Fat 58 and diabetic, at least things can only get better

Arum Lilly

Arum Lilly

Full Member
I was going to call my diary How to Lose 5 Stone Without Trying, but that's just asking for trouble so if I call it how not to lose weight, then hopefully it will prove me wrong and ill lose weight! Reverse psychology.

So yeah 5 stone is kind of the goal. Well it was a bit more than that last week. I weighed 16.2, and today I weigh 15.8 so not too shabby for a week, but I have to own up to being ill in bed all weekend with some kind of flu thing so that gave me a great big kick start!

The bad news is though that I should have started this diet in January!!! Im on vacation next week, I say vacation because its not a holiday, im going away for 2 months or so. My hubby is already out there (Tenerife that is) he left end of July. I couldn't go then because 1. I don't much like Tenerife in August and 2. I was still at work. No longer at work now as I retired end of July!!!! wooohhooooooo!!! early retirement is a very wonderful thing. I think.

I wasnt supposed to be going to Tenerife until end of August, but im bored already, so I changed my flight and now im going Tuesday! Havnt told hubby yet either, I will just turn up and surprise him , maybe catch him with a fancy woman haha! ( that is a joke, honest, I hope).

So I finally got my head into diet mode a week before I go away, well you know what they say, Better late than never!

So im eating healthily and losing a bit of weight, all good so far. Lets see how it goes.
 
Last edited:
I woke up with thoughts of hot cooked breakfast this morning. How easy it would be to fall out of bed and into the car and find the nearest little café. After all a cooked breakfast is low carb right? maybe it is, but im not going down that particular slippery slope.

Im off to Tenerife Tuesday morning and so that I don't have to get up at stupid oclock to get to the airport, Ive booked into the Hilton that's onsite for Monday night. They do a buffet style cooked breakfast from 5.30am. I know this because I read all about it with growing excitement at the thought of tucking into it all. So I booked room only and saved myself not only £15, but probably 1500 calories as well.

I had a somewhat 'difficult' conversation with my doctor yesterday. He is particularly patient with me, but I feel this is rapidly coming to an end, as I could hear the tension in his voice. Im diabetic type 2 and not very good at getting it under control, because 1. I forget to take my meds and 2. I fail to forget to eat stupid food. So there, what do I expect? I expect my blood sugars to miraculously drop of their own accord with no input whatsoever from me. Well this has to change of course and now that im retired and now fully responsible for how my day pans out, I have to get a grip! My doctor has prescribed me gliclazide this time. Fortunately for me he is going to continue with the pills im already on, which is Glucophage. Glucophage is GOOD, Gliclazide is BAD. It makes you put on weight, and I don't need any help in that direction thank you very much. Glucophage on the other hand helps you lose weight, but only if you remember to take it. So, in order to avoid having to resort to the nasty gliclazide I have to do 2 things. 1. Remember to take my meds twice a day. 2. Eat sensibly.

Im going to Tenerife for 2 and half months and while im there im going to become spectacularly healthy. Anyone else convinced by this? This is why I need a diary now, because I need to have a personal confessional where I can come and admit my days sins, or revel in how saintly ive been. Assuming I can hijack the odd internet connection here and there.

Yesterday I bought myself a little treat in the form of a brand new kindle! I have a kindle, actually I have 2. I lost one, bought another then found the lost one which I then gave to my daughter. But the new one is the Paperwhite and with 3g connection so I don't have to get onto wifi to get a book. Im an avid reader when im away. Last year we did a 3 month stint in Tenerife and I read 60 books
 
I saw the Horizon fasting program the other day , it was aired last September so I didn't see it as I was in Tenerife, and Ive only just heard about it. I then found the book that goes with it, its really very interesting concept for a diet. Fast 2 or 3 days a week then normal (whatever normal is) eating on the other days. They talked a lot about the effects on blood glucose and insulin and whilst it wasn't specifically recommended for diabetics, it does seem to be a solution. It was one of the things I talked with my doctor the other day, and he is keen for me to try if I can do it. I just need to carefully monitor glucose levels , especially on fast days and be prepared to break the fast if needed.

So ive been kind of psyching myself up to it this week. Im on a fairly low cal diet anyway at around 1000 a day and it just means dropping to 400/500 on fast days, and upping the non fast days to around 1600/1800. Overall this means I eat more, so will be an interesting experiment, especially if it helps bring down and stabilise blood glucose levels. At 15.8 im clearly overweight, obese even, but it wasn't that long ago that I was over 18 stone, so ive managed to bring my weight down over the last couple of years, but I seem to mess about for months on end and then my glucose levels start to rise again. So I need to get to grips! and get this thing sorted.

Today is my first actual fast day. Im drinking tea and water, and trying to hold out till 6pm to have an exante , then I will have another around 10pm so I don't go to bed hungry. I can deal with hunger in the day, but I cannot sleep hungry. Tomorrow will be a normal day and Monday another fast day. Tuesday I fly off to Tenerife, and I have a meal booked on the flight. After that, im not sure, I need to get into a routine of specific fasting days. Ill do twice a week initially and maybe 3 times a week if I can deal with it. It does mean that on other days we can go out for a meal and a drink. This is where my diary is going to be my support.

Ive downloaded a ton of books onto my kindle, some of my favourite authors have new books out! which is very exciting!, but I think I saw a book thread here so Im off to trawl through that.
 
Hi Arum Lilly,

I will be keeping an eye on your diary as I'm interested in the intermittent fasting, but not sure how I'd cope on the fasting days as 500 kcal is so little. What book did you buy to explain the diet?

Re: remembering to take your medication, can you set an alarm on your mobile phone, I have had to do this to remember to check my nan has taken her medicine, I am so forgetful and this was the only thing that worked!

Keep up the good work in Tenerife, two and a half months, I'm very jealous!

Freya
 
ohhh I have a reader! Hi FreyaJane! I saw your first post in the introductions, you have done amazingly well so far this year!

The book is called The Fast Diet by Michael Mosley and Mimi Spencer, but the program if you want to watch it is here Eat, Fast and Live Longer - Horizon on Vimeo
Its very interesting and the book goes into more detail.

So its now 5.30pm, I can have my 1st exante anytime from 6pm. It doesn't have to be exante, the book gives lots of food suggestions, but the key is to have the food in 1 or 2 meals only, and not spread out over the day otherwise you are not benefitting from the fasting part so much. I decide on exante because I like the shakes, and I have a lot of them, and its very simple I don't have to mess about with food on a fasting day.

So far today, Ive had a few minor hunger pangs, none lasted very long and nothing very awful. My head feels a little strange, I feel a bit off balance and typing this I keep having to go back and retype as Im making spelling mistakes. Its an odd sensation but nothing I cant deal with by reading a bit of my book to take my mind of it.

I can and should use my phone for reminders for my meds, that's a very good idea. My phone however is currently in Tenerife with my husband soaking up the sun lol. It made sense for him to take it due to the tariff im on which includes cheap calls from abroad. So I can have it back Tuesday.
 
So my first fasting day is done! It was so much easier than I imagined it would be. Interestingly its not the hunger that could potentially sabotage a fasting day, but the odd feeling I had in my head. I felt slightly off balance and tired, actual hunger pangs were virtually nothing and really only occurred if I thought about food. By distracting myself, they went away quickly.

My second meal at 10pm was a small cereal bowl full of chopped salad left over from the previous day, a chopped up mix of celery, apple , red pepper, cucumber and grated carrot. I mixed in a dessertspoon of light dressing, so it might have been as much as 100 cals total. So that means yesterday I had 300 cals plus whatever was in the semi skimmed milk I put into about 4 or 5 cups of tea, say another 100, so that's 400 in all.

So the scores are - weight was down 1.5lb and blood sugars were 9.4 yesterday morning and 7.4 today! still too high (should be around 5) but a nice drop!

This morning I don't feel the least bit hungry, so Im not going to have any breakfast until 10am earliest as that will be a 12 hour fast from my last food last night. Today is an eating day, and Monday will be my next and last fast day in the UK!
 
oh dear what a bad day ive had! This morning started well, I had an exante at 10am and felt fine. My elder son wanted to come over to watch Chelsea play on sky sports so I made a chilli, which we had with some crusty bread. I don't normally eat bread, its a rare treat for me. I had one whole crusty roll with some chilli and was very full after and very tired so I had a doze while son watched the football. I woke about 5pm feeling horribly bloated which just got worse and worse and really felt that I would throw up. Its now nearly 11pm and its just starting to subside. I don't know what happened and hopefully its a one off. I ought to test my glucose levels to see if they shot up after eating the bread, but I cant be bothered to stagger downstairs to get it and I am starting to feel a bit better now anyway. Its not like I stuffed myself, I had a really small portion of chilli. lets just say that right now im quite happy to be facing a fast day again tomorrow.

I have a whole list of things that need doing before I leave the house tomorrow to go to the airport, so it will be an early start for me in the morning. Hopefully this will have gone away by then.
 
Blood glucose was 9.8 this morning, very disappointing after yesterdays result and I guess this is why I avoid bread and carbs in general. Not good.

Fasting again today though and I think it will be pretty easy today, I don't feel sick and bloated anymore but my stomach feels quite tender. Have a lot to do today, letters to post , cases to pack , got to go to boots to pick up prescription and stick deodorants! I cannot buy dry stick deodorants in Tenerife, they have roll ons but not the dry ones. How many will I need for 2 or 3 months? maybe 4 or 5.

I weighed my case this morning, it was 15kg and I have 23kg allowance, but I have loads of stuff to go in yet, my hand luggage already weighs 7kg as my laptop is quite hefty. I want to take some exante sachets with me, but they weigh 50g each if I took only 10 that's half a kg. I would have them delivered to me out there ideally, but I know people have issues taking deliveries if they are not registered residencia. Im hoping I can buy something similar from the pharmacia or supermarket. They have odd rules about what can or cannot be bought in a supermarket. There are no medications sold in supermarkets, even paracetamol, or even indigestion tablets, they have to be bought from a pharmacy, so you have to go hunt one down and the work out the opening hours. Still, the upside is you can buy stuff in chemists there that are prescription only here.

Right, on with the packing!
 
Its Thursday night, ive been in Tenerife for 2 days now! Finally got a good wifi connection sorted today for €30 a month, so a bit of a bargain considering.

I had a fast day Monday and did very well, eating day Tuesday and Wednesday and another fast day today. The eating may have gone off plan a little on Tuesday as we went out for a meal in the evening and I ate a bread roll and had seafood spaghetti, way too much carb in one meal and my glucose level was up Weds am. Wednesday we went out for a meal again but I made much better choices, I had a spicy chicken dish with just salad, no other carb, I had a glass of wine but that's allowed (in my rules anyway). Today is fasting. I managed to get some meal replacement shakes locally, so I had 1 at 6pm and then a salad at 9pm, probably about 420 cals total for today.

Ive no idea if my weight is up down or what, I have no scales. I might buy some, but ill see. In a way its good that I don't have scales as the temptation is too great to keep weighing every day. Blood glucose levels is the only thing I can measure and they are not doing great, but it takes time to get the overall numbers down.

Weather is HOT around 30c or more, nights are also hot, with temps starting to dip a little around 4-6am and then it all starts to heat up again. Its hard to be very active in this heat, but im right by the pool all day so I get to have a few swims to cool down. I feel very tired with the heat too, it will take a little while to acclimatise.

So far this week ive read one book Enders Game, and halfway through the 2nd Enders book, Speaker for the Dead.
 
Gutted this morning, after a good fast day my blood glucose reading was 9.4. I feel like im banging my head against a brick wall. How can I consume no more than 420 cals and wake up with blood sugar levels that high? it makes no sense.

Today is an eating day, hubby is in charge of lunch and I just let him get on with it. I had a half baguette filled with ham and salad and a peach. Another peach at around 6pm, and then we went out for a meal. I had a small bread roll, no butter. A large plate of salad which was basically just plain salad veg (onion tomato lettuce some grated beetroot and about a dessertspoon of sweetcorn) and was topped with probably no more than a tablespoon of flaked non oily tuna, a glass of red wine and a bottle of fizzy water. So today I ate no more than 1100 cals and that's overestimating the cals.

Very hot today, I had to give up at 3pm and go inside until it cooled down, so I slept for a couple of hours before we went out at 7.30pm, but I did swim a bit today, I needed to to cool down.
 
Well this morning was better news, blood glucose at 8.5, so better than yesterday, its not exactly good news but its a bit of a drop in the right direction. Today is an eating day, we had half baguette for lunch. Hubby is in charge of lunch and that's about the limit of his kitchen abilities, so a half baguette filled with ham and salad and a donut peach to finish with, very nice. This evening I will do some salad, or we might eat out im not sure yet what the actual plan is. Sunday will be a fast day though, so if he wants to eat out it will have to be tonight.
 
Today my glucose level is down to 8.0, finally going in the right direction! Still too high though, but im feeling a bit happier about it. Today is a fasting day.

Yesterday evening we went out for a meal, I had chilli and salad and 2 glasses red wine. The usual half baguette for lunch so I reckon I had around 1200 to 1300 cals yesterday. We walked back last night as I didn't want to drive after drinking 2 glasses wine, its about a mile or so but all up hill, so that bit of late night exercise may have helped bring my reading down a bit this morning. I actually wanted to walk there and back in any case but hubby wasn't keen as he has cracked heels and that's pretty painful to walk on.

We need to get to a chemist to get some heel cream for him. Its always a problem for him when we come here, I think its because so much swimming dries out the skin on his heels. I get painful feet too, but that's because I have psoriasis on the soles on my feet, but being in the sun helps to clear it up and they actually don't hurt at all at the moment.

Ive still no idea what my weight is doing, but I do know that my holiday clothes are now fitting to loose. I bought everything in a size 18 in Matalans sale, it was all a bit tight as I am (was) a size 20, but I was committed to the idea of losing weight on holiday and if that's the only clothes I have then that's all I can wear! In the event that they all become too big then im not sure what I will do, get out the sewing kit I suppose lol. I brought 1 long skirt with me that's a size 16 and I can get it on although its too tight round the stomach to wear comfortably.

Ive now finished the 2nd Enders book, Ive downloaded the 3rd but im reading a Vikas Swarup book, the Accidental Apprentice.

PM update, its been a good day overall, Ive had about 440 cals. Was overcast today so pleasantly warm instead of swelteringly hot. We went to a local town and had a walk round and a drink (water for me) then got back to the villa and made salad. Eating day tomorrow! im feeling a bit hungry right now, and I hate trying to sleep hungry so im hoping it will pass soon.
 
Last edited:
Well this morning my blood glucose reading is 8.5. This whole blood glucose thing is such a mystery. I eat it goes down, I fast it goes up. I have been researching of course, you don't get much sensible stuff from the doctor. I ask questions and they cant give me the answers, not ones I want to hear anyway lol. But I have asked specific questions about morning blood glucose readings and I cant get a straight answer as to why my last reading at night is lower to my first reading in the morning. Last night for instance before I went to bed I think the reading was 7.5. So why does it go up overnight when im clearly not eating or drinking anything? I need to understand this problem so that I can effectively deal with it. If the doctor who is treating me cannot answer a basic question like this, how can I trust the treatment they are prescribing? Well clearly I don't, as I refuse to take gliclazide.

What I do know is that my blood glucose levels are directly related to my weight. The higher my weight the harder it is to get any kind of control. Ive been thinner before and got the levels under good control on less medication than im on now, with less hassle. Although my prime function right now is to get the blood glucose readings down before I lose my sight or have a stroke, it goes hand in hand with losing weight.

I will be going to the local supermarket today so I might take a drive a bit further up to a store that I think sells bathroom scales. ohhh how exciting! I will be able to weigh myself! No doubt the scales will be in kilos, but I think I can manage to deal with that. 100kg is 15.10 (220lb) and I was 15.8 the last time I weighed, so that put me at approx. 99kg

Update PM, I bought some electronic scales today for €15 so that was pretty good I think. I can weigh in the morning, and ive already converted my ticker to kilos
 
Last edited:
Today weight was 97.8 and blood glucose 8.3. That's 4 days in a row that glucose level has been less than 9, so its going in the right direction. I have to take my weight as a base line figure as I don't know if these scales I bought yesterday weigh me the same as my scales at home in the UK, but if they do then that's 2.5lbs off in a week. Pretty good for a part time diet where im eating out 4 times a week!

Its very overcast here today, and it has been raining overnight although its still pretty warm and humid now. I left washing out last night too, ah well it will dry off soon enough but I may have to wash it again in any case. There was a Calima (dust storm) here just over a week ago and rain brings down a lot of dust from the atmosphere so my washing is likely to be dirty now lol.

Today Is a fasting day and ive woken up hungry, so that's not a good start. I could split my shake and have half now I suppose, maybe I should as im getting a bit of a headache as well as being hungry. Last night we ate out at a local eaterie called Big Als. I had a very nice salad but it came with some kind of completely tasteless chicken that was supposed to be coronation chicken. Next time I will stick to tuna but the salad itself was really good. Its not easy to find a good salad here, most salads are a bowl of lettuce cucumber and tomato designed to accompany a meal rather than be a meal, but you can pay just as much for it as you do for the main course.
 
I note that a lot of diaries on here are focussed around losing post baby weight. I just want it to be known that I too am losing post baby weight, but the baby is question though is now 33 years old sadly. I really should have got to grips with it sooner...........
 
Well done on your size 18 clothes and hopefully before long your size 16 skirt will be comfortable on you!
 
Thanks Mini, and thanks for the diabetic info.

I found it tougher today, the hunger would not go away and just felt very weak so I had my shake earlier at 1.30 which made me feel a lot better for a few hours, I had a peach at around 5pm and ive just had my salad, and now finally feel full and happier. Ive probably had nearer 500 cals today, as the peach was quite large and ive had a good size salad. I can eat tomorrow and this afternoon we took a walk through los cristianos, there was one particular restaurant that caught my attention and they do a delicious sounding salad with chicken prawns and bacon so I think we will try that tomorrow.
 
Ooh I've been to los cristianos, although it was a longgggg time ago!

I hate the feeling weak and shakey feeling, I had it a few times in supermarkets of all places, I don't know why it always happens there. Not sure whether it's hunger or blood sugar?

I really admire those with the will power to do VLCD, I couldn't. I 'crack' when I get that hungry :(
 
I know what you mean about getting shaky in supermarkets, I think your senses are heightened when you are dieting and the smell of food can be overwhelming, especially if there is a bakery section. Im not really doing a vlcd, well I suppose I am, but only on an alternate day basis, so it makes it a bit more bearable. Ive been doing this intermittent fasting thing for over 2 weeks now and this is the first day ive really had any hunger of any note, usually I can ignore it and it will go away.
 
Is it one on vlcd and one off? I know I eat because I am bored, it's a distraction and on days where I am super busy I can eat fairly little. I just think if I knew I couldn't eat, I would want to even more :eek:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Y
Weight loss journey intro -
Replies
5
Views
1K
Zafira
Zafira
goose
Goose's final road to goal
2
Replies
23
Views
3K
goose
goose
M
Dukan Diet the Caribbean way
Replies
1
Views
1K
AliGal
AliGal
B
From S to L
4 5 6
Replies
100
Views
10K
BlueTopaz
B
L
Start As You Mean To Go On
Replies
7
Views
2K
Visualizing
Visualizing
Back
Top