OMAD & Carnivore : Settling In and Making Improvements - The Journey to One-derland Week 2 Roundup

Week two has come to an end, and I'm improving every day. My blood sugar has gone from an astoundingly high number to an almost normal number, and my ketones continue to improve. I learned an important lesson last Sunday to stay away from dairy and processed meats like deli slices or sausage, and I used all of that in my choices this week. How did it go? Watch the video to find out!

ADF & Carnivore : The Journey to One-derland Relaunch, Time to Get With It Again - Week 1 Roundup

Okay, folks, this is for real. I've been putzing around with Marshal for the last few months, but I'm pulling it together and really going for it. The journey to one-derland is back on, and like it was back in 2019, this is going to be successful. I'd say wish me luck, but I won't even need it. I'm all in.

Check out the first video:

Why Is It Always This Way?

I've been on a bender for a few months. I was perfect with the carnivore lifestyle all December long, but a person only has so much willpower. My family had treats at the house every day that I had to resist. My work had treats every day that I had to resist. TV commercials showed me treats every day that I had to resist. And so on and so on.

With no safe haven, my sugar addiction eventually broke through, and on New Year's Eve, I finally gave in and at things I shouldn't. As is always the case, that sent me into a tailspin that lasted for almost two months. I indulged in countless vices, everything that I used to eat all the time before I knew better. 

My health deteriorated quickly, of course, because I have diabetes. I am insulin resistant, so my body didn't have anything to do with all of that sugar. My vision started blurring. I started feeling pain in my joints. My mental clarity and happiness declined. My feet started to tingle and go numb.

I tried over and over to get restarted, but never even made it through a day of healthy living. But, at last, just before February came to an end, I managed to get through a whole day. Then two. Then three. It became a habit that I thought I could keep as long as there weren't too many temptations.

Today, it turns out, is employee appreciation day. I don't remember if my work ever did anything for this in the past, but this year, they decided to go out and get some of my favorite, most-tempting candy...wait did I say some, I meant a literal crap ton of that candy...and put it out for us to have as much of as we'd like.

I avoided the Lindor truffles. I avoided the Hershey's Treasures. I avoided the Ferrero Rocher. Heck, I even avoided the churros with caramel or chocolate sauce. But, after only a few days, a good portion of my willpower has been drained away again. 

How long will I last before I break down again? It needs to be much longer. My body can't handle much more of these swings back in the direction of unhealthy eating. Pretty soon, I'm going to start getting nephropathy and wind up on dialysis or I'll get neuropathy in my feet, and wind up having to get them amputated. 

God, I don't want to end up in that situation, and I have the answer right here in my hands if I could only manage to implement it. I've memorized the recipe for perfect heath, I just need to get the ingredients together and get it in the oven. Oh, wait, a baking metaphor probably isn't the right way to go in this case.

I guess what I'm trying to say is wish me luck.

Happy Anniversary To Me!

St. Patrick's Day will never be the same for me again. I had a doctor's appointment that morning last year, because I was having some health issues. What were those issues, well, this is how I summed them up last year on a few posts on Facebook:

I chalked the eye problems up to getting old. The excess peeing up to kind of always having a small bladder, and the weight loss to...well, no, to nothing. That was the one thing that I couldn't figure out. I was eating as bad as I ever had, but still losing weight...why? Well, because I was slowly dying inside...and not in the usual depression-type way, but instead in the literal sense.

I knew that peeing a lot was a big indicator of diabetes, but I always discounted it. Finally, a few days before St. Patrick's, I looked up the symptoms of diabetes on my phone, and my stomach dropped. This is what I saw at this link:

I ticked them off the list, and realized that I most definitely had it.

I scheduled an appointment with my doctor, and discovered that I didn't just have diabetes, I was in a diabetic crisis. They wouldn't let me leave without shooting me up with some insulin.

In the end, I found out that I have type 1 diabetes. I finished up my series of Facebook posts with the announcement:

Usually, people who have that get it much younger, so I guess I can at least be happy that I got to skip out on a lot of years of living with the condition.

I went without sugar completely for probably six months or so. I was a model diabetic. I haven't had to start shooting insulin, because my pancreas apparently hasn't quite given up the ghost yet. So, I'm still chugging along on Metformin, which is actually a type 2 diabetes medicine.

Eventually, I broke down. I'm not as good as I'm supposed to be. It actually worries me a lot. I've got a pretty insatiable sweet tooth, and I haven't been as sedentary as I am now for years. I used to go running all the time and work out at a crossfit gym. Not anymore.

They say that having diabetes shortens a person's life by an average of 20 years. 20 fucking years! Diabetes may actually kill me before that car accident finds me.

After all this time hemming and hawing, I've finally started writing every day. I used to think that eighty years was more or less what I was probably going to live. So, I'm almost exactly halfway there. However, with diabetes, we can cut twenty years off of that, so I don't have a lot of time left anymore. If I want to accomplish anything, I better step it up big time.

But another thing I could do is take extremely good care of myself, so I can have all forty of those years after all, or maybe even more. Right now, I'm being ruled by my appetites, and doing a crappy job with my diabetes. Soon enough, I'm gonna have to have a foot amputated or something. It's time I get my crap together.

I think that next month, I'll stick with 1,000 words a day, and dedicate some time to developing good eating and exercising habits. I think I'll do another post in which I detail those things, but for now, I'm going to just leave it at that. And say, happy anniversary to me. Woohoo!

Improvement

It's been almost four months since I got diagnosed with diabetes, and I had another appointment. They took my A1C again today. 

In March, my A1C was 13. Anything above 6.5 means you are diabetic. Between 5.7 to 6.4 is pre-diabetes. 5.7 or below is normal. So, I was in really bad shape in March.

I stopped eating any sugar whatsoever the day that I was diagnosed. It's been tough, but this is my life we're talking about. I can't eff around with this.

So, when they took my A1C today?

5.8! Yeah, muthaf$&@er!

That's barely even pre-diabetic. Take that, diabetes.

Druggee

After my doctor appointment on Friday, I've become quite the drug addict. I'm popping five pills every morning now. Yeah baby!

 

Type I

 

So, I found out today that I am actually a late onset type 1 diabetes guy. I was surprised by that...and also really, really bummed.

 

(EDIT—This turned out to be complete BS. Something went wrong with the test, I suppose. After moving to Texas, I had the doctor I went to there test for that again, and I was fine. I didn't have Type I. No, like most people in America these days, I am not insulin deficient, but rather insulin resistant. My pancreas makes plenty of insulin, but my cells are so overloaded with it because of how much sugar and carbs I ate, so, like the soldier who was turned into a newt by the witch on Monty Python and the Holy Grail, I got better).

I'll Be A Real Writer Soon!

Now that I have glasses, all I need to be a real writer is an big, ugly poorly manicured beard, right?

Oh, yeah, and I need to write something. I guess there's that too.

Say It Like It Is

Had an appointment with the doctor the other day. He kept referring to me as having "higher than ideal" body weight. He was trying to be nice, but it always seems to me that pussyfooting around something like that with someone who now has a life-threatening disease because of "higher than ideal" body weight is not the right way to go. Just call me fat. It's what I am, and if we don't call a spade a spade, I may continue to think a spade is actually a heart or worse yet a diamond. I might continue to indulge in my "more gluttonous than ideal" eating habits and end up dead much sooner than ideal. Just my opinion about my own personal state.

More From Less

In light of last weeks revelation, I've had to make some changes. 

All I can say, though, is that diet soda makes me burp so much more than regular soda did. Boo!

A New Diagnosis

So, I've lost a bunch of weight since the year began...only I haven't done anything different to lose that weight.

I've also been really, really thirsty all the time. Which, of course, makes me have to pee all the time because I drink so much.

I had problems with my eyes, too. Out of the blue, I needed glasses.

Put it all together, and what's that spell? 

Diabetes. 

Yeah. Looks like I've got that. 

So says the doctor.

I found out last week, and I've been pretty devastated. I figured I ought to come on here and tell you guys too.

Sad emoji.