Diet
Mostly, I’ve been eating well. I just try to keep it healthy. My wife tends to make a lot of our dinners and she is such a great cook of wonderfully tasty and healthy foods that I think it has had a great positive impact on my overall physical health. Outside of that, I try to consume a lot of fiber. All sorts of fiber. Veggies for sure, but also when I’m looking at picking up packaged foods (Pasta, cereal, other stuff) I just try to pick the thing that has low sugar and high fiber. About a year ago, my doctor did a blood panel and noticed that my A1c was on the high side and labeled me “pre diabetic”. (Side Note: I heard a joke about a similar situation where the patient told the doctor, “You’re pre diabetic too” and the doctor said “no I’m not” and the patent asked, “well do you have diabetes?”, and the doctor said “no, I don’t”. The patient reaffirmed “So you’re PRE diabetic then.”) Anyway. I started researching because I tend to get a bit obsessive about things, insulin, insulin resistance, glucose, fructose, fats, etc. I learned that fiber REALLY helps your body process glucose, fructose, and other sugars. So that was pretty much the only change I made to my diet overall. More fiber, less sugar.
When I say less sugar, I don’t mean NO sugar. I just want the sugar in stuff that I know should have sugar in it. Ice Cream, Mochas, Pumpkin Spice Lattes, Fruit Loops etc. Not in my Bread, Pasta Sauce, Soup, etc. It just takes looking at the ingredients to identify what groceries have sugar in them. There is SO MUCH in just random things that you wouldn’t think to have sugar in it. I also will take days where I have no sugar at all.
Since I had this recent bout of anxiety / depression / midlife crisis / whatever I went to the Doctor recently to just check my levels to see if anything was out of whack. I’m 10 pounds lighter than I was and all of my levels were so very perfect, including my A1c being in the middle of the normal range, I was shocked. I guess I will just keep on doing what I’m doing. (I know it’s not just diet, see my exercise post). Good luck out there!
