,Where to start? the beginning of my life? the beginning of my health issues or the beginning of my Sugar Free crusade? (the Juicing came much later...)
I think I will give you a general run down of when my health issues began, after the normal 20 odd years of a typical female always thinking she was too fat and tried every fad diet in history to shed a few pounds, yes pounds I am showing my age here, back in the day we in Australia use to use pounds and stones to measure our weight, now when you are reading posts from Americans, who say they have lost 30 pounds you quickly do the math and divide it by 2.2 to know how many kilos they lost (those who don't want to do the math, it equates to 13.6 kilo) so the 30 pounds does have the wow factor, so later in my posts I may refer to my losses in pounds just to impress a little. So through my teens and early 20's I smoked, ate junk food, didn't like vegetables very much at all unless it was potato! and was only ever a few pounds over weight, on reflection this is probably where my health issues really begun, but I will fast forward to my mid 30's and after the birth of my second daughter. Having had daughter number one in my mid 20's and bounced back to normal health and weight within days of having her without watching my diet or exercising!! but like every pregnancy is different and every child is different my post natal health and weight was different, as in I didn't lose the weight and my health was not good. I remember going to the doctor for the 6 week check up after daughter number 2, and I commented to the doctor I was concerned that I hadn't lost any of the weight, he said it was early days and not to worry, but I was worried and slightly depressed as most women are about their weight but it turned out I also was suffering post natal depression and was medicated for this condition, but this didn't help my weight issues. So time goes on, I feel I didn't need the anti- depression meds anymore and have been watching my diet and doing a lot of walking but still the weight doesn't shift, instead I start to gain more weight, I go to the doctor and it is almost like his advice is a prerecorded rant "Diet and Exercise"! I swear I was going to go off if I heard that again, [Is that the first thing the Medical Students learn to say?] My doctor must have grown tired also of his same advice again and again, because when I next visited the doctors office, my doctor was on holidays and I had a locum [A locum physician is a physician who works in the place of the regular physician when that physician is absent] . One of the reasons that I am still with the same doctor today, is because I hate having to tell the same old stories again and again, I thought the reason doctors kept your information on record was so you don't have to repeat your medical history to every new face. This locum was a bit of a forward thinker, he read my medical history and said "I think I will send you for some tests" that was about 16 years ago. The test results showed I had Type 2 Diabetes, to say I was angry was an understatement, I know it is not the doctors fault that I developed Type 2, but maybe if I was sent for tests when I first displayed concerns, we may have been able to stop it from getting way out of control, and also in my medical history was the fact that my father had 3 toes and his leg amputated through diabetes before he died of heart failure when he was 60 years old, so how did they not see the warning signs? granted I didn't complain of a constant thirst, and didn't say I was up all night going to the toilet, (maybe because I was up all night with a difficult baby?) anyway I think the warning signs were there and I wasn't warned so yes I was angry. The next 10 years, consisted on doctors visits, blood tests, lots of medication, some with pretty bad side effects, 3 different dietitians (2 were absolutely hopeless and the 3rd was just OK, he was very concerned but when it all became too much for me, and I started to cry he wanted to send me to a shrink, talk about passing the buck) anyway, to say these so called professionals were no help is another understatement in fact they were making matters worse. I hear of other diabetics saying that the dietitian said to eat 6 small meals a day add whole grains and low Gi foods even the NDSS (Diabetes Australia) make me angry with their advice, meal plans and recipes, why can't they advise the only real way to lower your blood sugar levels is to lower your carbohydrate intake? About 10 years ago I was also sent for a stress test, and I have since claimed if you didn't have a problem with your heart before the stress test, you would after the test, anyway during the test the heart doctor doing the monitoring decided to have a conversation with me while the treadmill was on the highest incline and I was puffing (apparently this is why he picked now to chat) he said that he thought if I lost about 30 kilo I wouldn't be diabetic, and he also said have you tried the Atkins's diet? because I had been the good patient and followed the dietitians and doctors advice and believed that I couldn't give up carbs, as you really needed them when you were Type2 don't you? But the pain across my chest that sent me for the stress test in the first place and my BGL of 24.6mmol/l (442.8 mg/dl ) had the Heart Doctors words ringing in my ears, so I decided to give the Atkins diet a try.
3 Comments
Andrew
21/10/2015 11:42:20
I remember all that, seems so long ago and and so much more to the story, well done
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cathy palmer
22/10/2015 00:02:17
well done let me know when you write part 2
Reply
Wendy
22/10/2015 09:18:44
Thanks Cathy I am posting part 2 today, I was going to keep writing it all together but Terri said to stagger it ha ha Leave a Reply. |
Wendy MeersI am a mother of two grown daughters, 3 beautiful grand-babies. Retired freelance Web Designer and a Sugar Free - Juicing Crusader& Keto supporter Archives
May 2022
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