Don't hate me because I'm skinny

A few people at work have had great success following the Weight Watchers(tm) plan. It's all about healthy eating, with the assistance of product labels, web sites that help determine "points" for permitted/recommended foods based on nutrient values that you find on product labels (always a good idea!).

But I have unintended weight loss. It's due to uncontrolled diabetes. My body-mass index (BMI) is at an unhealthy low. My size 2 pants are getting baggy. My energy levels are low. I do try to eat properly but usually fail (carb cravings and mindless eating). I get enough sleep, but if I take a nap it can last for eight hours. And I often "forget" to take my medication, especially my night-time insulin shot. Also I drink and smoke too much. And it's hard to get motivated to exercise. I need to get more recent blood tests and I haven't seen my endo for about two years now.

I have an extensive library on diet, exercise, diabetes, cookbooks (vegetarian and cooking for diabetics) and general health. I just got Dr. Richard K. Bernstein's book (Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution: The Complete Guide to Achieving Normal Blood Sugars, ISBN - 13: 9780316167161), which is intended for an American audience and suggests drugs that aren't available in Canada (and uses the mg/dl measurement for blood sugar values, meaning I need to divide by 18 to get my mmol/dl values). I get numerous e-newsletters (several a day) on diabetes, eating well, living well, and how to reduce my "real age." I am still re-reading "Take Charge of Your Health" by Diehl and Ludington.


But I'm not doing well at all. Is it time for multiple daily injections (MDI)? I bet if I quit smoking I'd gain a bit of weight...

Kids' breakfast fundraiser - $900 x 2!!

http://diabetes-cats.blogspot.com/2008_09_01_archive.html

I mentioned that my department was raising money for a kids' breakfast program here in Toronto. I won't go into detail about how kids who eat breakfast have tremendous learning advantages over those who don't---or can't. Anyway, our raffle raised $900 CA, which the company will match (but only up to $1000...I guess that's pretty generous). And that was just our first draw, which we pulled off in just over a week. Our purchasing manager figures he will be able to get some excellent loot from his vendors and other contacts for the Christmas draw.

Eat Breakfast = Weight loss: Before I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes I had put on a few pounds---from 130 at age 30 to 145 at age 40. That was a result of skipping breakfast and eating way too much for lunch and dinner since I was a teenager. I started the diabetic regimen (NOT "regime" as so many websites like to put it) with a plan from a diabetes nurse/educator. Without actually eating fewer calories I started to lose weight -- about 2 lbs a week, because I ate a balanced breakfast (cereal, fruit, dairy, protein), so was less hungry for lunch and dinner. I had to call my nurse after about a month because I felt I was losing too much weight and needed more food. I ended up getting almost all my clothes taken in. When I was diagnosed I had been doing a 90-minute martial arts class 2-3 times a week for over a year and playing badminton once a week for 3 hours; also a 3-hour yoga class on Sundays; also walking quite a bit.