It's not a diet, it's a change of diet - taking control

Every so often I get invites to go along to various clinics where people can talk about their diabetes - it feels a bit like the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are represented in film and television.  One of the things that is quite striking about the meetings are the number of people that talk about being on diets.  There are lengthy complaints by some seriously overweight people about not being able to lose weight; that the various diets don't work. 

When I was diagnosed, I knew that my diet wasn't good - although I've always eaten fresh fruit and vegetables, I knew that my sweet tooth wasn't doing me any good.  Too much chocolate, cake and biscuits were being consumed as well as a healthy dose of cider.  I didn't consider going on a diet using Slimfast or Complan or whatever the latest craze happens to be, I decided to change my diet and take control. 

When it comes to control, being a project manager, I can be somewhat obsessive about detail.  What occurred to me first was that having an hba1C test every few months didn't leave me feeling in control.  That had to be fixed.

1. Blood pressure monitor - they're reasonably inexpensive and remove some of the 'white coat' stress for me.  
2. Blood glucose monitor - this allowed me to check my glucose whenever I wanted to 

That felt like starting to take control.  My rationale was like this:  I would take my blood glucose every morning when I woke up, the closest I could reasonably get to a 'fasting blood glucose' test and use that as a measure.  If it was below 7.0 in the morning then things were looking good. 

Having put some control around the blood glucose, it was time to start looking at the exercise aspect.  Here, having a smart phone helps massively, everyone wants your data so there are a lot of free apps.  My choice was more limited in that I had a Windows Phone but I found something and then started recording my walks and cycle rides.  I use SportsTracker if it helps but I decided, for reasons of privacy, not to link it to Facebook. 

I now had a method of control so it was time to focus on my diet.

1. Check the sugar content of everything in the fridge and cupboard - some real horrors:
• Breakfast cereal - just get rid of it, it's packed with sugar
• Sweetened yogurts  - lots of sugar
• Biscuits - obvious
• Cakes - also obvious
2. Change white bread to granary or wholemeal 
3. Eliminate potatoes and parsnips
4. Eliminate all dried fruit
5. Swap sugar for Splenda
6. Buy a couple of Low GI recipe books

Getting the Low GI books reinforced the decisions I'd made about clearing the fridge and store cupboards. 

The next point is that you have to get slightly obsessive about these things - checking blood glucose and doing some exercise every day is a must.  In my case I feel guilty if I haven't clocked up a 2 mile walk.

The result for me was weight falling off me with no effort and no feeling hungry.  Some recipes had to be adapted (see other pages).  In 9 months I had lost 45lbs and was feeling much better.  I now find too many things overly sweet as I've reset my tastebuds too - natural yogurt is normal and sweetened yogurt far too sweet.

I explain this at clinics (which is largely following the advice that you're given) and people look at me as though I'm weird.  I'm not on metformin or any other medication and my Hba1C is 38.  And that's the way I like it.