My Journey Toward Health

Okay, so I normally don’t post personal stuff, but I feel as though sharing my story might help one person out there, and if it only helps one person, it’s worth sharing.  This is difficult because I’m generally sort of private (which sounds crazy coming from a blogger).  But with 80 million people sharing the same health concern I have and many of them not even realizing it, I feel compelled to write this post.

If you’ve been around this blog for a while you know I have a 14 year old and a 4 year old.  When I was pregnant with my 14 year old I put on the normal baby weight and took it off afterward with the help of Weight Watchers.  When I put on weight with my 4 year old (now in my 40’s) I knew it would be harder to take off but felt it would come off with a little discipline.

To my surprise, it didn’t come off as easily.  In fact, my weight seemed to stay the same no matter what I did.  I would diet and exercise and I would weigh within 2 pounds of the starting weight.  I would stop exercising and wouldn’t watch what I ate and would still weigh within 2 pounds of my starting weight.  I chalked it up to the big metabolism slow down I had heard other 40+ year old women complain about.  Life was busy with graduate school, an infant, and work so I did the best I could and decided maybe I wouldn’t ever be thin again and came to terms with it.

It seemed like it was all too much for me, because many nights I would fall asleep in the chair after putting the kids to bed at 9:00.  I was so tired.  I didn’t have the energy I did with my first child and thought it was just because I was 10 years older with this baby.  I often found myself often craving pretzels or cereal at night.  I dismissed it as having too much on my plate, not really getting enough sleep etc….  I’m sure we can all relate to that.

A few years went by of working, studying, taking care of kids, and just doing the things we moms do, putting ourselves last.  I accrued a wardrobe in a new bigger size (putting all my weight on in my tummy mostly) and just kept living life, until….

I started to have some annoying problems.  I can’t believe I’m about to share this…but here it goes.  I started to have yeast infections (something I had never had in my life).  I couldn’t figure out why this was happening.  I switched to a sensitive skin soap, bought 100% cotton panties etc…and the problem seemed to keep occurring.  I made an appointment with my OBGYN and set off to find out what I was doing that was causing this.  She sat down and really asked me a lot of questions about my day to day life.  I cried.  Everything I was trying to do with doctoral work, a toddler, work, and trying to be super mom left me exhausted, fat, overwhelmed, and not happy.  Her recommendation was something I would have never dreamed of.  She referred me to an endocrinologist (a doctor who works with people with diabetes).

The alarms went off in my head because my grandmother had diabetes and both of my aunts do.  I  made my appointment and went in to see the endocrinologist.  He ordered bloodwork for me and a glucose tolerance test. When the results came back I was floored.  I’m insulin resistant. Insulin resistance is a pre-cursor to becoming pre-diabetic which of course is a pre-cursor to becoming diabetic.  In actuality, insulin resistance is really being pre-diabetic.  Left untreated, the chances of becoming diabetic increase along with a myriad of other health concerns.

I’m sharing this with you today for a few reasons.  First, I don’t know how long I have been insulin resistant.  My guess is for at least 2-3 years before I ever knew it.  I didn’t know there was such a thing.  I thought you were either diabetic or not diabetic.  I always thought people with diabetes were always thirsty, shaky, lethargic etc…  I didn’t know you could feel essentially “normal” and really be on the diabetes track.  I want to spread the word.  There are millions of people walking around with insulin resistance and they don’t know it.  Second, I’m going to share my journey with you from time to time including recipes/books/information.  I’m doing this to hopefully help someone else and to keep me accountable.

The most researched based practice for treating insulin resistance is to adopt a low carb / low sugar lifestyle along with a healthy exercise plan.  Easier said than done.  Believe me.  Somehow I am going to have to find willpower I didn’t know I had.

So, you may be wondering what the symptoms of insulin resistance are.  According to the Global Diabetes Community they are: Lethargy, Hunger, Difficulty Concentrating, High Blood Pressure.  This is why it is so hard for people to discover they have it because we don’t get enough sleep and feel tired, we all get hungry, we have a million things going on and sometimes can’t concentrate, and many people don’t  monitor their blood pressure.

Looking back, here are my experiences with these symptoms and my dismissal of them.

I was lethargic, but with a small child and graduate school I couldn’t be lethargic.  I lived on coffee and forced myself to keep moving.  Many times though I would feel tired driving in my car home from work.  The kind of tired that makes you want to pull over and close your eyes for a while.  A lot of nights I would fall asleep in the chair.  Now that I have my sugar levels under control I feel more like my normal self and have to force myself to get to bed because I could just stay up.

I was hungry.  Not your normal kind of hunger though.  This is a battle I still fight.  My love for carbs.  I always felt like I needed something sweet after dinner.  When I needed a snack I always reached for a high carb snack like pretzels, crackers or a bowl of cereal.  With my morning coffee I wanted a muffin or piece of toast right away.  It was a real craving.  I craved high sugar fruits like strawberries and pineapple.  When I was feeling tired I would turn to one of these snacks for a little pick me up.  Little did I know I was in a viscous cycle.

I had difficulty concentrating.  Looking back this was super evident.  Half-way through my doctoral coursework I became pregnant.  Before the pregnancy I was really adept at writing papers.  I could crank out a 14 page paper in one long day.  I could organize the structure of the paper in my mind and easily write the first draft without very much difficulty.  After I had Luke, it seemed like I couldn’t write anymore.  I would sit at the computer and it just wouldn’t flow.  I also seemed to miss deadlines and meetings for my oldest son’s activities.  It seemed like I was always the mom who didn’t have it together.  The one who forgot to bring a baked good to the fundraiser or send in the permission slip that was on the refrigerator.   I dismissed all of this to just being too busy.

High Blood Pressure. I have never had an issue with this one so it wasn’t a symptom for me.

My hope is that sharing my story may help someone out there.

This is just my story about finding out I am insulin resistant.  This is not intended to be medical advice in any way. If you have any health concerns I would urge you to discuss your concerns with your physician.  I’m so thankful my OBGYN had the insight to send me to the endocrinologist.

I’ll be sharing some books/recipes/tips in the future.  If you are still reading this, thank you!  You deserve some sort of certificate.  I debated about sharing this for quite some time.  After all, we all want to appear as though everything is perfect in our world.

P.S. As I write this please know there are dirty dishes in my sink and kid debris from one end of the house to the other.  The whole truth is out there.