10: The Results

 Six weeks felt like a long time in 2021, but now it seems like forever ago.

Whenever you start something new, it feels like time moves slowly. It was a grind to create a new diet and exercise routine and have success. Add to that working on a dissertation, and managing, at that time, diabetes.

Amazingly, though, I loved it!

As my provider had said, I felt so much better.

One day during May that year, I was working outside doing mulch. I love the smell of fresh mulch. But in more recent years, the yard duty was very draining. But not this year or any since. I felt alive working in the yard like I had in my twenties. Leslie and I usually work together on this task, but the way I was feeling that May, I thought I could do the whole yard on my own. Leslie was more than willing to oblige me on that. 😁

But the point was I felt great! To quote Captain Kirk again, "Young. I feel young." If you want to see Captain Kirk saying that to Yoda, visit this link. 😂

I could tackle anything, whatever it takes, no matter what.

Since the six weeks began, I also recorded my blood sugars daily. I might have mentioned that my provider started me checking my blood sugars 3 times daily. According to my provider, this is the strategy they use for patients doing diabetic research studies. So, I was finger-sticking quite a bit. My first-day blood sugar checks are listed below:

4/7/2021

3 hours after eating, 158, no meds yet

2 hours after eating lunch 126, no meds yet

4 hours after eating supper, and with Glucophage 118

The first day is always the hardest. I had a good indicator of where my sugars were at that time. Granted, these numbers were lower than the 240+ I had been averaging before March 31, 2021. Part of that reduction in the numbers was because I had already begun to make diet and exercise modifications before my initial visit. But, after the appointment, I made more significant changes.

I wanted to lose weight. I wanted to be more active. I wanted to feel good.

That next day was about the same, as you might imagine:

4/8/2021

0531 sugar (fasting), 127

0739 sugar 142

1013 sugar 197, 1 hour after eating

1408 sugar 137, 2 hours after eating

2200 sugar 126, 2 hrs after eating

So, I checked it a little more often than the required 3 times that day. I wanted to hone in on how much I needed to change. Seeing those 5 readings let me know if I wanted my blood sugars in a more normal range, I would have to work hard at this. The normal range for your average person is 70-100. From my provider, the range was 60-110 for a person living with diabetes. I wanted to gauge what my body was doing, especially now that I was on Glucophage.

From that day on, I checked my blood sugars first thing in the morning, 2 hours after lunch, and at least 2 hours after dinner. This was the routine I used until May 18, 2021, when I went back for my 6-week check-up. Of course, sometimes I checked a little more, but this was my established norm.

By May 1, 2021, these were my readings:

5/1/2021

0713 sugar 128

1555 sugar 99, 2 hours and 40 minutes after eating

2113 sugar 96, 3 hours after eating

I was pretty specific about the timeframes. But look at the change in 4 weeks. My highest number was in the 120s; the rest were in the 90s. I had occasions where my early morning blood sugar was above 100 sometimes. This involves the body stimulating your arousal to awaken in the morning. I've heard other people with sugar concerns say the same about higher blood sugars in the morning. So, I looked into it and found information on the Dawn Phenomenon from the America Diabetes Association (ADA). This was the most plausible reason for my higher blood sugars early in the morning sometimes. My goal was consistently being in the 70-100 range to lower my A1c. But you can read more about the Dawn Phenomenon, Waning Insulin, and Somogyi Effect here on the link.

I wanted my readings to be between 70-100, but my provider was thrilled if they were between 60-110. By the day of the A1c recheck, these were my blood sugar readings:

5/18/2021 (Also my son's 10th birthday)

0633 sugar 91

1315 sugar 96, 3+ hours after eating

2123 sugar 103, 3+ hours after eating

These numbers looked terrific compared to 6 weeks earlier. I was ready to go to my provider and see the new A1c result.

Remember that the A1c results for 6 weeks would only tell part of the tale. A1c measures your average blood sugar for 3 months or 12 weeks. So, the A1c I got on May 18 was a composite of my sugar control for the 6 weeks plus the A1c of 10 for the prior 6 weeks leading up to April 6. The number on May 18 would not reflect where I truly was that day, but it would show progress. This was the result:

In 6 weeks, I had dropped my A1c by almost 3 points! This means if my A1c was 10 for the prior 6 weeks leading up to April 6, then my A1c from April 7-May 18 had been 4.4. I calculated this independently, so the numbers could be slightly off. For instance, after learning of the A1c of 10, I started immediately changing some things in my diet and exercise leading up to my provider visit on April 6. Odds are, the A1c was beginning to come down even then, so it might have been slightly below 10 on April 7 when I started monitoring my own sugars. So, the rough estimate of 4.4 could be too low, but the bottom line was I was vastly improving my health! My average blood sugars at home during that time are shown below:

That wasn't all that had changed.

Numbers from my visit on May 18, 2021:

Weight: 214 lbs (down 17 lbs in 6 weeks)

BP: 120/80 (down from 142/78)

BMI: 29.02 (down from 31.33)

I was stoked!!!

This was the best news of the day, second only to it being my son's birthday. Because of that, my provider and I agreed that I needed to celebrate and enjoy my son's birthday. So, that evening I had my first sweet food of the 6-week interval enjoying a slice of my son's birthday cookie cake! By the way, my blood sugar was 103 after eating supper and that slice of cookie cake.

During my visit, my provider did say one thing to me. "Don't lose weight too fast." Losing 17 lbs in 6 weeks was great. That was an average of almost 3 lbs per week. That is slightly on the high side as most weight loss programs want to see a reduction of 1-2 lbs per week. So, I dropped rather quickly. That told me that I could add some things back into my diet to slow my weight loss and allow me to enjoy life. However, the primary goal was to get an A1c reading of 5.6 or lower on the next recheck. That recheck was in August 2021. I knew I could do it too! I had my glucometer. I knew how to regulate my diet. I knew what exercises were working. It was time to live a little now.😀

Stay tuned for the next segment, 10: Living.