Fifth Decade

I need exercise. Well, OK, we all need exercise, but not everyone needs it like I do. I’m medically obese (but only 1 Kg away from not being!) and a Type 2 diabetic. So exercise is more important to me as it helps me to control my blood sugar levels, reduce my weight, and fight diabetes.

My medical advisors suggested I need do half an hour of exercise three times per week. Anything that got my heart rate up would do, they said - even walking. Well, to begin with, walking was all I could manage! But I wanted to know how far I was going, and if it was possible to measure the calories I was burning too.

So I bought an iPod Nano and the Nike+ shoe attached pedometer. The idea of course is that I buy a special pair of Nike trainers that have a slot for the tiny Nike+ device to fit into. So I paid out about £80 for a pair of Nikes, the style of which I hated, and they didn’t fit very well either. But the shop only had two different styles of trainers, and this was the pair that suited me the most.

Now I like Nike - when I was an athlete all those years ago they were my shoe of choice. My favourites were a pair of Nike Elite racing flats which were light and very comfortable. Since then they seem to have become led by image rather than ergonomics though, because these new trainers were awful to wear. Not only that, but they were really shoddily made as well, with tatty stitching, roughly cut lace holes, and no sign at all that my £80 had really been needed to buy a shoe of such poor quality. I’ve seen £20 trainers that were better finished. I should have kept my money in my pocket.

I persevered with the shoes for a week, but then I found a really neat device called the iRun which is basically a pod for the Nike+ pedometer. It attaches nicely to the laces of my far more comfortable Reeboks, and performs exactly the same function as if it were in the Nike shoes. Except that I can walk further and faster with the Reeboks on because the Nikes are just too uncomfortable.

The shoes end of things wasn’t my only problem though. How do I attach the iPod to myself when I am out exercising? First of all I bought the Nike+ armband iPod holder. Well, that was a waste of money for starters: it wouldn’t even go around my arm! Even if I had managed it it is a huge piece of elasticated textile that is bound to make you sweat, and that brings me out in a rash so I prefer not to do that. Luckily the shop took it back, no questions asked.

Next I bought the Apple armband. Slightly better this time, thinner and at least it fitted - just - but now there was nowhere to plug in the radio pick-up for the signals from the Nike+ pedometer! The bottom of the holder totally blocked the port. Well, Apple, that was good design, wasn’t it? Another waste of money.

Then I found my solution. The XtremeMac TuffWrap Accent. It’s a silicone cover with a clip at the back which allows me to attach the iPod anywhere. It’s really useful - and I can plug in the pedometer receiver.

So how does the collection work in action? Faultlessly. I select Nike+iPod from my iPod’s menu, select the type of workout - Basic (pure measurement of what you do, nothing more); Time (which tells you when your exercise period is complete); Distance (so you can preset how far you go and stop when you have completed it); and Calories (where I believe you can set the amount of calories you want to burn and the iPod tells you when to stop exercising when you have reached that target).

So far I’ve only used Basic, because I don’t exercise in a gym and have landmarks, places and people to give me feedback which I prefer. I’ve had some great walks through the countryside, getting close to nature in its own backyard. That can be so motivating.

I can choose whether to listen to music or not, and if so, which playlist, random or ordered. At the end of each session I get a spoken overview of how far I went, my average speed, and can see on the screen how many calories I have burned. If I have done a record long or record fast session I get a voice over from either Paula Radcliffe or Lance Armstrong giving me a motivatory congratulation. That’s a nice touch.

Overall then I would say getting the iPod and Nike+ was a good decision, but buying the Nike products was not what I had expected them to be. Once upon a time Nike were the Apple of the training shoe industry, now they’re just trading on their name alone and aren’t really producing the goods anymore, from my experiences.

If you are thinking of buying the Nike+, just don’t think you need Nike trainers to use it. There are plenty of ways you can attach it to your favourite and most comfortable trainers. Wearing uncomfortable shoes is not good for diabetics so I am off Nike now.

There is a website which you can connect to and upload all your information to, but personally I would prefer to upload it to my Mac computer, but this seems impossible from what I have found so far. I am not going to add my personal data to any website though! No way!

Marks out of Ten for individual items:

Apple iPod Nano: 9/10
Nike+ pedometer: 9/10
Nike+ armband: 1/10
Nike trainers: 1/10
iRun pod fix: 9/10
Apple armband: 3/10
XtremeMac TuffWrap Accent: 8/10
Nike+ website idea: not for me!

Overall Mark for the system as a whole: 8/10

A little while ago I wrote my piece on the dietary regime I’ve been following to combat Diabetes. I was diagnosed with the condition on 15th April 2007 and spent a week in hospital. Since then I’ve been trying to live as healthily as possible, and it’s had a marked effect on my life. For the better. My goal was to combat the disease through a combination of healthy eating and exercise. I wanted to lose 10Kg of weight each year for three years.

Well, the changes to my lifestyle and my attitude are really paying off big time. In seven weeks I’ve lost 8Kg - that’s about 18 lbs, or 1 stone 4 lbs in old money. Without feeling hungry. And while enjoying my food even more than before. Different food, sure, but it certainly isn’t boring. Maybe one meal a week is forgettable, but that’s just down to bad planning, or experimenting to find a new dish.

The weighing scales I bought that can calculate the proportion of body fat, water and muscle also show big improvements in the kind of weight I carry. Fat down from 35% to under 30%, with muscle mass up from 34% to 37%. When I lose my next Kilo I will officially no longer be considered obese! Man, that feels good.

Before my change to a healthy lifestyle I had got to the stage where just getting up off the floor from playing with my one year old was a struggle that needed all four limbs to lift me up - tragic I know, but so many people have similar problems. Now, I almost float up stairs, and relish the next staircase to walk up. Getting up off the floor is easy again - no hands needed! Because I’m not on a fad diet I’m not just losing weight, I’m also getting stronger. My neck is thinner and more muscley, my paunchy stomach is much, much smaller, and my muscles glow even when I’m sitting still, so I am burning more sugar just because there are more of them.

I’m also doing well on the medication front. Within a very short period of time after leaving the hospital I managed to give up insulin, although I am still taking Metformin to help my body deal with the sugars better. Just last week I gave up the blood pressure drugs that had been necessary when my blood pressure was 140 over 90. Now it is pretty stable around 105 over 70 - without any medication at all to reduce it.

My seven day average blood sugar level is 5.7 mmol/L which compares nicely with a non-diabetic value of 3.9 to 5.5 mmol/L. I’ll stay on the Metformin a bit longer though, it seems to be helping, and I have to lose quite a bit more weight yet. But I’ll get there.

Of course, I’m lucky with the weather at the moment. Spring and summer are here, with mostly dry, sunny days in which it is really easy to cycle or walk just that little bit further. But winter lies ahead and I have to prepare for it. I need an exercise machine.

I looked in a couple of gyms at the equipment they have, and compared it with the normal consumer stuff you see in sports shops. Mostly the consumer stuff is a pale comparison of the serious equipment a gym can provide. But I haven’t signed up for a gym yet. Most gym memberships fail after two months. In fact, for some people just signing the application form gives them more of a workout than they ever get in the gym itself.

I asked around at a couple of manufacturers at the prices of new kit - too much for me - but they sometimes get in reconditioned stuff after gyms have had the kit for three years on a contract before they renew with brand new equipment. I found I could save 75% off the cost of new gym level equipment, fully refurbished and with all the latest software just by waiting a little. Delivery should be just around the time the weather changes and outdoor exercise becomes less easy, and I’ll be paying about the same as I would for a top level consumer item that would actually give me less back.

I’m going to get a bike, rather than a rowing machine or treadmill for no other reason than that of space saving. For exercising the rest of me I’ll continue doing those circuit training exercises I learned all those years ago when as an athlete I tagged onto the weekly rugby training sessions, together with some isometrics.

Isometrics are easy to do, build muscle mass quickly, and take very little time. They also have the benefit of being possible anywhere. The basic principle is that you push against an immovable object so that your muscles try and try to move it, but instead just stimulate their own growth.

One example of an isometric exercise is to stand in a doorway, place the palm of each hand on either side of the wall so that if the wall were not there your hands would meet palm to palm with elbows bent so you push them together, trying to squash the wall. Another good one is to stand with bent legs for as long as you can manage, rest for a minute or so, and then repeat two more times. It’s amazingly effective.

Just don’t do isometrics without something to get your cardio-vascular system going as well though - that means one of cycling/swimming/walking/jogging so that your heart rate reaches a level sufficient to burn off fats, about 120-130 for me from what I can gather (see previous post about this).

Equipment that has helped me
I get paid nothing for saying this, and have no connection with any of the companies concerned other than my positive experience as a customer.

• Kitchen Scales: Tefal Copper 5 digital scales - very small, fit anywhere
• Bathroom scales: Soehnle Body Balance Rio (measures weight, fat, water, muscle masses)
• Pedometer: Silver Apple iPod Nano with Nike+ (calculates calories burned)
• Cyclometer: Marks and Spencer (calculates calories and fat burned)
• Glucometer: AccuChek Aviva (for measuring blood sugar)
• Blood Pressure meter: Omron R6 Wrist Blood Pressure monitor (simple, light, quick way to get a reading of blood pressure one handed)

I’ll write some more another time and let you know how my regime goes. I’m quite enjoying life at the moment though, and I am so pleased something like Diabetes came along and shocked me out of my apathy. I’m enjoying life a whole lot better now, and feel a lot more positive about myself too.

As the song goes “Always look on, the bright, si-de of life! Da-dum, da-dum die dum die dum…“

I said in this post that I would give you more details about my successful diet, so here we are.
(I’m not a nutritionist, but I did study physiology as part of my University degree, spent time as an athlete, and have had some chats with nutritionists recently).

No diet is going to work effectively without exercise. It’s very important to always remember this, as it is the key to good weight loss. I’ll tell you why. Continue reading ‘A Healthy Diet that works for Diabetes (and others)’

I haven’t posted for a while as the hospital room I was in had no internet access. I’d like to say I got plenty of rest as a result, but in hospital? With the comings and goings of staff and other patients, nurses and Doctors poking and prodding you - and the condition you brought with you to contend with as well - rest is not at the top of the list of things a hospital provides. So why stay there?

I’d had a fairly average Sunday visiting my sister-in-law’s for a meal. Now, I like my food. There aren’t many things I won’t eat - although lemon curd and lemon meringue I can live without - so as the years passed I gradually put on more and more weight. At my sister-in-law’s I ate my normal two portions (it was a salad this time, so not very fattening) but afterwards I had a hyperglycaemic attack which led me to hospital. Here they noticed I had high blood sugar of 32 mmol/L which is about five times higher than normal.

Diagnosis: Type 2 diabetes.

That’s the one where you inherit the likelihood of developing diabetes provided you also stuff yourself silly and gain weight. Once my Body Mass Index (BMI) passed 30 I was classed as obese. Like many people, I ate and ate but did no exercise. I sat in front of the TV or computer and avoided exercise like the plague, despite once having been an avid athlete.

As my fat cells increased in number, they began to interfere more and more with my normal sugar metabolism. It’s a fascinating story of physiology, but I’ll spare you the gory details. Suffice it to say the body loses the ability to get the energy the sugar carries in the blood into the cells that need it. The blood runs thicker, blood vessels can become blocked, and because less sugar gets into each cell the brain sends messages asking for more and more food. It’s a vicious circle, and can lead to lethargy, tiredness, and other nasties. Amputation for instance. Blindness. Death. It’s serious business.

Surprisingly, sugar is actually a poison: go on, think about it, when did the sugar in your house ever go mouldy? That’s why jam uses sugar to preserve fruit and why low sugar jams go mouldy quicker than full sugar jams.

Type 2 Diabetes isn’t all black though, it can be treated quite easily in many cases using a combination of diet and exercise. It sometimes vanishes completely, although the damage it does generally cannot be repaired.

And that’s where having diabetes can actually improve your life! It’s forced me to change my lifestyle - for the better. I am back to a regular programme of exercise after 25 years without, and I eat so healthily now it’s unreal. I feel I have been given my life back - and I feel a lot younger as a result. My healthy diet (I’ll say more about that in another post when I get around to it) has also resulted in my skin becoming softer, less dry, younger looking. Instead of the 8 Kg weight gain the Doctors expected, I’ve actually lost a bit.

While the drug therapy can substitute for diet and exercise, exercising really does affect your blood sugar in a positive way: your muscles suck sugar out of your blood as fuel, and this allows your natural insulin to get to work again.

I can’t emphasise enough how important diet and exercise are, so I’ll leave a description of them until another post. What is important though, is that having Diabetes is not the end of the world, you can even get a lot of positives from it. I have!