My Week with my Diabetes...

I had four appointments this week, and three of them had to do with my diabetes: my endocrinologist, a diabetic educator, and my doctor. It was an interesting - and encouraging - week.

The appointment with my endocrinologist, whom I’ll call Dr. M, brought the happy news that I have lost 35 pounds in 12 weeks! Dr. M said she was very impressed, especially since it has taken a while to iron out the (Insurance) kinks for the diabetes education and diet/nutrition classes Dr. M wanted me to get.
She recognized that I deserved the credit for this, since I had done it on my own. (Forgive me if I pat myself on the back here. Ouch, that hurts!) Dr. M was so pleased that she decided to stick with what I have been doing without making any changes for now. After all, don’t mess with success, right? Dr. M looked through the notebook of information I have gathered about various aspects of diabetes, and said that I could probably teach the diabetes educators.

The next day, I drove to La Jolla to keep my appointment with my CDE (Certified Diabetes Educator), who is also an RN. It didn’t take her long to realize that I had indeed researched on my own, and had the basics of diabetes and diabetes treatment down pretty well. The CDE asked what was my “secret” to successful weight loss. I quickly summed it up this way: I have tried to inform myself as best as I could, then have conscientiously tried to put the information into practice. I also decided not to “stress” over meals or days when I “blew” my carb or calorie “budget.” She agreed that this was good advice. I did learn, however, that I need to disregard bold claims on the package of low carb pasta if the nutrition label doesn’t back it up. (And it looks as though it doesn’t! The number of “unsoluble” fiber was far lower than printed on the front of the package.) She also told me that current thinking about  fiber as an element of carbs is that it should not be completely subtracted from the total carb amount to obtain a “net” carbs number; instead, only 1/2 of the fiber number should be deducted, since fiber is good for the body, too. At the end, the CDE thanked me for making her morning so easy.

The following day I had an appointment with my primary care doctor, Dr. N. She, too, was pleased with the weight loss, and not only that, but also with the rate of loss. Losing 2 - 3 pounds per week is optimal, because any loss greater than that tends to be temporary. She was also pleased with my A1c level, which was 6.0. She told me the last time she checked it, it was 6.7. I thought I saw on the record at the diabetes institute that they showed 6.9. Either number is on the high side, while 6.0 is an excellent value.

Dr. N had expressed to me that she had been thinking about starting a library of helpful books that could be shared with patients. I had several cookbooks that I don’t use, and one resource on diabetes that I had duplicated, so I took them with me yesterday. She was very happy to have these, along with a few others that I had previously given. Now her dream of having a library is coming to life. Dr. N agreed with me that dessert cookbooks probably would not get a place in her library. I wonder why...?