Carb loading and fat jeans

Monday:

I've resisted buying new clothes for weeks months years because I wanted to wait until I lost some weight, but the blue jeans I wear nearly every day in cooler weather started fraying on the inner thigh seams and there are now actual holes. I don't have that much else to wear so the situation had become critical. Today I forced myself to go jeans shopping. I tried on quite a few pairs but ended up getting the same ones as last time which are actually men's jeans. But in a bigger size. Sad face. The same size were just too squeezy and gave me a horrible muffin top. I know they stretch, but then they also shrink again when you wash them. The old ones had had a year or more to get to their current comfortable shape.

I forced myself to get them because I need something to wear at the size I am now, even if I'm not happy at this size. They have to be taken up, of course, because of my short legs, so I won't get them for a couple of days. I'm hoping my old ones hold together for that much longer.

I also got some track pants to walk in during winter.

I'm feeling ok about myself, actually. Really determined to get healthy and lose this weight. I still can't use my CPAP due to frequent coughing fits (tried again last night but had to give up) so I'm tired, but I'm over the flu and feeling so much better, even with the coughing!

I started carb loading this morning ready for my glucose tolerance test on Thursday. I always grumble about carb loading. Yes I like toast and potato and rice and biscuits and fruit and pasta. Just not in these quantities! It makes me feel kind of sick. They do know I have insulin resistance, right? So strange, to be deliberately eating the stuff that makes my body sick, so I can so just how sick I get! Like when Dr House makes someone run on a treadmill to see if they have a heart attack. But it's all for a purpose.

Probably bad news

Thursday:

I had my oral glucose tolerance test today after three days of eating lots of carbohydrates and then overnight fasting. I think it is going to be bad news. I felt so shaky and horrible (but not nauseated this time) by the two hour point that the blood-test guy wouldn't let me leave the room until he'd watched me eat my banana and made sure I'd stopped trembling. And more telling, I tested my blood with my own little kit in the bathroom just before that and it was 11.2 mmol/L. Last year, when I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes, it was 10.0. Diabetes starts at 11.1 mmol/L.

I have an appointment with my doctor next Wednesday for the official and more accurate results, but whether I am "officially" diabetic or not I am worse than last year. They have to draw a line on the continuum somewhere, but 11.0 not being diabetes and 11.1 being diabetes is a bit arbitrary anyway. So even if the more accurate test results show I am 11.0, it is just as much of a worry as if I am 0.2 over that.

It was well below freezing this morning, the kids were amazed at all the frost on the grass as I dropped them off at school a bit early, worried about them being out in the cold for 10 mins before school started. I drove to the pathology clinic, parked a couple of blocks away and walked through the numbing cold to find I had forgotten my referral! Arg! And I needed to give a urine sample, too, so I was uncomfortably holding that in, but they wouldn't take it without the referral. I had to go to the bathroom anyway, then back to my car, drove home and got the referral (which had been sitting right under my handbag but I'd forgotten it anyway), drove back and found parking again, back through the frost. Tried to give a urine sample but had almost nothing to give. Just enough, apparently. Phew.

Then I had to sit for half an hour to relax before they started the glucose test. They took blood then I had to drink a bottle of water with 75 grams of glucose in it. Disgustingly, gaggingly sweet. Read a magazine for an hour then another vial of blood. I was starting to feel really cold and a bit trembly but dismissed it because in the past I have felt nauseated if I was reacting badly to the glucose. Another hour, then I secretly tested myself (the number really shocked me, not what I was expecting) and then had the final vial of blood taken. Really shaky by now. The guy made me stay sitting, wouldn't let me bend down even to get my bag, got my banana for me and watched me eat it. That was kind of awkward! He waited with me until I felt a bit better then I could finally leave.

I went to the library nearby and grabbed some books on diabetes and some recipes for diabetic-friendly meals then drove home and made a big salad with some lamb for lunch. I still feel weak and a bit unwell. I suppose a salad doesn't have much carbohydrate, I was trying to be really healthy, but maybe I need some carbs (more than just the banana). I'll have a couple of crackers.

Big big priority to manage this and to lose the weight. Weight loss and regular exercise and both very important for diabetes management.

I put on half a kilo with the three days of carb loading, so my starting point is 80.5kg.

Glucose tolerance test

Wednesday:

I had my glucose tolerance test for diabetes this morning. I don't see the doctor until next Wednesday, which is frustrating. I couldn't even see my usual doctor then, I would have had to wait even longer, so I'm just seeing some random doctor in the same clinic. The results might be ready on Friday, maybe I can get a look at them early. My nutritionist friend can translate them for me, she asked me to get a copy but I forgot.

By yesterday afternoon I was starting to feel a bit unwell. I don't know if it was the cold I've caught from my son, or the high levels of carbohydrates. Or both. My blood sugars were 9.8 two hours after lunch and 9.0 two hours after dinner, both pretty high. The clinic said I can still do the test while I have a cold so presumably it also wouldn't affect these figures.

I started fasting at 9.30pm. I didn't sleep well at all and felt a bit nauseated in the morning after I got up. At the clinic I gave them a wee sample then rested for a while, then they took the vial of fasting blood before I drank the horrible horrible glucose drink -- 75g of glucose in 300mL of water, that is equivalent to 15 teaspoons of sugar. I felt extremely nauseated afterwards and was quite worried about vomiting. I would have loved to lie down somewhere. I also felt very cold, and a bit weak and dizzy. But I got through it and they took blood at one hour and two hours, then I could go.

They didn't do a fingerprick test at the same time (they have in the past, when I did the test at the hospital) so I have no idea what sort of blood sugar level I had. I did think about taking my own testing kit with me, to use in the toilets if they wouldn't show me the fingerprick figures, but decided against it. I wish I had. I hate not knowing stuff.

 I went and had part of a Subway sandwich on the way back to my car but still felt quite nauseated for another hour or so. I'm a lot better now (2.30pm) but still not great; but that could be more about my cold. Runny nose and headache etc.

Now I just have to wait and see. I hate waiting.