I was getting ready to go to a fabulous tapas reasurant in Moraira when the text came through. “Your blood sugars are now in the diabetic range. Please make an appointment to see your GP.”
Interesting approach from the NHS! I get that type 2 diabetes is serious and a growing concern. But I wasn’t expecting that kind of news to arrive by text and to say it put a dampener on my evening is an under-statement.
The warnings had been there. I’d been told I was pre-diabetic a year earlier and after some minor modifications, I’d fallen back into old ways. I was known at work for bringing chocolate in for my team and for snacking on chocolate bars and crisps almost daily. Part of the problem was that having been skinny most of my life, I’d never really had to watch what I eat — but with age, that had changed. I’d become overweight during the pandemic, I did no exercise and I would frequently eat something sugary or fatty as a response to just being a bit bored.
When I came back from Spain and saw a GP, he assured me that with lifestyle changes, my new condition was reversible. But I needed to cut back on sugar and booze, eat healthier and start to exercise regularly.
I set about the task with determination. I did not want to grow old with a long term condition that would hamper and probably shorten my life. I went cold turkey on chocolate and sweet stuff, avidly reading food and drink labels to determine sugar content. I stopped drinking during the week outside special occasions (a habit my wife had been in for some time). But perhaps the biggest change of all for me was joining — and actually going to — a gym.
I’ve had several gym memberships over several years and they’ve never lasted. I found gyms boring and after the initial flurry, always got tired of going — and felt little benefit when I did. A friend convinced me over dinner one night that I’d been doing the gym wrong all these years. My focus had been on cardio: the treadmill, rowing machine and bike. “You have to lift weights,” he told me. “Especially as you get older and you start to lose strength.”
He accompanied me to the gym and showed me the ropes. I was shocked at how little strength I had, especially in my arms — age and lack of exercise had made me embarrassingly weak. With his guidance and support, I devised an exercise programme that involved going to the gym roughly every other day, doing a mix of cardio, lifting and stretching exercises. I was soon lifting more than twice what I could at the start.
At the same time, I started to radically alter my diet. On my friend’s advice, I kept a food diary which I shared with Chat GPT, getting it to break down my daily intake of protein, fibre, carbs and free sugars against NHS targets. The results were illuminating and helped me change my whole approach to food.
I now start most days with my own porridge breakfast, which includes natural yoghurt, peanut butter, berries, vanilla extract and mixed seeds. At lunchtime, I typically cook a low carb meal rather than making or buying a sandwich — a regular favourite is chicken with a mix of spinach, feta, pesto and tomatoes. My dinners vary, but I keep a close eye on sugar and fat content; steak pies and burgers are an occasional treat now rather than a weekly staple.
My cousin — who has type 1 diabetes — advised me that two squares of dark chocolate are fine as a treat and do not negatively impact blood sugars. So rather than a pudding or a Lion Bar, a couple of squares of dark chocolate are my regular dessert.
I saw quick progress once these new habits formed. I lost a over stone in weight in three months. I felt more alert and less stressed than I had in years — and this while leading my team through a restructure/redundancy process at work. I stopped ‘bored snacking’ — and when I did snack, kiwi fruit with the skin on (very high fibre), a banana or maybe a scoop of peanut butter replaced a biscuit or a bar of chocolate.
My palette started to change: I developed a real love for foods I’d neglected over the years. One evening, at a dinner with a set menu, I decided the lemon posset would be a rare treat: after eating it, I could actually feel the sugar pumping through me. It was so unpleasant I nearly had to leave — happily, drinking lots of water helped ease the sugar rush after half an hour or so. But in a way, my body’s reaction to a sudden intake of sugar told me I was on the right track.
Six months after my diagnosis, I had a new blood test and booked an appointment to see my GP. I actually felt slightly nervous on the way there: what if all my efforts were in vain?
“Do you want the good news or the good news?” was his cheerful greeting.
Not only was I no longer in the diabetic range, I was not even in the pre-diabetic range either. The GP told me this happens so rarely that he goes home and tells his wife about it when it does. I talked him through what I’d done to reverse my diagnosis and he congratulated me. He showed me a graph of my blood sugar reading and it looked like a clifftop drop. He advised me that now I’d been in the diabetic range, I would continue to have regular check-ups as I was obviously susceptible to it. But if I carried on as I was, diabetes should no longer be a problem.
So that’s exactly what I have done. It’s not rocket science: I work out, I eat well and the odd boozy evening aside, I live a healthy lifestyle. My BMI is in the normal range and I feel fitter, sharper and happier than I have in years.
Rory writes 