Health Concerns

Nothing bad has happened, but my blood work a few months ago confirmed that I am definitely pre-diabetic. It got a little worse since my just barely pre-diabetic test value before I got pregnant with Amelie.

I'm pretty glum about it because I don't know how to fix it. I already eat pretty healthy. I actually cut out refined sugar back in July, but I lost some ground with that over the holidays. I'm still not eating candy or anything intensely sugary like that but still, it's not where I want it to be. Oh, and I'm already taking Metformin which is a diabetes drug that helps with PCOS. I wonder if I would be full on diabetic without it?

The past few days have been better. I managed to skip my daily dose of dark chocolate most mornings. I don't think a few squares of dark chocolate are all that bad but I wondered if they were a gateway drug of course.

Thanks to Shannon's advice, I've started testing my blood sugar in the mornings when I wake up. It's supposed to be below 100. I've had a few 104s this week and one 107. I think it's from eating dried fruit. I  think that when I skip that, I'm below 100. Of course, if over 100 is prediabetic and all it takes is a few prunes to push me to prediabetic, does that mean that skipping the prunes to stay below 100 mean that I'm no longer prediabetic?

I think I have to do a glucose challenge test -- eat a ton of sugar and see how my blood sugar reacts. Even if I only do it once, if my blood sugar freaks out, I think that's diagnostic.

Regardless, I don't know how to make this better. I eat pretty darn well. Many weeks, I do five workouts -- intense workouts, though admittedly only twenty-five minutes plus stretching and PT exercises -- a week. I don't smoke. I don't eat a lot of sweets. I don't eat many carbs during the day, in large part because if I eat them, I feel awful afterwards. I am learning that this isn't normal. That lots of folks can eat an apple and not fall asleep afterwards, or eat a bagel and not get an uncomfortable headache afterwards.

I'm scared. I'm scared of getting all the health complications that go along with diabetes, things like cancer and heart disease, and not being around for my girls.

Nothing I do seems to lead to sustainable weight loss. It's not obvious to me that my weight is the issue. (My BMI is in the just slightly overweight range.) It's the PCOS. But losing weight might help. I'm worried about the fact that although my weight on the scale is stable, I have a growing amount of belly fat.

I'm reading a book right now called Wheat Belly. About how wheat has a higher glycemic index that table sugar. And that it acts like an opiate on the brain.

I'm pretty sure I tried going gluten free before without noticeable benefit, but planning to try to go gluten free again, along with mostly sugar free. I did see some small benefits from that -- my hair and skin seemed better.

I'm desperate to find a way to get healthier for my girls. Being an adult sucks sometimes.