Wow.....it's been an incredibly long length of time since my last entry. And so much has changed in my life. Where to start?
Sometime during May of last year, I started a "sugar free" diet. All processed sugar and even grains and starches were cut out of my life completely for 30 days (except one Subway sandwich and one single mini doughnut, because I was at an amusement park and you have to at least have one mini doughnut). And I started feeling really good, I mean after the first week of feeling like I would snap and kill someone passing by on the street for their half empty can of coke. And the best part was, I started losing weight, which has been a huge goal for me. So you can imagine I was quite happy about this. So the major diet change was made easier by the results. But after the 30 days, when I had started consuming "bad" food again, the weight still kept disappearing. And at first I thought that was great. I was doing absolutely nothing and eating junk and still losing weight. It was a win win. I figured the time spent being sugar free had kick started my body and the weight loss was just me becoming me again, considering the only reason I had gained the weight was from the massive amounts of anti depressants I had been given. I was finally feeling like the old Tessa and recognizing myself in the mirror. I felt amazing. But then the weight kept dropping and dropping and I started feeling funny all the time. I started being very dizzy and very very thirsty. I would wake in the middle of the night and stagger to the fridge in a zombie like state, driven by the intense need to drink water and it had to be ice cold water to satisfy me, not cold from the tap, fridge cold. And I would stand there and sometimes drink up to 8 glasses. I would drink so much I would be sick and still want to drink more. I knew something was wrong but I couldn't put my finger on what it was. And I'm the type of person that hates going to the doctor. I hate making a big deal out of things. I tough things out. But after 3 months, 40 pounds gone, eye sight starting to fail, dizziness all the time, wounds not healing, and severe shortness of breath, I caved and went to the ER.
There I was told I was in something called "DKA" and that I was now a diabetic. Type One to be exact, Insulin dependant. My body had for some unknown reason, decided to turn on itself and destroy the cells in my panaceas making it impossible for my body to produce it's own insulin. This means my body could not use the sugar I was ingesting for energy, forcing my body to start breaking down itself, both fat and muscle in order to keep running. The by product of this is something called a ketone. And having a large amount of ketones in your body will eventually kill you. I was dying. I was already familiar with Diabetes because it runs in my family. My Grams, who I'm extremely close to, has it also. And I had on many occasions gotten her to test my blood with her monitor and secretly enjoyed it. Looking back I think I cursed myself.
So I was now a diabetic and to make it even worse, most of my weight loss was due to the fact that I was super severely dehydrated and after an overnight stay in the hospital had gained back almost 20 pounds. I thought having the disease was worse enough but then to have the only positive outcome of the whole situation taken away....it's devastating.
Anyways I could go on and on about my diabetes but there's so much more to talk about. This post is about change and this is only one in a long list of changes that have happened in my life over the last 18 months. But it is late and I have written quite a bit so maybe I'll save the rest for the next post. But just to let you all know, being diagnosed as a diabetic has not slowed me down or lowered my spirits one bit. In fact alot of good has come out of this change, I have never been healthier in my life. The way I think about food and exercise has changed drastically for the better and I can proudly say that I have successfully lost and kept off all the weight I gained back after the diagnoses plus more. I have lost a total of 61 pounds all together and am very close to reaching my goal weight. And my blood sugar is under control. I worked very hard and quickly learned my carb to insulin ratio and am super dedicated to weighing my food and calculating carbs and taking the proper insulin doses for my body. My last A1C was a 6.3, which is very good. The means the average of about a 6-7 mmol over a 90 day period.
But it's late. I must sleep. And have good dreams. Hopefully.
Good night.
