Day 35

4:00 p.m.

BG good. Day has been slow. I don't know where it went, but wherever it went it went there slowly!

Had taco's for lunch and at the 1.5 hour BG check my BG was 92. Not sure if that is good or bad since I think it is suppose to be something like 150-180 an hour and a half after a meal. I will just wait & see if my doctor questions any numbers when I send them to him on Friday. But I feel as if I deserve a reward for such a good number after lunch! I told hubby I deserve a Whopper! Not just any old hamburger -  a Burger King Whopper! I sure miss that char-broiled burger taste! (I still am hoping he will shoot over there and get us some for supper, but I won't hold my breath! Love him to death, but going out for fast food is not one of his favorite things).

I keep having mild headaches. I suspect the Metformin, but what do I know? I didn't read the insert when I got my prescription filled, but something that is regular in my habits is causing the headaches since they are regular also. Fortunately they are mild headaches - not intense and not migraines. Sometimes you just have to take your blessings where you find them. 

Day 34

6:15 p.m.

BG still doing well. Gonna test out a pantry stand-by that my grandson likes for supper tonight. Hormel Tamales with Chili (the canned variety) and cheddar cheese. Hoping it is not too harsh on the BG since it is a quick & easy meal prep - and I'm all over quick & easy! :D

8:00 p.m.

Tamales with Chili & Cheddar was not too bad. BG was 118 at 1.5 hours after eating. Well within the acceptable range. :)

Day 33

8:30

BG is still good and I must be feeling better - I actually worked on crafts and in my craft room a few days this week (if you wanna see what I've worked on just click to see my complete profile and there you will find a link to Perpetual Playtime - my crafty blog) and I have been waking up before my 8:00 alarm this week. I like that. I want to wake before the alarm - I only set the alarm for 8: 00 so that if I do sleep in, I still don't sleep my day away. But being up before the alarm means I get an earlier start on things and I feel as if I have more hours in my day. :D

5:15 p.m.
It is interesting what affects my BG and what doesn't. I haven't tested the things that my "really" good sense says to avoid such as regular soda or regular hot chocolate, but I have tested out a few other things that didn't impact my BG as much as I expected it to. For example, for lunch today Terry brought home corn dogs from a short order grill at a truck stop not too far away. I figured they would make a significant impact and that I would pay for it with having to eat a totally carb-free supper. But when I checked my BG 1.5 hours after I ate my BG was only 101. I have also eaten half a potato at two different meals and they didn't hit my BG like pasta does. So far that is the one food that I know for certain will shoot my numbers up - pasta.


And, I could probably say regular hot chocolate, regular soda or true-to-the South Sweet Tea, but those are the things I am not willing to test. Those I will just go forward as if I had tested them and that they had failed. If for no other reason than because those are the first things I eliminated completely and my BG has been getting better & better. So those items are guilty by circumstantial evidence! 


Beef Stew for supper - I threw in extra carrots so that I can dish up mostly carrots in my dish. No cornbread with our stew tonight. For one, I have no dairy milk in the house at the moment. And for another, I've had my allotment of bread for the day when I ate the batter on the corn dogs for lunch. :/

Day 32

7:00

BG still good.

today I went to lunch with some old friends (we try to do this once a month) and I was a good girl. And my post meal BG check was only 130, which is good for a post meal check! We went to Cracker Barrel and I was pleased to see an entire section dedicated to Low-Carb options! I saw several things on there that I will try, one-by-one when we meet there on other months.

Exercise today was better than Mon. & Tues. was. I think partly because I bought a cheap pair of earphones at the bookstore yesterday and they have a soft ear-bud, unlike the hard plastic ones that came with my iPod, so I was able to listen to a good selection of music today. I did receive the iPod speaker/docking station I had ordered, but it turned out that it was not compatible with my generation of iPod, so I ordered a different one today and shipped the first one back. I will be even happier once I get a speaker/docking station that works because I really don't like having external sounds blocked by the earphones. One of my many quirks. :P

Day 31

11:45 a.m.

BG is good, but really? I mean, I have only had one check since yesterday's post (since I was so late posting yesterday!). 

This morning went a little better with hubby's new laptop. I think I have everything moved over, but to be on the safe side I am not deleting all his stuff from the old laptop for a couple of months. That still took most of my morning so it's a good thing this was my off day for exercise. Now my afternoon will be taken up with taking my Mother-in-Law to the second-hand bookstore. She is an avid reader. And by avid I mean voracious, ravenous, prodigious. She will go through a stack of books so fast it just floors me. I once thought she would never go through the seemingly endless supply of free books available for an Amazon Kindle, but I don't know. I now suspect she would!

So, anyway, off to go pick her up, then we will have lunch at Pizza Hut & off to the bookstore!

800 p.m.
Well, all I can say about Nutrisystems food, after eating about half of the foods I ordered from them is - I sure am glad I ordered from the A' la Carte option and didn't sign up for any program. It just does not taste so good and the portions are rather small. I hate to use up my carb allowances on small nasty portions. So this much is certain - I won't be ordering any more! :/

Day 30

9:30 p.m.

BG is still looking good. I checked after lunch today to see if a grilled Reuben would have a very bad impact and was delighted to see it did not. Of course it is bad on the fats, but the carbs were good,.

And my legs complained again about me adding that fourth 10 minute free-step. They should be nicer to me tomorrow since they will get an off day.

My head might just chew me out though. My Dear Hubby has been using the same laptop since 2003 and it had gotten to the point that it was slow as molasses - not as slow as cold molasses, that would be the speed of my daughters old desktop that is in my craft-room, but Terry's is as slow as room temp molasses. Well, he ordered a new one and got it this evening and I spent my entire evening getting him set up and installing the Microsoft Office apps. I also pulled his outlook files, desktop images and screen-saver images from his old one to his new one. But, as is always the case, none of that worked quickly or smoothly. Tomorrow I have to transfer his bookmarked/favorites. I just hope that task goes better than any I have done so far. (I plan to swap my daughter's old one out & use my hubby's old one after I get finished moving his stuff)

I was so stressed when I finally  stopped for the night that my neck was in intense pain. Geez, it sucks getting old and having things become dilapidated with the body!!

Day 29

12:00

BG is still looking good. Slightly higher readings than last week, but still in the acceptable ranges - and this with only half the insulin I was taking last week. Hope this keeps up! :)

Added my fourth 10-minute Free Step on the Wii this morning. My legs protested a little, but not enough for me to listen to them. They (whoever "they" are) always say No Pain - No gain. Well, maybe the leg complaints meant I made a small amount of gain today. 

I think my next wellness investment will be a pulse monitor so I can see what my heart rate is doing and determine if I am even getting into a cadio rate. My doctor said walking was fine, but he wants me to get to where I am doing an aerobic type workout. If he could smell me right now he would have to agree I had my heart rate up there - LOL! And, I even had to turn on the ceiling fan today because I was getting so hot & sweaty!

I am also taking advantage of the change in BG reading times to track the effect of some of my foods to see which ones affect my sugar more and which affect it less. That project is affecting my menu planning since I want to test after certain foods. So like today I tested after my cereal - good reading - my cereal will be a  keeper. We are going to have grilled Reuben sandwiches one day this week, but since I tested after breakfast I couldn't have grilled Reuben for lunch today. Maybe tomorrow. :D I do love a good grilled Reuben!

Day 28

6:00

And my day got away from me again. BG is still looking good, even with the reduced dose. Not as low as they were before my doctor lowered the insulin units - but not in the range that goes above normal. And I even had half a potato with lunch today. So all is well so far. :)

Energy still seems to be my biggest issue right now. I still get tired easy & then it is hard to get motivated to get up and do anything. but I still have hope of that no longer being a problem one day.

Today has been a good day vision-wise. I can actually read my monitor without eye strain - and that is always a good day. Hopefully it will remain clear this time.

Well, short post - my day got away from me and I still have a stack of CD's sitting here that need to be loaded into my iTunes interface so they will sync to my iPod. I am hoping the docking station gets here early in the week. :D

Day 27

8:00 

BG still good. I'm am hopeful it stays as good in the next few days as it did for the last few days. 

I saw my doctor yesterday and he was very pleased with the improvement in my numbers so far. He reduced my daily Lantus to 10 units & took me off any supplemental Humalog for the time being. He also has changed up the way I am to test my BG for a while. Rather than 4 set checks a day he wants a fasting check first thing in the morning & then one other check during the day - 1.5 - 2 hours after a meal - any meal and switch up which meal each day. I will email him in two weeks with these BG checks and we will see if that schedule needs to be modified any. WooHoo! that is two less finger sticks per day! My poor fingers are dancing with delight! :D

I also asked yesterday what my A1c was when he diagnosed me three weeks ago - it was 12.46. For most people with diabetes, the American Diabetes Association recommends an A1C of less than 7%. Another group of experts, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, recommends an even lower A1C of 6.5% or less. Either way, mine was definitely high! My doctor said it wasn't the highest he had ever seen, but it ranked way up there. But I expect it to be much improved when I go back in May since I have made so many modifications to my diet and my BG check numbers have been good lately. More about A1c can be read here. It's really kind of amazing that there is a 2-3 month footprint in our blood that can be read by a test.

I thought my doctor would also be very pleased with my getting exercise four days a week, but he said walking was fine, but what he wants me to look at doing is a more high energy aerobic exercise. I told him that has to come later because I sweat up a storm and  get winded just doing the walking exercises! Seriously, we are talking about someone who has not done anything close to aerobic exercise in over 15 years! Eek!

Day 26

12:00

Still doing well. BG still looks good. Vision is about the same as last week. Energy is about the same too, but I do use a bit of whatever energy my body allocates with my exercises, so I guess I'm doing pretty well, all in all.

Still looking for really good, low-carb recipes to supplement my limited list. Had Tomato Soup & Grill Cheese for lunch. It is slightly higher on carbs for a single meal, but I will make up for it with a salad supper, so it's all good.

Anxiously awaiting my iPod and docking station. So tired of being limited to my Discman and having to select one single CD to entertain me through the entire exercise time, which exceeds 30 minutes right now and will be pushing closer to 1 hour next week. According to tracking information the iPod is out for delivery for today, but the docking station is still in Kentucky and the ETA is Wednesday. USPS tracking site said not to look for updates to that delivery information for the next 3 days. Well, that kinda sucks! They work on Saturdays, so why no update tomorrow? And seriously? I could drive to KY and back before next Wed., so why can't they get it here in one direction quicker than that! Geez! Oh well, waiting is the price you pay for ordering online rather than running around the different retailers locally trying to find what you want.

Okay, off to shower & shampoo and get ready to go see if my doctor is pleased with my progress so far. I think I am doing really well. I just hope he doesn't say I am doing mediocre or not so well - that would break my little heart! O.O

And yes, my appointment is NOT until 3:30, but I hate to have to get ready in one non-stop action. I prefer to shower, piddle, blow dry hair, piddle, flat-iron hair, piddle, put on make-up, piddle, get half-dressed, piddle, piddle some more and then finish dressing just before I need to walk out the door. I have truly refined my procrastination streak since retirement - lol!