Go Me
Tuesday I had gone in for routine bloodwork that I do every 6 months which I had actually put off for about a year around this time so I was well overdue. It's basically to monitor my glucose levels since I've been taking Avandia for about 4 years due to my insulin resistance. It's kind of the opposite of diabetes. Sort of. My pancreas is over stimulated and produces an overabundance of insulin, burning through sugar energy so fast and furious that I basically wasn't any good for anything anymore -- on my days off sleeping 'til 9am, falling back to sleep at 11am to 1pm, taking a much needed nap from 3pm to 5pm, and then drifting in and out for the rest of the evening until I collapsed into bed at 9 or 10pm and slept like a lump for the rest of the night. At that rate my pancreas would have pooped out on me by the time I was 40, and then I would indeed become diabetic.
Now when I first started taking Avandia back in 2001 I was dosing at about 18 milligrams a day. This was back at my top weight, naturally. Over the years as I've shed the pounds I've bumped my dosage down to a measly 4 milligrams daily, which is what I've been taking for a little over a year now.
When I went in for bloodwork Tuesday it was because I had run out of my prescription and I was due for new testing before I could get a new dosage, so I hadn't been taking any Avandia for about 4 or 5 days previous and I told them that this may reflect on my test results, which they made note of.
Well, I just got off the horn with the GYN. She says that from the weight I've lost as well as just eating healthy and exercising like I have, my (fasting) glucose levels have gone from 95 while on Avandia last year, to 87 off Avandia this year. Basically she really sees no reason why I should be taking Avandia anymore and said that she'd let me go a month without it and then check my levels again to see how I fair before making a final decision.
So there you have it. Through the power of healthy, balanced foods, low sugar, and regular exercise I have actually altered a defective involuntary organ to reserve itself. All from losing over 140 pounds. Sure, I just gained back about 25 of it over the last two months since I moved, but I'm working on that right now. I just walked.... um, I don't know how far... okay locals, I walked down S. Independence Blvd. from Lynnhaven Parkway to Holland Road, and back. Took almost two hours, but anyway I'm going to try and maintain that route until I build my lost strength again. And I'm trying to stick back to the Weight Watchers plan again, which has been hard, especially with a damn 24-hour Farm Fresh right across the street from my front door. But I've been eating mostly fresh fruit and sushi lately so I suppose that's still okay. I still don't drink sodas or eat fast food. I still maintain a moderately low-sugar diet, using Splenda for coffee and tea and hardly any junk food. Pretty much lost the taste for heavy preservatives over the years as it is. Once I get a handle on my hunger once more I can start losing weight again and regain a little of this muscle mass I've lost over the spring.
But still. No more Avandia. No more $90 bottle 'o pills every 3 months that I could never really afford (yes, that's the amount that the insurance doesn't pay!). I can have all that, and still maintain staying awake and alert without two naps a day? I'm a little floored by all this too-good-to-be-true information. Not even quite sure how to even take it all in.
I've been so depressed lately, feeling like such a monumental failure over the last few months. But this. This makes me, pardon my français, feel like fucking goddess. I done it. I've achieved my goal of improving my health substantially over the last few years, and I have less Rx receipts to show for it. And I can still do it. I can knock off these added 25 pounds and still get down to my desired weight, and still have the strength and energy left afterwards to maintain a reasonable active, exciting lifestyle.
Well, we'll see about that last one for now. ;-)
Now when I first started taking Avandia back in 2001 I was dosing at about 18 milligrams a day. This was back at my top weight, naturally. Over the years as I've shed the pounds I've bumped my dosage down to a measly 4 milligrams daily, which is what I've been taking for a little over a year now.
When I went in for bloodwork Tuesday it was because I had run out of my prescription and I was due for new testing before I could get a new dosage, so I hadn't been taking any Avandia for about 4 or 5 days previous and I told them that this may reflect on my test results, which they made note of.
Well, I just got off the horn with the GYN. She says that from the weight I've lost as well as just eating healthy and exercising like I have, my (fasting) glucose levels have gone from 95 while on Avandia last year, to 87 off Avandia this year. Basically she really sees no reason why I should be taking Avandia anymore and said that she'd let me go a month without it and then check my levels again to see how I fair before making a final decision.
So there you have it. Through the power of healthy, balanced foods, low sugar, and regular exercise I have actually altered a defective involuntary organ to reserve itself. All from losing over 140 pounds. Sure, I just gained back about 25 of it over the last two months since I moved, but I'm working on that right now. I just walked.... um, I don't know how far... okay locals, I walked down S. Independence Blvd. from Lynnhaven Parkway to Holland Road, and back. Took almost two hours, but anyway I'm going to try and maintain that route until I build my lost strength again. And I'm trying to stick back to the Weight Watchers plan again, which has been hard, especially with a damn 24-hour Farm Fresh right across the street from my front door. But I've been eating mostly fresh fruit and sushi lately so I suppose that's still okay. I still don't drink sodas or eat fast food. I still maintain a moderately low-sugar diet, using Splenda for coffee and tea and hardly any junk food. Pretty much lost the taste for heavy preservatives over the years as it is. Once I get a handle on my hunger once more I can start losing weight again and regain a little of this muscle mass I've lost over the spring.
But still. No more Avandia. No more $90 bottle 'o pills every 3 months that I could never really afford (yes, that's the amount that the insurance doesn't pay!). I can have all that, and still maintain staying awake and alert without two naps a day? I'm a little floored by all this too-good-to-be-true information. Not even quite sure how to even take it all in.
I've been so depressed lately, feeling like such a monumental failure over the last few months. But this. This makes me, pardon my français, feel like fucking goddess. I done it. I've achieved my goal of improving my health substantially over the last few years, and I have less Rx receipts to show for it. And I can still do it. I can knock off these added 25 pounds and still get down to my desired weight, and still have the strength and energy left afterwards to maintain a reasonable active, exciting lifestyle.
Well, we'll see about that last one for now. ;-)
posted by Melissa at 1:05 PM
3 Comments:
Awesome, Mel!
I've been trying to lose just 20 freakin' pounds for more than 5 years now, and can't seem to be able to find the right combo of diet and exercise discipline to do it. It's just too damn hard for my brain to avoid being compelled to laziness and gluttony.
Perhaps being deathly scared is perhaps the only way I can have a breakthrough here -- but I signed up for a gym membership recently and will still continue to try to lose weight minus the big forced crisis.
Wow, thank you Greg! And I hear ya about losing those 20 pounds. I gained back about 25-30, mostly due to stress and therefore losing the will and discipline. I'm trying to get back on track again but it's hard, as I'm sure you know.
But you know, Greg, one thing I really have learned about weight loss is that if you concentrate more on health than shedding fat, that really is the secret to all this. It's like what Governor Mike Huckabee said on The Colbert Report a few weeks ago plugging his new book that once you make your main focus just eating healthy, then the weight loss mostly just takes care of itself. But your right, laziness and gluttony are too powerful a nemesis for me as well.
I hope you get to where you wanna be, man. You have my support, however I may be of assistence!
Thanks much for the book refer, Melp. I will check for that at the bookstore when I'm next over there.
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