I Run

After the success of my scooter endeavours, if you overlook the hypoglycaemic episode, I finally decided that it was time to dig out the track suit bottoms, oversized top and trainers. 

Running was one of my favourite activities when I was in my twenties cough years ago so it seems logical to me to start this up again. 

So I made the decision yesterday that in the evening I'd start running and then I'd have one of those new Pizza Express home cook pizzas that only have 450 calories as a reward. 

Once I'd decided on this plan of action I couldn't wait to get started and spent most of the afternoon looking forward to my new adventure...flash forward to 1900hrs. 

I had made plans on what route to take quite a while ago as my trainer from my boxing days had given me the best advice about starting off running which was: never over do it to start off with or you'll not want to carry on and choose a route that is easy to expand upon in increments as you get fitter; I therefore chose Woolwich Common as my venue as it's riddled with paths and I had seen a nice little route on Google maps. 

After a warm up I walked to my starting point, started my new app MapMyRun and set off at a slow pace that I hoped would let me run the route without stopping or walking. 

The first thing I noticed was that my head seemed to be bouncing around quite a bit and my legs didn't feel very coordinated; luckily I soon forgot about that, unluckily this was because I'm not very fit and it felt like my nose was collapsing each time I breathed in! 

I was about half way round, I was coping, just, I was coaching myself in my head with "just keep going", "nearly there" and the like. I could now see how far I had left and used that as a marker and started almost saying to myself through the out breaths "keep going nearly there, nearly there". 

I'd done it, I stopped my app and looked at the results - 0.80 miles in 7 minutes and 47 seconds, it felt like I'd just finished a half marathon, sweating profusely, gasping for breath but happy that I'd achived my aims and had an app full of stats to look at; I think I will enjoy this rebirth into running once my fitness levels are a bit higher!

Diet Coke Strikes Back

After I broke the habit of Diet Coke I started to have a coffee in the morning and a coffee or tea in the afternoon and my main soft drink was sparkling mineral water. 

After a while this started to become a tad boring so I decided to look for a non cola caffeine free soda to have....the slippery slope had begun!!

Fruit "Zero" sodas have a fairly high calorie count of around 10 calories per 500ml so I didn't feel very happy about having those as a 500ml Diet Coke has just 2 calories; so began my new reading of labels in supermarkets quest. 

After some consideration I opted for Tesco Firey No Added Sugar Gingerbeer which weighed in at 1 calories per 330ml can and off I went. 

After drinking this for a few weeks my mind said to me "hey what's the problem, just have a can of Diet Coke a day", I duly complied and after only a few days this can became, two, became three, became four 500ml bottles....you get the picture, it was a Diet Coke relapse!

Lucky I've realised this in time and stopped again and as soon as the Gingerbeer is finished at home that will be cut out too, I'm considering adding fruit juice to my sparkling mineral water like you would with squash for a bit of variation. 

This little experience got me thinking firstly about Diet Coke and then Diet sodas in general and what exactly is so addictive about them, it can't be just caffeine as I found caffeine free Diet Coke just as addictive and also had problems with the Gingerbeer. 

So I did a bit of digging and found that it's an interesting combination of the caffeine, fake sugar and psychological addiction caused by the rituals and habits around drinking diet sodas. 

I can highly recommend reading this interesting CNN article on the subject:

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/03/01/diet.soda.health/

Progress Report - Heath Update

Today I made my way with trepidation to the GP's surgery for an appointment with the practice's diabetes nurse, this was going to be when I learned the outcome of my blood tests. 

The first pleasing thing was that the nurse didn't recognise me as I saw a different one last time so I'd not seen her since February. The second pleasing thing was when she said that my non-fasting blood test results were those of a healthy person. 

I explained that I'd been having severe hypoglycaemic episodes, one recently where I nearly passed out and she told me that while it's unusual for the drug Metformin to cause hypo's it does do this with a small percentage of patients and I was obviously one of those patients so I was to stop taking Metformin with immediate effect. 

Next up my blood pressure was too low so in consultation with my GP she halved my Lisinopril tablets and told me to come back in two weeks for a re-test when the decision would be made as to whether I need to take them at all. 

I was then told that I don't need to test my bloods daily anymore, to just do it when or if I feel unwell, but I think that I will continue to do the regular tests for a while as quite frankly this has come as a shock to me after all these years of medication and testing, I thought that I'd be eased off of the regime gently if at all!

Of all the things that have happened to me over this journey since January 2014 this has had the most profound effect on me as it's quite literally life changing, I still can't quite believe that I'm in this situation now as I thought that my type 2 diabetes was with me for life...I've got another blood test in November to confirm that coming off of the diabetes medication was the right thing to do and I almost can't wait to find out what happens and at the same time I'm worried that something may go wrong.