I just started to take my health seriously. Thank you, having kids. I mean, before life-with-kids, before entering “the parent club”, I’d eat a pint of ice cream like it was nothing.
And cheese?
I actually knew that cheese was bad on some level. Maybe it was because I went to a Tony Robbins event a long time ago – and in it, they showed this movie of a surgeon pulling this long, stringy yellow thing out of a guy’s heart.
“Mmmm! Yum! That’s where that cheese went!” Tony yelled into the microphone.
But my wife wasn’t into Tony or getting onto my latest craze like giving up her favorite food. “I am NOT giving up on my cheese!” she said, basically yelling, on many an occasion. “Have you smelled vegan cheese?” she asked, making a face.
“No I haven’t.”
“How about now?” she asked, throwing a slice into the microwave.
People actually came over and commented on the smell of the vegan cheese in our house. I had to explain to them that it was vegan cheese.
“It smells like barf,” one of them said.
I looked at Marie and laid out the contract.
“Okay, we won’t give it up,” I said. “But just so you know, I am enmeshed in you, and so if I open the fridge and I see cheese everywhere, then it’s your fault.”
“Okay,” she said.
And so I just went along with it. I became the “ice cream bad boy” and she became the “cheese bad girl”. We even made a comic strip of it, and thought we were cool because “most people drink when they come home after work. We’re just eating a quesadilla.”
Ah, that’s when I was young. Young and free.
You remember those days? You could eat anything you wanted? You could go to Dairy Queen and it wasn’t a big deal. If you go to Dairy Queen now, then everyone looks at you like you’re trying to murder someone.
CHAPTER 2
But then, like I inferred, something happened on the last doctor’s test. Reality set in. Kids. And I looked at the numbers this time and yelled, “Holy shit!” because now I gotta live, apparently.
And so I had to fix these numbers and I mean fast. Cholesterol numbers were bad. And my glucose numbers were sketchy, serial killer sketchy.
I was told I had 3 months to shape up. And if I didn’t, I’d be put on cholesterol medication like the rest of America.
And that’s how it would start. Of course, the statin would have a side effect which would mean I’d have to take a pill for that and then that would have one too and so I’d have to take a pill for that into infinity.
Plus, I hate meds. Did I mention this? I’m not one of those people who can just be put on them. This is because my body chemistry is just super highly sensitive.
Even psychologically. For example, when I found out my numbers were sketchy I actually had a series of panic attacks. I even went to the ER thinking I was going to die.
The doctor said, “You are what I would call a high-performance machine. Your body was made to perform. Are you super sensitive?”
“Yes.”
“Do you lucid dream regularly?”
“Yes.”
And we came to the determination that I would have to re-incorporate music into my life to deal with the stress. The stress of these numbers.
I had to deal with this. And so I took extreme steps.
CHAPTER 3
I went out and got a CGM. That’s a Continuous Glucose Monitor, for all you laymen!
And I took it and shoved it in the back of my arm. Yes, just like Neo from “The Matrix”. But he used a small synthetic data port on the back of his neck to “plug in”. I, again, was using one on the back of my arm.
I did this because I knew that glucose and high blood pressure are somehow inextricably linked, and if I could just start tracking the reaction of food to my body, tracking being the key word, then I could begin to label and manage my body’s imbalance.
Oddly enough, just one month ago before all of this nonsense with the doctor numbers, I had made it a goal of mine to try and track what I was eating. And now look, I thought. I am being forced to do this. It’s almost like something from another world stepped in to help me.
I also did this because I had read somewhere that people who use CGM’s have much higher rates of reversing their pre-diabetes than people who don’t.
This is because the app that comes with it – the company I used was Nutrisense – allows you to see what direction your glucose is heading. So as it’s spiking up, you can, for example, head it off at the pass by doing some exercise to counterattack the effects.
Am I moving too fast? Do you still not understand?
Here’s a video on CGM’s to help you get a grasp over what I am saying:
CHAPTER 4
To make a long story short, this is how I reversed my numbers! Sure, they’re not perfect, but they are much, much better than they were. And if I keep going on this road, I should be totally fine.
Lessons and takeaways from the CGM:
- Exercise AFTER meals. Like about an hour after. I actually exercise throughout the day. Once when I wake up (10,000 steps), and then 2 small exercise sessions after lunch and dinner.
- Avoid carbs. Chips and bread are approaching the road to hell, I learned, for my unique body chemistry. (Obviously no sugar as well.)
- Avoid fruit. I had read that apples spike the blood sugar for some people and apparently I’m one of those! Bananas too! Raspberries need more research.
- Eating: A salad for lunch. Dip it into some no-sugar dips to make it fun. Dinner: I try not to eat after 3. Sounds hard, but isn’t when I eat this meal with steelhead trout. Yeah, some trout and omega 3’s really hit the spot. I’m just not hungry after this. Throw in some cashew butter.
- If I still need to eat after 3, substitute lettuce leaves for potato chips! Heat up some cashew nacho sauce and dip it like nachos.
- COLD PLUNGES also really help that blood sugar go down, I learned.
Anyway, I did it.
I knew that if I could just attack that glucose, then I could hopefully fix my numbers. Because the glucose, when running amok – it sort of inflames everything all day and all night long. And so I fixed this with the CGM.
“Wow, it looks like you’ve lost 15 pounds, at least,” my mother-in-law said.
So would I recommend a CGM? Yes, 100%. I think, in the future, when they become non-invasive, everyone who wants to use one will be wearing one, like a ring.
And now I appear to be in the zone of normal.
Now I just need to find a piano.