One more day and then I can start to reintroduce fruit and whole grains into my diet. I’m nervous! Actually, very nervous. I once joined a slimming club and was very successful, but I remember I got the stage of almost becoming anorexic. I just couldn’t stop dieting and was terrified of putting the weight back on.
I forced myself to eat properly, but obviously the reasons I had sought comfort in food didn’t go away, and the weight eventually went back on during pregnancy and then beyond. I say ‘obviously’ because that weight gain, yo-yo dieting for most of my adult life led me to where I am now, writing a blog about my journey to reverse Type 2 diabetes.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? If I’d known then what I know now…well, I didn’t, but that’s life. I also didn’t know that I could have completely avoided developing diabetes too. The older folks in the family all used to tell me that I would eventually become diabetic and so did my doctor, due to the family history. Grandmother using insulin, both parents, all my great aunts and of course that went along with the heart disease, gout, angina, you name it, they had it. Not a good genetic legacy. Understatement.
What nobody said, and most probably because at that stage in diabetes research nobody yet knew, was that it could be avoided. Completely. I think the nearest anyone came to it was that phrase, ‘You are what you eat.’ I seem to recall it was to do with weight loss, but it might have helped in the fight to control sugar and thereby diabetes too.
I was brought up in the north east of England, almost in Scotland. It’s cold up there and we were tall, thin children in a house with an open fire, a coal stove in the kitchen and no central heating. We were pretty healthy, but cold! My mother was an excellent cook and she used to keep us warm with delicious buns, cakes, porridge for breakfast with golden syrup drizzled over it.
We went to school in a nearby town and were starving by the timewe plopped off the bus at the end of the road and almost ran home. Straight in through the back door littering the floor with satchels, hats, scarves, gloves and into the downstairs bathroom. PHEW.
Then on with ‘little tea.’ I can see now where my penchant for comforting, warm, stodgy food started. Little tea was just something to keep us going until ‘Big Tea’, the evening meal. Carbs and more carbs and delicious they were too. I transferred to a local secondary school (not noted for my academic talent) and have distinct memories of coming home, walking across the fields and eating at least half a loaf of toasted white bread slathered with butter. I suppose that once my comfort level had been reached I must have stopped and eaten the other half the next day.
Bit of a digression there but I think it’s important to see where and how things developed because this isn’t all about genetics, it’s to do with emotions too and why one eats or overeats in the first place and why we seek the foods that make us ‘feel good.’
So, I’m anxious. No, that’s not really true. I’m terrified of adding the things back into my diet which I have not eaten for ten days and I feel great. Am I going to feel fuzzy again, is my sugar level going to go back up, am I heading towards failure?. Can I really add these things and be following the plan…
Faith. Just keep the faith in the system.
Today has not been a good day so far. I’ve taken an emotional dip which I’m annoyed with myself about. The euphoria and the results so far have been fantastic. I don’t want that to change. Plus it’s not even today but tomorrow so I reckon some more thinking and self-counseling is in order here.
I shall try one of the recipes this evening, curry I think, and work out what I’m going to eat for the next week and prepare the shopping list.
By Susannah
Hello from London, England. My name is Susannah Rettel and I am a retired special needs teacher with a particular interest in dyslexia. I was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes seven years ago and have fought constantly to control it with diet and exercise, as I firmly believed that if you could develop it you could also reverse it. My leisure time is spent gardening, reading, walking, going to Zumba dance classes, and listening to music. I became a Reiki Master/teacher and practitioner in 2001 and I haven’t looked back since. I love traveling, meeting new people, spending time with family and friends and just enjoying my retirement, preferably in the sunshine.
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