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Honey Syphon: November, 2003 Good grief - has it really been five years since I was diagnosed with diabetes? My, doesn't time fly when you're having... well, not fun. Diabetes is no fun at all. I see from looking at this web site that I haven't written anything about my diabetes for three years. There's a good reason for this. I've got nothing good to report. Oh, don't get me wrong, there's nothing particularly bad, either. I'm not dead, obviously.I haven't gone blind, had kidney failure, or had to have a foot amputated. Neither have I had to start injecting myself with insulin. My blood sugar levels are, mostly, reasonable. Things haven't got worse. But I have failed, miserably, to lose any weight. I am still the twenty-stone weakling I was five years ago. It all started off so well. The information I was given when I was first diagnosed scared me shitless - all the horrid things that could happen to me if I didn't control my diabetes. I was also given very strict instructions about what I could or couldn't eat, and I followed them. These were general instructions, to be used as a stop-gap until I could be evaluated, and the medication had a chance to work. I stuck to the rules, and got my blood sugar levels under control. I religiously checked my blood several times a day, to make sure I was still on track. I lost a bit of weight, too. It was all good. Well, as good as it can be when you've been told you have an incurable disease! Then I got the personal treatment. "You're doing fine," the doctor said. "You can afford to relax a little. You don't have to check your blood every day now, just every couple of weeks or so." So I did relax. The trouble is, I relaxed too much. Once out of the habit of checking my blood after every meal, I found it impossible to remember to check it at all. Once told I didn't have to be so strict with myself, I rediscovered the joy of chocolate. Now, the theory is that a little bit of chocolate, in moderation, doesn't do any harm. But that word, moderation, is one I have real problems with. I am not a moderate person. I am an excessive person. If a things worth doing, it's worth doing again. And again and again and again. If it feels good, don't just do it, but keep on doing it. The nutritionist told me that it was fine to have a couple of squares from a bar of chocolate after a meal. Or one chocolate from a box. Clearly, there are two different kinds of people in the world: those who can eat just two squares from a bar of chocolate, and those who, once the chocolate has been unwrapped, have to scoff the lot. Guess which group I am in. In addition, I have continued to have problems forcing myself to exercise. As I reported in my last article, three years ago, I'm a lazy slob. I concluded that article by telling you I had bought a bicycle. That turned out to be a bust. It was a good idea. Once upon a time, when I was twenty-something, I owned a bicycle and I used to cycle to work each day; a couple of miles each way. I also used to cycle around at weekends, just seeing what there was to see. So why wouldn't it work again? The first few days after getting my new bike, I rode it around the estate I live on. The roads are all dead-ends so it was quite safe. I was able to regain my confidence, and remember how to pedal without wobbling all over the place. Sure, just five minutes of cycling left me a quivering, wheezing wreck, with legs like jelly; but that was something that would only improve with time. And there was the wally factor: A very fat women sitting on a bicycle does look ludicrous. But in a good cause, I don't mind looking like a prat. Then I felt proficient enough to venture out onto the public highways. And what a shock I got. In the years since I last owned a bicycle, London traffic has increased to frightening levels. Cycling on the roads absolutely terrified me. Although there are lots of nice places to cycle near me, getting to all of them requires that I cycle on main roads for a short while, and I don't feel like taking my life in my hands. The alternative is to do what lots of other cyclists do, which is cycle on the pavement. But at some point, I still have to venture into the road, even if only to cross over to the other side, risking being squashed by a lorry or a bus. And, of course, cycling on the pavement is illegal. So the bike has turned out to be a bust, and I haven't even tried to use it for a couple of years. It's been cluttering up my flat, to no avail. Writing this makes me feel like a wimp. A feeble, cowardly, wimp. Maybe I should give cycling one more try. Since a congestion charge was introduced to London earlier this year, the traffic has decreased again. Come the Spring, we'll see. So, the reason I haven't written anything about my diabetes for years, is that I was ashamed to admit to failure. It's embarrassing that I have so little control over myself that I can't lose weight, even when I know my life might depend on it. And that's not just a figure of speech; I mean it literally. My father died of a heart attack when he was forty-five years old, having been overweight most of his adult life. I will be forty-five next year. The writing is on the wall. What prompted me to finally own up to my failure is the thought that there are probably lots of other people out there who are failing to do what they know they ought to do, and who are feeling pretty miserable about it. If you, dear reader, are one of those people: you are not alone. So what now? I guess I'll keep trying. If I succeed, I will write an article telling you about it. If I continue to fail, well I guess I'll have to own up to that, too. |
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