[OnyxCougar]

In April, I was diagnosed with insulin resistant diabetes, type II. Since we believed I was allergic to Metformin, she referred me to an Endocrinologist. Meantime, my A1C was 7.4. My GP prescribed a meter, lancets, and test strips. The meter was not covered under insurance, so I got the $20 model. At first, I changed nothing, and just tested as a baseline. My average blood sugar was 180-200, FASTING, 250-270 2 hours after eating. Out of control.

I decided I was going to go low carb. Not all structured, like Adkins, but just make an eating lifestyle change. I started reading labels and I limited myself to 200 g of total carbs a day.

The first week was the hardest. I did ALOT of "cheating", because I just didn't have the money to throw out all the bad food, and buy all good food. As I went shopping the next week, I didn't pick up an item with out looking at the carbs AND serving size (that's where they get you!!) It quickly became apparent that "light", and "sugar free" don't mean dick when you're talking about carbs. I ended up getting alot of meat, cheese, and fruit/vegetables.

The next week, I started noticing the phrase "net carbs", and looked up what that meant. Basically, there are good carbs (fibre, that take a long time to metabolize and therefore don't "spike" blood sugar) and bad carbs (HFCS, regular CS, refined sugar, maple or other cane sugars, molasses) which cause that spike. That narrowed my choices down alot.

I realized week three that I am allowed 200g of TOTAL carbs a day, so I started picking and choosing how I wanted to eat those carbs. If I did really well throughout the day, then I could have, say, Ice Cream for dessert, as long as I didn't go over my daily number.

Well, my Endocrinology appt came, and I got on the scale. I didn't FEEL any different, I was just trying to get my blood sugar down to a reasonable level.

I had lost 11 pounds. In 2 months. And my A1C was down to 6.2.

I wasn't exercising, nothing different EXCEPT 200g a day. I was elated, and my brand new Doctor was elated, too. We decided to try the Metformin, to see if I could tolerate it. It's been three weeks. The only side effect I'm seeing is that as I've ramped up to the 2g a day of metformin, (being delicate) my BM is not solid. That *may* be because I haven't been hardly eating lately, so I'm not ready to attribute it fully to the Metformin yet.

And I'm losing 2 pounds a week.

And my blood sugars are stable at 100 fasting and 130-150 after meals.

I'm also taking 2 Cinnamon capsules and 1 capsule of Alpha-Lipoic- Acid (ALA) with my Metformin. And my endo sent me to a dietician, who said I should be eating 165 g of total carbs per day: 45g per meal and 15g per snack. (an apple is 15g).

So, not only am I losing the weight slowly and healthily, my blood sugar is at a point where it's considered "very well controlled".

The Doc says if I continue and get my body weight down to "normal" (meet my goal of 175) then we'll taper off the Metformin (and stay on the 165g diet) and see what my sugars do. If they start going back up past a reasonable level, then I'm stuck with Metformin for the rest of my life. But I get to keep my feet!

I'll post weekly (on Mondays) what my weight is, while we are having weigh ins at work for a competition. (I'm 300.4 today, I was 302.6 last week!)

I'm eating meats, cheeses, and my carbs mostly come from fruits (I'm a sucker for watermelon!) and vegetables.
I've also started using soy flour instead of wheat flour, and Splenda instead of sugar (I'm addicted to sweet tea). I keep splenda tablets in my purse and order unsweet tea in restaurants, then add the splenda to taste.

There is a show on Discovery Health channel called "Blaine's Low Carb Kitchen". I DVR it. He's lost over 60 pounds now, eating low carb and exercising. He was a chef for over 20 years, and he makes really good food at really low carb rates. His recipes are on discoveryhealth.com if you don't get the channel. Highly recommended!!