If job one of a newly diagnosed Type II diabetic is to lose weight, fixing your diet needs to be job two or three, in other words, way, way up there in terms of what you do. Unfortunately, improving your diet is not quite like improving your lungs if you’re a smoker–if you smoke, you […]
The bottom line on training: the only way to get better is by doing it. Yes, it’s important to have a plan; there are indeed issues like overtraining and undertraining (been on both ends of the spectrum), and diet is important. But the only way to be a better runner is to go out there […]
I picked up a copy of What to Expect When You Have Diabetes from the American Diabetes Association when I was at the library today. It’s a book of 170 “tips” (more like 170 frequently asked questions) for diabetics. On first scan, there are 23 pages–21 questions and answers–dedicated to the chapter on Living Well: […]
If you’re a runner (like I am on some days), you’re dependent on your body, the elements, and a small bit on your equipment (which is shoes, socks, clothing, sunscreen, a bit of lubricant, and maybe glasses, a hat, and/or a visor–and in rare situations your phone, music player, and GPS). You may have all […]
I have two types of training schedules. The first type is just a calendar that tells me what workouts I want to do when. My goal–which I rarely reach–is eleven workouts a week: four bike rides, four runs, and three weight sessions. I try to do the bike rides Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and Saturday; the […]
Riding a bike 100 miles in a day is not something to try to do without proper training (just like how running a marathon is not something to try to do without proper training). Yet, I’d done it before, pre-diagnosis, so my feeling was that since I was getting into better shape than I had […]
I was a cyclist in college, mostly as a way to get around. The University of Hawai’i has awful parking in the area, and I had a part time job off campus a few miles away. The only way to get to and from quickly was on a bike. For whatever reason, I had gotten […]
Diabetics are spoken to often about foot care. See all those folks without their feet (and higher)? Lots of them are diabetics. One of the things that happens to diabetics is their circulation is affected; in addition, for the most part, they have more sugar in their blood than non-diabetics. Circulation tends to get worse […]
While I’m not a copious journal keeper, I have, for years, written down every penny I spent (see my personal finance blog if you want to know why). When I started my diabetes journey, I started doing something similar. I would write down everything I would eat. I was also hoping to manage my diabetes […]
Like I said earlier, I hate running. But I found that many of my friends were interested in it, so I got more interested in it for the social aspects. For someone like me, running isn’t fun. It hurts. When I was heavier, it hurt more. My knees and feet and ankles gave me pain; […]