How Yo-yo Dieting Brought Me From Good Health To Buying Diabetes Supplies!So what could have happened to bring me to the point of having to buy diabetes supplies?...
Hi! My name is Geri Richard; let me tell you my story... I've spent the last few years of my life researching and reading everything I could get my hands on in the field of diet, nutrition, weight loss and diabetes ... and here's why ... I was a very fit and healthy child ... eating never crossed my mind. I ate what I wanted, when I wanted it and never had a weight problem. This all changed in my mid-twenties. Up until then, I maintained a constant weight of 118 pounds (53 kilos) ... very comfortable for my 5' 5" frame (165 cm). But then in my mid-twenties I gained about 30 pounds. (I think in my case, birth control pills may have been a contributing factor to my weight gain.) That's when my yo-yo dieting started.I decided to lose weight, not by following a fad diet, but by attending classes at a major weight loss centre, thinking that their weight loss program was healthier than fad diets. The problem was that I was hungry all the time and although I did lose weight (30 pounds over a period of 5 months), when I reached my goal weight I just couldn't stay on the maintenance program. The food cravings were too powerful and overwhelming. I started to eat everything I had denied myself for 5 months. Following this weight loss program triggered food cravings in me ... even for food that I previously hardly ever ate. For the first time in my life I started obsessing about food and constantly thinking about food. Previously I had eaten refined carbohydrate sweets, but had never craved them ... but now I craved sweets constantly. Of course, I started to gain back the weight I had lost and I started yo-yo dieting ... dieting and gaining weight ... over and over again, for the next almost twenty years. Little did I know that all this yo-yo dieting would bring me to the point where I had to start buying diabetes supplies! Finally, I just gave up dieting and again my weight continued increasing until I reached my maximum weight of 200 pounds (91 kilos). This is a weight gain of almost 70% over my original weight!
All this losing and regaining weight by following unhealthy diets started to take a toll on my health and I found I developed an impressive list of health problems over the years! For a complete list of my symptoms and health problems ... Click here But of all the health conditions I developed, this one was the worst!...The last straw for me was when I was diagnosed with Insulin Resistance and the early stages of Type II Diabetes (sometimes called pre-diabetes). I was very lucky ... I had a doctor who listened to me. My condition was picked up purely by accident during a routine blood test. My doctor mentioned that my blood sugar was "a bit on the high side, but still in the normal range" so there was nothing to worry about. This set off a warning bell in my mind because Diabetes was rampant on my mother's side of the family. I asked if I should be tested for diabetes but my doctor told me that unless I had diabetes symptoms, they didn’t usually run tests. I asked what those symptoms were and he told me:
I had all the above symptoms! I was sent for a glucose tolerance test where they give you a sweet glucose drink and take blood samples 3 times in a 2-hour period, as well as taking urine samples. The results indicated a diagnosis of insulin resistance and the early stages of diabetes or pre-diabetes. And of course if nothing changed in my lifestyle, then I could possibly progress to the point where I would have to start buying diabetes supplies like insulin (worst case scenario). After I got over the shock (and depression) of being diagnosed with insulin resistance and pre-diabetes, I got very, angry and very determined not to let this get the better of me ... or to just accept it without a fight. I was lucky - I caught the diabetes in the very early stages where I could control it with an insulin resistance diet. I was determined not to let it progress to the stage of having to buy diabetes supplies like insulin shots (hopefully, never ... or at least not for a very long time!)
What are the most important diabetes supplies you need to have if you have been diagnosed with Insulin Resistance, Pre-diabetes or Diabetes?Some of the most important diabetes supplies you can acquire, especially when you are first diagnosed, are:
There are a lot of people who don't bother buying diabetes supplies because they don't think that diabetes is very serious or that it requires anything special to manage it. Maybe there are some people who can get away with not having to be very vigilant and can make some changes to their diet that can stabilise their blood sugar levels, but really, unless you buy diabetes supplies like blood glucose monitors, how would you know if you are succeeding? Many doctors feel that buying diabetes supplies are not necessary and that running quarterly hemoglobin blood tests (Hba1c) is all that is needed to make sure your blood sugar levels are stabilised, but I personally think that keeping a closer eye on your daily blood sugar levels is better. These blood tests identify your average blood sugar levels over the last 3 months; they do not identify daily spikes in blood sugar levels caused by eating certain types of food. In my personal case, it was important for me to buy diabetes supplies like a blood glucose monitor ... I find that keeping track of my blood sugar fluctuations makes me feel in control of this condition. I have to admit that I have been very impressed with range of diabetes supplies carried by the online DiabetesStore.com ... they not only have a full range of diabetes supplies, they also give very generous discounts on their range of diabetes supplies. Why not check out their incredible offer of free glucose monitors ... just click the following link ...
Free Glucose Monitor
and other diabetes supplies - Click Here! I have also found it important to become a member of Diabetes Australia because I know that my membership fee goes towards ongoing research for a diabetes cure. (Like all Diabetes Centres, they also sell diabetes supplies and offer discounts on their diabetes supplies to members.) Without membership fees, these Diabetes Centres would never be able to offer discounts on diabetes supplies to anyone, as well as providing diabetes counsellors and experts that they have for people to talk to. Having that kind of support is crucial when someone is faced with this kind of life changing condition. For me personally, without diabetes supplies like blood glucose monitors, I would have no idea if I were succeeding in my attempt at keeping my blood sugar levels stable. This way, I can see exactly what happens when I eat certain foods ... and I was very surprised at some of the results I got! I found out very quickly that my preconceived notions of what would spike my blood sugar levels was totally out of whack! That's when I got my crash course in the glycemic index and what affect it has on my blood sugar levels! Following the "Diet Free ... At Last!" Weight Loss Program and using diabetes supplies allow me to stabilise my blood sugar levels and maintain control of the Diabetes ...
Insulin Resistance and Type II Diabetes are very much lifestyle conditions and in many cases (but not all) are brought on by poor nutritional choices and lack of exercise. That's why following an Insulin Resistance Diet (rather than the more restrictive low cholesterol diets) makes such a big difference in controlling this condition. The better nutrition and more exercise you can incorporate into your everyday life, the better your chance of controlling (or even reversing) the Insulin Resistance. And just as importantly, for anyone who has not already developed Diabetes, following this program can greatly decrease your risk of developing not only Diabetes, but many other lifestyle diseases like Estrogen Dominance, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), high cholesterol levels, and much, much more! Obviously, dieting and weight loss issues have played a major part in my developing insulin resistance and diabetes. I decided that the only way I could fight this battle was if I armed myself with all the knowledge I could get, not only about diabetes, but about diet and nutrition ... (especially insulin resistance diets, low cholesterol diets and the dangers of unhealthy diets) ... Why low cholesterol diets? Because one thing many people don't know is that excess insulin levels actually trigger high bad cholesterol levels. But more importantly, if you succeed in stabilising your blood glucose levels which in turn lowers your insulin levels, this results in bad cholesterol levels lowering ... without having to follow restrictive low cholesterol diets!
I was determined to fight back! ... This started me on my path of research into weight loss and nutrition. The "Diet Free ... At Last!" Weight Loss Program is the culmination of years of research, of reading everything I could get my hands on in this field and of my own personal odyssey of dieting trial and error. The basic principle behind this program is based on an insulin resistance diet that stabilises blood sugar levels and in the process, lowers cholesterol levels ... without having to take cholesterol medication or follow restrictive low cholesterol diets! Unlike other low fat diets, this program reduces "bad fats", but increases "good fats" ... that's right, you CAN eat fat on this program! My research was based on information found in countless:
I thought to myself, "Could these programs be the answer to my overweight problems?" I figured there was only one way to find out: I tried them out myself! Believe me, I tried out countless of these diets! But I couldn't understand why I couldn't lose weight on these diets ... or what little weight I did lose, I would gain right back! I found that on the surface many of the weight loss books seemed to make sense or seemed to have one piece of the puzzle right, but they were missing crucial components of the puzzle that seemed to make the whole thing fall through. They even cited a lot of scientific "evidence" to support their theories ... but the bottom line was, they just didn't deliver what they promised!
But the thing that I was most concerned with from following these unhealthy diets is that they severely slowed down my metabolism! I know I lost muscle tissue following these diets and my metabolism slowed down so much that it became harder and harder for me to lose weight. (I even had my metabolism tested to be sure and found out that it was suppressed to 80% of normal!) Now, after my fiasco with all these unhealthy diets, I was more determined than ever to find out what was going on with my body (from a biological point of view) and to learn how to work with my body's physiology, instead of against it. I knew that being Insulin Resistant and Pre-Diabetic caused my body to have hormonal imbalances that were causing my body to store fat rather than burn it ... and the more I researched, the more shocked I was to find out exactly how many hormonal disorders I had that was making my weight loss efforts incredibly difficult. I definitely had all the cards stacked against me, but with persistence and perseverance, I learnt how to reshuffle the deck to finally give me a winning hand!
In conclusion ... As you can see, the last few years have been quite an adventure for me. My hope in developing this weight loss program is to not only help those who are in the same situation I am in, but to also help anyone who may be in the very beginning stages of this vicious cycle to break out of the cycle before it overwhelms you. If your story sounds similar to mine, I encourage you to try out the "Diet Free ... At Last!" Weight Loss Program. What have you got to lose ... except that annoying excess weight!
   
P.O. Box 1025, Indooroopilly, Queensland, Australia, 4068 Copyright Geraldine Richard 2002-2007. All Rights Reserved.
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