Month: March 2020

Progress Report

I continue to work on eating the right way and moving more. Journaling is still important and I make a point to do it at least once per day. I officially kicked off Omada today. I’ll see what the weekly report looks like next week and figure out how to incorporate it here.

Basically, lost a few pound and made a little progress in BMI. Adding a few more tracking points this week as well. Found an old FitBit and I’m going to see if I can use that to get some sleep details. Tile today is a placeholder.

The spike in AM glucose(3/21/2020) was partially from booze along with mindless eating (see last post). I’ll try to document what happened with any spikes as we go along as well. Probably don’t need the date on the tiles since they will be in a dated post.

Next: Keep focus. Implement Omada coaching, group and learning.

Mindless Eating

This is such a dangerous and deceptive scenario. You grab a bag or box of something and start eating while you are doing something else. Like watching TV or reading. Time passes and you are in auto-pilot as you eat and watch. Next thing you know you have consumed WAY TOO MUCH.

Since you are not focused on the act of eating, you really have no sense of full. You are just eating to eat. Then you numbers are messed up – no surprise there. Hello morning glucose reading of 175.

What to do? How to avoid this? The easiest way is to only take a small amount of whatever you are enjoying and watch TV or read. You will have to take action to get more. A complication is alcohol. If you have a few and you are not fully on your game (buzzed), this adds an extra degree of difficulty. No good answer here. Hide the snacks before you start 🙂

Hazardous Waste?

I was thinking about stuff that gets generated from glucose testing. For lancing, I use the Accu-Chek Fastclix. This is very easy to use and does not have any exposed needle. That said, it is still considered a “sharp” and the used drums should be put into a heavy duty plastic container. You can also purchase inexpensive sharps containers. When 3/4 full, seal it up with duct tape, mark Do Not Recycle on it and toss it in the garbage.

Your state may have specific requirements on how to dispose of these materials. Check out https://safeneedledisposal.org/ for your state.

For test strips, the consensus seems to be it’s OK to toss right in the garbage. Just like you would a band aid. Easy enough.

Another New Scale

I received my Omada scale today. Will get it setup later. It looks pretty easy – add batteries and it should just work. I will likely use this one and the other one I just got. I’m not sure if the Omada app will sync with Apple Health.

The program officially starts this Sunday. Got an email letting me know that my group has been formed. There are 11 other people as well as my coach.

Stress; in the midst

This is an interesting time. COVID-19 is really ramping up and everything is changing. We have never seen anything like this, certainly in my lifetime. Its like a big storm is coming – runs on food and toilet paper. Yep, when I re-read this ten years from now, I need to remember that that was really a thing.

Whether stress is caused by something broad like the coronavirus or work or family or whatever, it adds an order of magnitude of complexity to sticking to your plan. It can be easy to be a little more loose on choices. And some of that is perfectly a-ok! However, I must remember that it can’t totally backslide.

Remaining calm. Knowing what is in my control and what is outside my control can help manage emotions and actions. Deep breaths. Still good advice.

Overnight Questions

I tested my blood glucose first thing in the morning and came up with 150.

I know I had some snacks and drinks pretty late last night. So the question I’m thinking about is how much of that makes up the 150 vs. Dawn Phenomenon? Its been about 8 hours since it was consumed, which seems like a long time.

Progress Report

This will be my first progress report in 2020. I suspect these will be more formal when I get Omada going, but I’ll put some of the stuff I’ve been monitoring in this post.

Weight

Blood Sugar

Next: Move into the Obesity Class I range.