The other day we were visiting Mum. On the way there, suddenly this little wispy thing appeared in my vision, something that seemed to be floating in my eye. It can't be seen from the outside, but sure can from within, trust me! Plus I was just a little off. Mum picked up on this after we had arrived and offered to test my blood sugar - she is diabetic, as is my brother and uncle on Mum's side, as was my grandmother on Mum's side. The results? Not good. The reading was 20, in whatever units they are, which Mum said was way too high. We tested again the next morning, and it was 14. On both instances, it should be under 10, really well under 10 if we're talking fully normal here.
So I have a problem.
I had a full medical back in 2015, and at that time I was told I was pre-diabetic. I didn't really do much with it to be honest. I thought I was going ok, particularly having lost weight after quitting smoking, but clearly not. Frankly I'd rather shoot myself than inject insulin daily, so I have to address this. The plan was to live sugar-free for a week and see how it went. So we did that, although we had Christmas feasts and a shit-load of booze in the meantime, which probably didn't help. Not probably, clearly. Because when I did a morning test again yesterday, it was still 14.
How TF did we get here? The first signs of sugary pee emerged when we were in KL on our mid-year holiday this year, or perhaps just a little before that. If we look at the period from my medical to then, which is basically four years, we can say that well mid-2015 to mid-2016 certainly involved lots of booze, but it also involved reasonably healthy eating, not so much sugar, and a lot of exercise. I was doing heaps of big walks back in those days, when ASN's decline left me without a lot to do.
From mid-2016 to early 2018, I was at the shop, and eating healthy most of the time. My waistline was testament to that. I mention the activity here because apart from shitty calories, activity also plays a part in blood sugar levels. And there were no symptoms to speak of then.
From early 2018 to mid-2019, it was Kupang. Here, the local food is high in calories and sugar, there is no low-carb beer, and the lay of the place made physical activity difficult. Difficult for someone who doesn't need much to talk them out of it, put it that way. Still, it was probably going ok for the first 6-9 months. That was the point where I realised my boss was taking the piss, the company was going broke, and we were effectively lying to our shareholders. After that, well, as we had no money, I had very little to do. Couple that with my declining attitude towards the place, and suddenly we were into lunchtime beers! Not every day, but several days a week (hey, the boss was happy to crack one at 8am when he was around, but that's another story). So below is what I estimate my typical weekly beer consumption looked like for that second half of the Kupang stint:
Anyway, the crux of it all is that in Kupang, I was consuming more than half of my supposed 2,200 calories per day for a male of my age in booze. When you consider the average Padang meal (God love you Padang, I miss your spicy and saucy ways) is over 1,000 calories on its own, frequently I was consuming my daily total in one meal and booze along. Plus Padang has the whole day's sugar in it too. Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that I believe that in Kupang, a number of factors came together to push me from what had probably been borderline for some time, to full blown high blood sugar. And shit, possibly diabetes. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Following Kupang, we had four months in KL, at wifey's parents house in Sungai Pelek. Whilst the quality of food definitely improved there (NL notwithstanding, and yes, God love you too NL!), the amount of booze and sugar intake did not.
So, here we are. I have immediately ceased eating all candy, lollies, cakes, chocolates, ice cream, and anything else that looks sugary. I have also started recording my calories, although I paused that over Christmas, and will renew it on NYD. We have also had numerous AFD's since those initial readings. But so far, no good. I know what's next...
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