Life before Diabetes

How it used to be

Even although it was only a couple of years back, life before diabetes seems like an eternity ago now. I know some of the GBdoc have had T1D since they were a child. For us late comers diagnosed in adulthood, there was a whole life before diabetes. A whole world existed without sub-consciously counting every carb that passes my lips. The days of just eating whatever I wanted, having a pint of real cider, eating copious amounts of chocolate, having pasta for dinner WITH three slices of thick cut white bread, having apple crumble and custard for afters. Its kind of amazing the way a healthy pancreas just deals with it all really, and I just took that for granted.

Many people have asked if I would like to just not have T1D anymore. The obvious and truthful answer is ”like a shot” of course I would give this disease back given the choice. I know it probably will never happen in my lifetime anyway so its all hypothetical.

I miss……life

I miss loads of things from my Type zero days. I miss not being able to just get up in the morning and crack on with my day, I miss not being able to just jump on my bike and go for a 40 mile ride without 2 days prep, I miss not being able to have a 2am fridge raid without needing Carol Voderman to work out ratios and carb intake, I miss not having to prick my fingers before I eat or drink anything, I miss not having to take up to 6 injections a day just to survive, I miss not having to carry a complete pharmacy with me everywhere I go, I miss people not asking ”can you eat that” I miss not being able to just be ME.

The old me

Four or five years ago I was a bit of a chunk, my weight had crept up to 17 stone, with the diet I just listed out its no wonder really. I decided that enough was enough and that I needed to change my lifestyle and get in shape. I stopped drinking too much, started to exercise and cut a lot of the snacks out of my diet. I started bike riding as a way of shifting the weight, most weeks riding over 100 miles, I found I was actually enjoying this new healthy lifestyle. A lot of effort went into shifting that weight, and I am really glad I did it with what was waiting for me just around the corner.

fat me skinny me
The before and after, I really needed to change
off the mountain
Jumping off the mountain in Olu Deniz

I had reached my target weight of 13 stone and was managing to keep it there, all in all life was pretty good for me at the start of 2014. In June I had a great 2 weeks holiday in Turkey, ate and drunk copious amounts and generally had a blast. Even managed to do para-glide off the side of a mountain. When I came back to good old blighty I jumped on the scales to see what damage I had caused with my 2 weeks of excess and was annoyed to see I had put a stone on 🙁

Not a problem I will just get back into bike riding and shift the weight. That approach worked, by July 2014 I was back to pre Turkey weight, happy days 🙂

It was at this point in my life that things were about to change forever, ➡ check out the story of my diagnosis.

I do worry though that if I hadn’t been diagnosed with T1D I would have slipped back into my old bad ways. In a way I think in the long term having this will make me healthier, just as long as I can ➡ stay on top of the numbers. I will always try and look at T1D in a positive way, there are some good things to come out of all this, check ➡ here  to read all about one of them.

That’s all I got for now, but do keep an eye out for my diagnosis story in the next few days

 

Take care and please don’t swear

Type1bri

 

 

 

 

 

 

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