Controlling diabetes is always a challenge. Life so often gets in the way. I know what I have to do to control my diabetes so here it is.
I need to be out of bed by 9am, the absolute latest. This is not difficult during the week but on the weekends it is more difficult. Particularly because I come from a family of dirty stay outs who enjoy sleeping in on weekends. I do not enjoy sleeping in because the later I sleep the less likely I am to have a good glucose control day. But I do enjoy sleeping in because I work ridiculous hours and can always use the extra sleep. Guess which wins on weekends. So if I want to maintain my control I know I need to get up by 9am on weekends. It is up to me…perhaps with consequences at a yet undetermined time in the future.
Once I am up, I need to eat and exercise, period. When I do this I avoid the nasty morning blood sugar spikes that color my entire day when I am not exercising. Exercising regularly is very challenging. It becomes a little easier when you know you have to do it at the same time everyday to accomplish the goal of good control. And, honestly, when I am exercising, I do feel better. Also my numbers are better. My cholesterol drops, my A1c drops, my blood pressure drops, nearly every important marker for good health improves. Only a fool wouldn’t exercise regularly and yet…But I try and I have been succeeding at about a 50% rate and right now I am on a renewed exercise commitment. One of the ways I have found to motivate that commitment is to join the American Diabetes Association’s Tour de Cure – the annual bike tour to support diabetes research. Next spring I am riding 45 miles so I know I have to maintain a training routine.
Throughout the day I need to do multiple blood tests, approximately every 2 to 3 hours. I also need to react to the blood sugar fluctuations that occur. There are times of the day when I am more likely to be low and I have to be in tune to these times because my awareness of my hypoglycemia is marginal. I do feel lows but my brain takes a long time to process this obvious information and respond to it.
I need to eat. If I don’t eat at prescribed lunch and dinner times my blood sugar suffers. If I don’t eat lunch I can maintain a pretty good blood sugar until mid-afternoon when after a cereal bar or two, my sugar reacts with a surge into the mid-200s. That can lead to hypo-glycemia if I over-react. If I skip dinner my blood sugar can (doesn’t always) plummet overnight. This causes me to wake up and over react in the middle of the night, spiking my sugar and causing the following day to be a blood sugar roller coaster.
So yes, I am very in tune to my diabetes. Do I succeed every day? No, but I try and do a pretty damn good job at it, if I do say so myself. But that is the thing, you have to be in tune to the fact that every decision you make throughout the day impacts your blood sugar. I think as long as you know what you need to do to control your diabetes, then you know what you have to do to get back on track. The difficulty is in the doing.
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