Weighing In on Diabetes

I am really good at a lot of things, and at 52 years of age and 265 pounds, it was evident that gaining weight was one of my best things! Well, eating, actually. I love eating! But a new doctor had some new skills that I needed to learn. In 2005, testing showed that I had Type II Diabetes, like 20 million other Americans, and like nearly one-third of those affected, I had no idea. I knew that I often felt tired, lethargic, had tingling feet and I just couldn’t lose weight, was always thirsty, but I never suspected diabetes.

Dr. Ogden told me that his brother had recently been diagnosed, too. “I pointed to that chart of the diabetic man,” he told me, “and said, ‘which complication would you like?’” Faced with the prospect of ever-increasing medications, and the severe complications of heart disease, kidney disease, blindness, neuropathy and nerve damage and more, I was eager to make whatever changes were necessary to control my health and change my prognosis!

After my diagnosis, I attended diabetes training classes at my hospital where I learned about diet, exercise, medication and so forth. Then, under the direction of my doctor, my wife and I undertook a 48-hour medical fast. The purpose of this fast is to cleanse the liver (mine was really fat!) and to reset the body’s method of using the insulin it makes (or stops making).
We had nothing but water and Crystal Light drinks during this time. I discovered several interesting things: 1) how we mindlessly went into the kitchen to get something to eat, not because we were hungry but just because it was a habit, or to have a taste in our mouths; 2) food had become such a part of my routine that I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself, especially on Saturday morning.

The day following our fast, we were invited to our neighbor’s house for dinner. Usually, I would have eaten a large hamburger, salad, root beer, chips and plenty of dessert (well, my wife would have eaten plenty of dessert, I’d have had more chips). But we found we could only eat at the most half of the burger and only enough side dishes to be polite. And root beer? Ew, yuck! It is so sweet and syrupy! Please pass the water.

Completing this fast created several mental changes in addition to physical changes. I realized that I no longer wanted to pollute my body which I had just worked all weekend to clean up, with burgers and fries and garbage like that. I realized that just because the hunger bell rang inside my head, I didn’t have to eat right then, and I could wait until I got home to eat something more healthy for me.

Today, two years later, I have lost 50 pounds on diet alone. Eating is easy and a way of life for me. I don’t feel like I have to give up much or go without. I enjoy my meals and eat in restaurants or with family or friends. But the real reason this works for me is because I FEEL BETTER! I have more energy, I feel younger, I look better, I love giving away my “big clothes.” And when I carry a 50 pound bag of salt downstairs, I’m glad I can leave it there!