I thought I’d give you a quick update on the diabetes side of things. My blood sugar continues to go down, mostly in a good way. I’ll be curious to see what my hba1c is next month. I tend to fall down into the 60s in the afternoons but I have at least learned to tell the difference between “steady at 75″ and “falling at 75.” I have the shakes pretty bad by 65 but I’ve learned to treat it lightly.

Interesting to me, at least, is that I don’t want to eat at 65. I have some trouble recognizing the low, I just feel horribly tired and want to sleep. Only when I get up and start moving do the shakes hit and I stop and think…. maybe I should test my sugar. I’m guessing that the glyburide will be the next med to go and will probably suggest that if these afternoon lows continue to be an issue. I’m surprised that my sugars are doing so much better already considering I still have a long way to go to be at a healthy weight.

Also, by the way… What has really surprised me is that even on days that I make bad choices – my sugar has stayed pretty reasonable. I did have one day that I managed to top 150 (not that that was a goal!) but most mornings, I get up around 85-95 and I’m pretty pleased with that.

I’m taking a little break in writing about action planning. My goals are more or less staying the same right now and I’m probably more focused on dealing with the stress at home than working on new goals.

Please feel free to post your own action planning or goals post.

Greetings and Salutations. How is everyone this week?

I find myself at kind of a crossroads. My eating and exercise goals, while not perfect, are at a sort of background place. It doesn’t mean they can’t be improved upon or there’s nothing to work on, particularly that ol’ mindful eating thing (as I type and eat dinner), but it does mean that I’m not feeling really focused on new changes at the moment.

Maintaining change is important too, I suppose. Also, fine tuning changes such as I still am kind of lazy on non-rehab days. I am dealing with extra stress with Mom right now and probably I need to just stay with keeping up with the changes I’ve made for a little while.

Diabetes goals – well, I’m off insulin well before my predicted date of the end of May. I started having hard to deal with lows, particularly after exercise. So, I stopped insulin last week and my fasting and postprandial numbers have stayed nicely steady – in fact I don’t see much of a difference at all, including those pesky lows after exercise.

When “low” is in the low-70s, I have never particularly worried about fast acting sugars. Generally, anything I eat will bring my sugar back up to a more reasonable for me range. That strategy no longer works. It takes extra time for the food to get through the pouch so I can continue falling for some time after eating. I’ve bought some hard candy to keep in the car and am trying that for the time being. I suppose if I continue to have issues I’ll buy some juice boxes. Does anyone know how those fair in a hot car in the summer? They won’t do me a lot of good if they go rancid out there.

So how are you guys in your goals? I know Eve was feeling pretty down and frustrated last week. What can we do to give you a lift? How is TDW? You’ve been making good progress. Are you still getting out more? How’s the new exercise machine working out?

Good morning! How is everyone today? Ready for working hard on goals?

Me either.

It’s been fairly chaotic around here, or at least it feels that way. With increased stress comes increased desire to eat and decreased ability to resist impulses. So, my additional goal for this week is to implement different coping mechanisms when I feel the impulse to overeat. I have some good success with that until late night, as usual, so that is where most of my energy will be focused.

Rehab and my diet in general are going well. Interestingly, I need to add more fat back into my food plan and that’s hard to do now that I’m accustomed to the plan. Turns out I’m getting around half the fat that the program recommends (which is just fascinating!) and that could be part of some digestive issues. Fats can help you feel full longer so that doesn’t sound like such a bad thing.

I’m making progress in rehab and am being active at least two other days most weeks. I want to be more consistent in activity on non-rehab days.

Oh, and of course there’s still the mindful eating issue. I think it’s important but apparently it’s not something I’m willing to focus on right now. I’m still trying to pay more attention to sensations when I’m eating certain things but not doing the mindful eating thing overall. That’s okay for now. One step at a time.

And an update on my diabetes goals, my fasting sugars are in the 90s and I’m taking 6u of levemir at night. I think I’ll be through with the insulin by the end of May at the latest. I’m taking so little probably I could stop right now but I’d rather keep stepping it down.

Well, these days it seems like it is me and TDW and Eve around here. That’s fine, we’re good for each other and it gives us a place to work on goals.

Questions: What else should we be doing? I keep thinking I want to do more but I’m just not sure what.

Do you want to stay a part of Wellsphere? To be honest, it is not feeding new folks into DRT and I’m less comfortable with the profit issue there these days. I’m not saying it’s a bad place – just not sure I want to continue to be a part of it. What do the rest of you think?

And I was doing so well!

This weekend was really chaotic here at Chez Zaz. Mom has been having a lot of problems including hallucinating on the medication they gave her for pain. So, it’s been high stress around here. My eating goal exploded on Saturday – I really need some new coping skills. It’s curious, too, that I was seriously physically hungry. I suppose the mind finds a way to get what it wants.

Otherwise, exercise and eating are going pretty well. I lost 3 pounds this week after having been stuck for several weeks. My blood sugar is going down further with my diet being a little more strict and I’m continuing to reduce the insulin. I’d like to get off of it entirely as it can lead to weight gain or, apparently, less weight loss. Besides, I got up at 65 the other morning. So, with Dr. Endo’s permission I’m continuing to step it down. Now only on 8 units at night, surely that will disappear soon.

How have you two been doing? It was good to see Eve back but sorry there is so much stress going on at your house. I haven’t had a chance to talk with TDW much lately. How are you doing?

So no one notices that I’m using the publish delay on these, rights? It’s so stealthy!

How is everyone this week? Eve was having some challenges last week. Are you feeling better? I was sorry to hear about your step-grandbaby. That’s got to be hard on everyone.

TDW! You had such an active week last week. How did this week go? Have you thought about your eating goal? I know that you’ve made a lot of changes in your eating over the past year or so. What is it that you think you want to tweak?

As for me, exercise continues to go pretty well at rehab but I seem to fight the notion of doing exercise at home. Part of that is that my pain is increasing with activity and I want to time off to recover – but I think I still need to be more active on those days. Eating continues to go up and down. I’ve thought about the need for more mindful eating but have not yet made a real plan. Let’s face it, I know what I need to do but I don’t want to do it! We’ll see – small changes, right?

Good morning! I’m certainly up early to post this!

How is everyone doing this week? I hope Eve is back safely from her trip and feeling better. Haven’t heard from her in a week or more. Eve? I’m going to have to call and harass you soon!

My exercise goal went fairly well. I’m making progress and I managed a couple days outside of rehab to work. I’m doing some new exercises for my hip and leg – I have no strength at all in my right leg.

Eating continues to be a bit rocky. It’s not like I’m way out of range, I just continue to eat that little bit more than I need. I’m adding a think-about goal regarding mindful eating*. It’s harder than I think it should be but I will be working on it – or at least to come up with a good plan for improving.

*if the link doesn’t work, it’s the database servers frelling up again. I hate ixwebhosting.

Today is one of those strange days that I’m having trouble keeping my blood sugars up. It’s not that I’m dangerously low, just that I keep trending downward.

I got up to an 82 and my after breakfast/before lunch sugar was only an 84. Usually, that’s my highest reading of the day. I don’t always eat before rehab but at 84 it seemed like a good idea so I had a piece of toast with cheese. Half an hour later, I was trending downward at 77. And I seemed to be staying there so was watching it carefully during exercise. Finally, I made it up to 111. Within half an hour, I was trending downward to 100 again and so I’ve had a snack with fresh tomato, a piece of cheese and a couple crackers. I even put some pepper jelly on the crackers so probably next time I check I’ll be at 200!

I’m thinking this is possibly a result of the lap-band. Chances are, the nice piece of toast sat in my pouch and didn’t make it to the stomach for up to an hour. I probably need to watch this a little more carefully and if I’m headed downward, I should eat something like yogurt that will move through a little more quickly.

Still learning.

Even later I am!

It’s been a strange week here and I will write about it soon. How has everyone else (Eve? TDW?) done this week? Are your goals going well? Changes? New goals?