 216 lbs. In November 2021, I weighed 202 lbs. So, I gained 14 lbs in one year!

Egads!!!!

In August 2021, I also weighed 202 lbs which had me down by 29.6 lbs from where I began in April 2021. In November 2022, I was only down 15.6 lbs from where I started.

Obviously, my diet had changed since August 2021. But my activity had not. From March 2021 to November 2022, I walked or ran EVERY SINGLE DAY. The only exceptions were when I had some heart concerns that became nothing and when I had COVID. Clearly, I wouldn't have exercised during those few days. Otherwise, you would have found me walking or running in my neighborhood, at the AnMed Health North Campus track, in downtown Columbia, all over Clemson, Greenville, Pigeon Forge, Surfside Beach, and pretty much everywhere I could do those activities. Remember, since March 2021, by November 2022, I had run in 8 5Ks or 1-mile races too. All that running leading up to the races certainly put on one other thing...muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat; what happened over the past year is I had replaced fat with muscle. This was noticeable in my clothing because I still wore the stuff I had after losing weight.

But it is hard to see muscle sometimes. For instance, you tend to look at your arms more when you think about muscles. I don't have the most muscular arms, but I'm working on it. However, when I looked at my legs, that was, and still is, a very different story. I have muscles and veins bulging all over my legs, meaning I have built them up with the exercise regimen. That's a good thing.

What that translated to is my A1c wasn't changing much in November. Despite my stress eating or concerns with my diet, my exercise routine was stout and helped me maintain things. I needed to tweak things diet-wise to get where I wanted to be.

When I got the result of 5.8 again, I didn't freak out this time like I had the year before. I didn't like it and was disappointed, but a friend helped me put things in perspective right away. They basically told me, "You're doing great, Jason." 

In fact, I was doing good. My other blood work showed the following:

11/21/2022 (Expected values in parentheses)

Glucose 108 (74-106)

BUN 15 (7-18)

Creatinine 0.970 (0.60-1.30)

GFRaa >60

GFRc >60

Calcium 8.8 (8.5-10.1)

Sodium 140 (136-145)

Potassium 5.0 (3.5-5.1)

Chloride 104 (98-107)

CO2 29.9 (21-32)

Anion Gap 11.1 (9-15)

Besides the 5.8 A1c, my blood sugar was the only other lab elevated that day. I was up slightly for whatever reason, but it was still going well everywhere else.

As suggested here, I just needed to adjust my diet and work on things. Little did I know, though, something would assist me right away with diet modifications. Believe me, though, this is not a method you would want to use at all. But I, unfortunately, had to endure the pain it brought me.

I'm talking about...a kidney stone.

Tune in next time for the next segment, 10: Kidney of Fire.