How I Fought Type II Diabetes Without Drugs and Won
The situation…
At 60 years old, I was a mess A broken femur the previous year landed me in a wheelchair and then onto crutches for months while I recuperated from surgery to mend the bone with a plate and screws.
I was 100 pounds over what the insurance company considered my goal weight—a weight I hadn’t seen since high school—and, if unmedicated, my diastolic blood pressure exceeded 200, while aggressively medicated it was rarely under 140. My resting heart rate was 85 beats per minute and I had just been told that I had full-scale Type II diabetes.
I took two medications for blood pressure (at ever-increasing doses) and had tried one to lower my heart rate. My internist now wanted me to come in and talk about the medication I would be starting to control my diabetes, a progressive disease that would only get worse.
The future looked grim and too short and the sad part was that it wasn’t like I hadn’t tried.
I’d been on one diet or another since 7th grade
In high school, my after-school job paid for the Jenny Craig diet, then (when that didn’t work) for injections of some 1970s miracle potion that, coupled with 500 calories/day, made me run into walls. Yes kiddos, that was a different era.
I was the master of deprivation and stoicism and could tell you the calories and fat grams in ANYTHING. Like most people with weight issues, I’d lose 20 pounds and gain 30. I even had a gastric band installed at the advice of my doctor when I was 48.
The diets I tried over the last 40 years were all variations on a theme—low-fat nightmares that left me ravenous and wrecked my metabolism. None of them worked in the long run.
I was no stranger to exercise
For most of my life, I was very active. I lifted weights, toiled in the garden, remodeled two houses, walked to work, hiked, oared rafts, pumped iron, and hauled heavy stuff all the time.
In 2005, I decided to do a marathon (at 250 pounds). I had a friend who did 50Ks and after listening to tales of how wonderful running was, I figured, why not? I walked a 5k, a half-marathon, a 12K, and the Portland Marathon in 6 months.
I trained HARD—so hard that I contracted shingles from the stress, but I hit my goals. I finished every “race” and wasn’t last. Close, but not last. While thrilled to have checked off so many milestones, the fact that I lost only two pounds that year turned me off walking for a long time. In my mind, exercise without weight loss was a failure.
Couple that attitude with the fact that it’s darned difficult to exercise while carrying the equivalent of the average tween on your back (100 pounds) and you might have some idea of why didn’t develop a habit of walking.
I was a poster child for metabolic disorders
I’m the classic apple-shaped female. My legs are strong and fit. It’s the middle where it all goes to hell. The 50K-friend once cheerfully said to me “You know, from the back, you look almost normal.” Swell.
No matter what I did, my waist kept getting bigger—think Humpty Dumpty, Mayor McCheese, Chief Wiggum, Alfred Hitchcock. Yep, that was my profile. In my 20s, people would ask “when are you due” and it baffled me until I realized they thought I was PREGNANT, and pretty far along at that. Holy shit! It should have been a red flag (along with my blood pressure and triglycerides) but I didn’t see it and neither did my doctors.
Over the last decade, I got more and more sedentary and gained back the weight I lost with the gastric band. My job required almost no physical labor and I now drove the one mile to work instead of walking because … walking seemed so hard anymore, I want to go home at lunch so I need the car, I have an errand to run, the weather sucks. Wah, wah, wah.
You get the idea. There is absolutely no end to excuses for something you don’t want to do. Although I thought I was on the right track after completing physical therapy for the broken femur (relearning how to step up and then down), by the time I held the welcome to diabetes letter from my doctor in my trembling hand, I was averaging less than 3,000 steps a day. I was depressed, angry, and truly no fun to be with.
What I did to change
I did what I always do when faced with a big problem—I made a spreadsheet, then I did research. I’m not a spur-of-the-moment gal.
I bought at least a dozen books on reversing diabetes and didn’t go back to my doctor… not until my next annual physical. My goal was to deal with the diabetes diagnosis and avoid yet another medication. That was it. I was determined. I thought that I could handle that one task. Weight loss was NOT on my agenda.
Over the next year, I made some major changes a little at a time and it WORKED!
Step 1. I changed how I moved
Step 2. I changed how I ate
These steps are outlined on the other pages in this folder.
I was about 6 months into this lifestyle change when CoVid emerged. The timing could not have been better.
I was reversing all of the comorbidities that had that put me at high risk for CoVid complications
I was getting fresh air and exercise and seeing things that lifted my spirits
I had something positive to focus on—something I could control
I am very grateful for all those plusses.
The results
I’m still very much a work in progress but, roughly 16 months after I started this experiment, here’s what has happened so far:
HbA1c: 7.9 down to 5.3 (which is EXCELLENT)
Resting heartbeat: high-80s down to high-60s
LDL cholesterol: up. HDL: up. Ratio: excellent
Waist measurement: down 10 inches
Size: 22/24 down to 14/16
Weight loss: 50 pounds
BMI: 41.5 to 32
I’m off one blood pressure medication and am weaning off the other (half dose every three days) and I can hike 36 flights of stairs without stopping to catch my breath. Walking and hill-climbing have proven to have so many physical and emotional benefits and I actually get antsy if I don’t get a 40- or 50-flight day every few days. I know—craziness.
This picture was taken the first time I got to the top of Mt. Helena, a climb of 1,540 feet in elevation from my front door. That’s the equivalent of 150 flights of stairs! I got up and down in under 2 hours, even though I was ready to quit at least a dozen times on the steeper parts of the uphill. I told myself, “100 more steps and then you can quit.” That was enough to keep going.
Oh sure, there are skinny twenty-somethings who jog up the mountain while talking, but I’m taking a well-deserved bow for all the obese, middle-aged gals who used to get winded climbing to the second floor. Look how freaking happy I am! You can’t get that in a bottle.
I’ve adopted a lifestyle that I think I can live with long-term and I feel in control of my weight for the first time. The scale hasn’t budged for 6 months, and that’s okay. If I’m meant to lose more, it will come off. I know that if I go back to my old way of eating (the standard American diet) there is no amount of walking that can keep me from gaining the weight back. Focusing on health and happiness, instead of weight loss, has been key, especially during these stressful times.
Little by little, I’ve built a set of healthy habits and my life is better for it. I’ve got the energy to do my job and pursue my other passions of gardening and writing and not a day goes by that I don’t talk to someone I’ve met through walking. I’m happier, healthier, and much easier to live with.
I am looking less like a beachball with legs and more like SpongeBob Square Pants.
Why this page?
Believe it or not, the answer is not vanity or some desire to expose myself to the internet. If you read the text above, you’ll know that this isn’t my first rodeo when it comes to battling extra pounds. I’ve lost weight before only to have it creep slowly back like a horror film monster-from-the-black-lagoon.
I’m not alone in this problem. Depending on the source, the odds of maintaining a significant weight loss for five years are less than 10 percent.
I find that unacceptable and, in a purely selfish effort to prevent weight gain and a return to the metabolic disaster that I was, I decided to have an accountability page. I’ll let you know if I lose ground and if I have any thoughts about why. I’ve been reading about the pitfalls of maintenance and I’m ready to assess problems head-on.
I’m also curious to find out if my opinion of low-carb changes over time. I’m totally jazzed about it now, but what about in a year? Maybe you’re curious, too.
So, I’ll be updating this page regularly to keep myself honest and to give whoever is interested some real-time data on my experience. Maybe it will help. Heads up—my next annual physical is in June 2021.
Check out the journal in this folder if you are interested in my thoughts about any number of things related to my transformation.
Hopefully, it will be interesting. Feel free to email me at the link below if you have questions or suggestions.