I Rule All!

Blood sugar was down to 3.7 this morning, despite two helpings of a pasta meal last night. Couldn't resist the urge to weigh when I got up, and the result was mystifyingly good after a morning Xenical attack, and stunningly better still after what could only be described as a really big pee(!). Clearly of course, neither of these weigh-ins are official, and by the time I get on the scales tomorrow, there's every chance things will have gone spectacularly man-tits up, but it gave me rather a spring in my step as I headed to the doctors for the annual diabetic review. Well, that and Aerosmith's 'Dude Looks Like A Lady' anyway...

Got to the docs on time for my 11 o'clock appointment. Waited till 12 to see him (though I did get called in halfway through the wait to talk to a medical rep about upgrading my blood testing equipent and using their DVD and website and would I like to subscribe to their magazine. Hardly very NHS, this direct exposure of patients to reps, but I just said no to most of it and went back out to the waiting room to continue my seethe as the appointment got more and more delayed.

When finally I got in to see him, it appeared that I was a paragon of slimming virtue and common sense. Ahem...those of you who read this blog will know sooooo differently, it was nice to get a bit of objective adoration! Wrong on so many levels of course but nice all the same.

Apparently, my HBA1C reading (blood sugar averaged over time) has come down to "perfect, practically borderline diabetic" levels at 6.4. Don't ask me what the numbers mean, I haven't the first idea. All I know is that three years ago, they were 13.some-odd. They've been coming down year on year ever since I stopped drinking fizzy drinks and eating desserts, but now they were apparently rapturously delightful to the doc. My Body-Mass Index is...well, still morbidly obese, let's not kid ourselves here, but it's gonna be that for a good while to come (I'm sort of in the upper echelons of Morbidly Obese. I think the next level up from me is "How the fuck are you not dead?"), but it's come down from 45.something in March to 41.something today. Again, not sure what the numbers mean exactly, just sure that from where I was (and indeed from where I am), the only smiley direction is down, so the doc was all smiley about that too.

We discussed the uber-low blood sugars, and he said much lower than this and I'd begin to get snappy and irritable. I swallowed the obvious "more than usual?" comment, and then he said the thing that made my day.
"Well, I suppose we'd better drop your medication down then," he said.

Now...I know we've talked, in airy-fairy terms about 'curing' people of diabetes by getting rid of the weight, but somehow I sort of assumed this would be a thing that happened in one big line-drawing block, when one achieved one's target weight and was...I dunno, sort of 'signed off' the list or something. It never occurred to me that this might be a gradual process of improvement and weaning off the drugs.

But Hell, I'll take weaning any day of the week - wean me, doctor baby, wean me right goooood!
So as of now, I'm gonna start taking just half my previous dose of one of my pills. Like I said, I rule all!

I also asked about why I appeared still to be losing weight and geting low blood sugar results even though I was in Hell Week, doing absolutely nothing in terms of exercise. Again, his answer was pleasing. It's because my metabolism has kicked up a gear, he said, now that it wasn't dragging those two extra stones around everywhere. On this rationalisation, surely fat is one of the Devil's own traps - harder to get out of at the start, and getting easier the further you go and the longer you do it?! What kind of justice is that, eh?! Nevertheless, if my metabolism's woken up and is now actually starting to do the job I pay it for, then all to the good, and forward we go!

Everything in the doctor's office being rosy, I hot-footed it to the local hospital for my long-deferred dietician's appointment.

I may have shared this thought with you before, but at the start of this experiment, I probably needed a dietician. I needed a way to circumnavigate the culinary hatred in my heart for everything remotely fresh and vegetable-based, and my abiding love-affair with carbs. Now that I'm nearly five whole months into this thing, with no further fear of salads, and an increasing love of fruits both fresh and dried, with an active metabolism, an active exercise regime and a dedication to Disappearing, I was a bit at a loss to say why exactly the dietician appointment was necessary. Clearly, so was she one I'd explained what I eat and what I've been doing.

"Erm...keep doing...um...that," she said. "S'nice to see someone who's doing it!" I chuckled, and decided not to tell her I was making up for 39 years of dietary fuckwittery. Anyhow, she wants to see me again in about four months, just to see how things are going (which I think is dietician code for 'to see whether you've cracked and gorged on Mars bars', but we'll let it pass).

So that was today. Damn fine day to be me, frankly. Tomorrow will, as I say, undoubtedly not be quite as rosy-cheeked and good-newsed, but that's OK. As long as there are occasionally days like today, I can refill my determination-hump, and carry on forward.