At the very least, take him to get his A1C tested.
Here’s my story…
[Edit: WOW! What a wall of text. My apologies to everyone, I forgot to put verbose in O-F-F mode.]
For an unrelated reason I had some blood work done up. No sooner did I get home from the hospital, I received a call from the lab tech. He sounded frantic, “Mr Johnson, you need to get to an Emergency Room right away. This is an EMERGENCY. Your blood glucose is 594!” The number meant nothing to me, I had no idea what it meant. Not 30 seconds later I get a call from my doctor. He basically repeats what the lab tech just said, with the caveat that “This is a life threatening condition! Call an ambulance if you need to, but you need to be in a hospital weeks ago!” Well, something like that. So I took it that this must be somewhat important. So I went in. I was kept in the ER for six hours. They wouldn’t let me leave until my blood sugar dropped below 300. They gave me a medical cocktail of insulin, Metformin, and something that sucked the sugar right out of my muscles (and that hurt like hell, caused a lot of cramps that lasted about 10 minutes or so).
So I’m diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. My A1C was 11.7%, that’s pretty high. Basically it equates an average blood sugar of at least 300 for the past three months. 300 is also the threshold for being admitted in the hospital because of pending complications from high blood sugar.
So I learned a lot about diabetes. What to look forward to. Medicines, restricting diets (which make the problem worse in my opinion) constant medical evils (
stupid auto corrrect, that should read medical evals, but I’m leaving it for the chuckles not to mention the irony) and check ups. Neuropathy, blindness, heart disease, weight gain. Just a few of the joys I get to look forward to. Oh yeah, and learning all that also led to depression. I mean, gee wiz, got a bright future ahead of me here:roll_eyes:
I took it upon myself to research T2D. What it is, what it does. Why it is. My very first thought after researching it for about 10 minutes was, “WHAT THE FUDGE”, only I didn’t say fudge. “ Why would the recommended diet for someone with insulin resistance be to eat more sugar? They are having me eat way too much in my opinion. I did a Keto diet three years ago, and ate less than 50 grams a day of carbs. Now they want me to it upwards of 180 grams of carbs a day? What’s wrong with them? “ so according to the doctors and nutritionist at the hospital, a person with diabetes shouldn’t be doing Keto. So I continued my research.
After a month and a half, I was barely getting any better at all. I was trying to eat according to their “healthy diet of fruits and veggies” but my blood sugars (BG) just wasn’t playing ball. It was flirting dangerously close to 300 pretty much the entire time. So I said “Enough of all this felgercarb! I’m going Keto! Damned the Carbs and pass the bacon!
That was 17 Oct 2017, and I weighed 245 pounds. On 31 Oct 2017 I weighed 205 pounds. Oh yes, that’s not a typo. I lost forty pounds in 14 days. My BG readings went from flirting with death to normal range between 70-130 almost consistently. I have had the odd spike now and then when eating some acidental carbs. I did that the other day and spiked to 158 I think it was. But as the old saying goes, I kept calm, and keto’d on!
Along with all that weight loss came an abundance of energy. I was lethargic all the time before. Always felt run down. Walking up stairs took the wind out of me. But on Keto, I have a lot of energy, I actually feel like running up and down the stairs, no problem at all.
One day about a month into Keto, I missed my morning meds. By the time I realized it, it was close enough to the next dose to just wait and resume like normal. But then I missed that dose too
. But my BG was well within normal range, and actually better than it had been. So I thought I’d do a short experiment, n=1 as you will often hear around this forum:cowboy_hat_face:. I went cold turkey on my meds. Both Metformin for my BG and my blood pressure meds. Every day I watched closely, for fear I would have a sudden relapse. But nope. I continued to stay in the green, super green you might say. I did eventually go back to my blood pressure meds, as I could tell it was on the rise again. I’ll try backing off with them again after losing another 20 pounds or so. Right now I’ve leveled off at 199-203 pounds. It just fluctuates there everyday.
Although I haven’t done another A1C Test yet, I have an app that takes my BG trends and averages it to get an estimated A1C. It shows me as having an estimated 5.4%! That’s low enough that if I went in to the hospital to get checked for diabetes they would laugh at me and say “you don’t have diabetes”. Almost cured I would say. Only reason I don’t say cured, is because I am insulin resistant and can’t really tolerate carbs. But I’m fine with that. I no longer have cravings for all the sweets like I used to.
Aside from the above wall of text (heh, sorry bout that🤠) here is what you originally asked for…
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I need to buy new clothes. My current wardrobe no longer fits. The clothes that do fit I had to dig way back into the closet to get the stuff that’s been hiding back there for 5 to 10 Year’s. It was like finding new clothes.
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all of that weight loss had nothing to do with exercise. My entire day was basically sitting in front of the tv or computer while keeping an eye on the 5 yr old.
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there is no hunger. None at all. I have done unintentional fasts of up to three days before I realized I hadn’t eaten anything. And when you are fat adapted, that’s kinda the norm. You just don’t feel hungry. You can still eat, it doesn’t kill your appetite, but you don’t ever feel that “I’m starved” feeling again. That in of itself is something awesome I think.
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moles and skin tags are shrinking away.
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I actually feel like exercising
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I feel like getting up and doing house work
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mental clarity. When I walk into the kitchen to get a drink of water, I remember why I’m in he kitchen! No more walking back to the couch, sitting down and then remembering why I went in the first place😆
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trimming down and looking good again. I was startled the other day. Walking into the grocery store I saw the reflection of someone, so close they were right on top of me. It WAS me! I didn’t recognize my self without the belly announcing my arrival first.
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sleeping better. I’m getting some really good sleep. I think that comes with the weight loss, but either way, there it is.
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there are other little things I know I’m missing, but they all revolve around just feeling so much better!
I hope this helped.
Be strong. Don’t push. Be a life model. He will see it. Be subtle on the “I feel so much better” don’t rub it in. Just use it sparringly. That is unless he is the type that really needs it rubbed in his face. In that case keep a short cut to this thread readily available 