Father Hand had diabetes, diagnosed at a similar time IIRC, as do both his brothers and his dad, so there was no surprise element to this diagnosis. However, given that he died at the start of this year and since, prior to that, Sib and I regularly lamented the fact that he never tried to manage it, so that it progressed to insulin injections, I did think that perhaps I should do something about it.
Hence, the health kick. The gym was already a habit and not particularly for size reasons but more because it's good for my mental state and helps keeps me fitter for skiing. To this, I added a calorie-tracking app from the start of September. I have been using Nutracheck which is a handy one because it has a barcode scanning section that pops up a picture of the food you've scanned. It's a British one so it knows all the supermarket own labels. It's still not ideal for someone like me, who tends to eat mainly foods made from ingredients rather than pre-prepared food, but I can build recipes in there and sometimes I just track the main calorie sources in a meal, rather than all the veggies etc.
I also put a massive fruit bowl on my desk at work and stocked it weekly. I pretty much gave up my wanders down the road for a coffee and an olive stick (always two olive sticks, truth be told) - this has happened maybe five times since the start of the year and the olive stick is always a single and the coffee is often black now.
So, by the time my next blood test rolled around, I'd lost 13kg, which rose to 15kg by the time Christmas came along. I was in the museum last week when the nurse rang me with my results. She told me I was an inspiration, which was a lovely thing to hear. My sugar number was down to 45, she said, in the pre-diabetic range. She told me to take Christmas off (I have enthusiastically followed this advice), crack on in January and come back in three months, and if the number is under 42 they will take it off my diagnosis.
Isn't this great news?! I realise my health isn't why most of you turn up to read this, it's quite dull, but since I am my most enthusiastic reader, I thought I would share the news, as a reminder of how pleased I was that I was successful. I'd had two dreams about the sugar number by the time she rang; one had it at 38 and the other at 72, so it is a relief that it was closer to the lower number.
Other side benefits include going down about a dress size and a half; feeling the cold; having a resting heart rate now in the 60s for the first time since I started tracking it, eight years ago; better sleep; inexplicably, food tasting better. The last time I remember being this weight was in 2010.
Naturally, I'm only part-way there. Having proved that being a woman in her 40s is not the barrier to weight loss everybody says it is (at least, it's not when you weigh as much as me), I'd like to continue. Ideally, I will lose another 20kg. Even writing that down makes me come over all cynical, tbf. But that is the goal. That would get me down to my wedding weight.
Also, gym, because I noted in an early weeknote a reference to a weight I could lift and it pleased me that the number has gone up over the year.
So at the moment, for reps, I can do 45kg as a bench press, deadlift 80kg, leg press 200kg and assisted pull up at 70kg. I can force myself through a 20 minute jog-walk on the treadmill although I find this very dull, looking forward to some more light in the world so I can start running outside.
Here endeth the very self-indulgent post about my weight and health. I very much hope I can revisit this topic with positive news at some point next year.
Gym selfie to remind us all - there are no bad angles. Also yes I am the person who takes selfies in the gym now. This was after my first attempt at running in many years and I was both horrified and impressed that I survived.
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