At the end of January 2024, I was diagnosed with diabetes. It isn’t uncommon as I was just entering my 50’s with a family history of diabetes. My maternal grandparents had it, my grandfather died of it as well as one of my uncles. I have spent the last 20 years being a nurse in various capacities and have some education in the world of diabetes, but I’m no expert. So when my provider simply said “You can take Metformin or lift weights, or both. It’s up to you,” I sort of lost my mind.
Nurses are notoriously hard to treat medically. We are stubborn and know too much which at times can be our downfall. We find it hard to be a patient rather than being the one taking care of someone else. Self-care is like the first thing to leave you when you become a nurse. It is a life of service to others. We would be the ones NOT putting the oxygen mask on ourselves first, but the ones running up the aisle helping others put theirs on. Sometimes, I think we feel tougher than we are because it is expected.
This diagnosis of diabetes scared the shit out of me, still does. In my lifetime, I have watched people get amputations, die of sepsis, have multi-organ failure all as complications of diabetes. I had often wondered how these people didn’t take better care of themselves. How hard could it be to make some lifestyle changes that would save life and limb? It turns out, it is very challenging.
Diabetes is vast and complicated. It is much more than high sugar and diet changes alone will not constitute being cured of it. Diabetes is CURABLE, yet I still see some patients on three diabetic pills and insulin. What is happening in the world? Well, I understand how this can happen when my provider gave me no education, no plan, no place to jump from other than taking medication and lifting weights. She didn’t even tell me about the medication she wanted me to take and didn’t tell me how many weights to life and how often. I have a healthcare degree, but at that moment, I was a patient, not a nurse and I needed guidance.
I made radical changes in my diet. I even worked with a tracking app, which I hate because they make me crazy obsessive, but I needed to know what I was putting in my body. I needed proof in the form of numbers. I have the best boyfriend, because he did not hesitate to go on this diet and exercise journey with me. We made each other accountable for going to the gym at least 3 days a week for an hour. In the beginning, it was a struggle. I was exhausted, out of shape, and probably the heaviest I had been in 10 years. I wasn’t sleeping well. I was approaching menopause and dealing with some other metabolic issues.
I can’t tell you how many medical journal articles I read about diabetes and medications, about insulin resistance, and exercise physiology. Our motto at home because “We are our own experiment.” I put my body through the ringer. I was lifting weights for an hour a day with 15-30 minutes of cardio four times a week. I was measuring and plotting new workouts, monitoring my sugars, and being very strict with my diet. After four months of this, I dropped my Ha1c from 7% to 6.4%. I was both elated that I could move that number, but also disappointed it wasn’t lower. I expect miracles from hard work, I guess.
I went to see a medical bariatric provider with all of my workout sheets and diet plans and everything that I had done in 4 months. I was very proud of what I accomplished. She looked at all of it and simply said “you’re doing too much.” I was devastated actually. I sat in my car and cried. There was no “good job, ” no “keep it up.” I was admittedly exhausted. I was lifting something crazy like 100,000 pounds a day for four days a week. I had little energy to do anything else in life like hang out with friends or even write poems. I was mission focused. The only good thing to come out of that visit was that I had an equal amount of muscle in all my limbs in the right range. The woman handed me a portion plate and a different diet app which I did for awhile but I got insane with it and started hating life, so I stopped.
In my research, I discovered it was more likely that I had insulin resistance, rather than actual diabetes. I also had multiple disease processes that would cause this: low vitamin D, polycystic ovarian syndrome, peri-menopause, and hypothyroidism. WTF? How come no provider in my damn lifetime told me that this could happen when I was diagnosed with these things? The common American patient is not going to go looking for solutions because we are a country that lives on pills. Take this pill and it will stay under control, but then you have to take another pill for the side effects of that first pill and then it cascades exponentially.
What I found is that weight lifting is the quickest way to reduce sugars because when you work out a muscle while you have insulin resistance, it allows the insulin to move the sugar into the cell for use without a key. The door to the cell swings wide open. When you have insulin resistance and you are inactive or minimally active, the insulin tries to open the cell door to let sugar in, but it can’t seem to get the lock to turn, so the body sends more insulin to help do the job, but then can’t help either. What happens is the sugar stays in the blood stream not being effectively used which makes your sugar go up. This was mind-blowing to me. When I found this information it took me exactly 2 minutes to read it and understand it. Why are doctors not sharing this?
After that article, I changed my exercise plan. I was tired of being exhausted. I was making muscles but could do nothing with them from fatigue. So I started experimenting with different kinds of lifting programs, started mixing cardio in more, and started loving the way that I felt. I learned that for most people HIIT workouts burn up sugar, but for me, it induced a massive adrenaline/cortisol boost that my sugars would be in the 160s for DAYS. SIIT workouts would elevate it for a day or so. I switched to more cardio, less lifting and my energy returned, my sugars were still out of prescribed range, but better. The next Ha1c was 6.1% but that number was still affected by a month of metformin. I had taken that medications for nine months but when it started to make my digestive system not work well, I stopped.
I still do research all the time. I most recently read an article from a neurobiologist who spoke about retraining the brain to be sensitive to insulin by doing long endurance cardio three times a week for 8 weeks. So this means an hour long run or bike or swimming, but it has to be steady state activity. I chose the bike because I have always loved riding. I am currently 5 or 6 weeks into this program of doing 10 mile plus rides. I looked at my blood sugar trends this morning and out of the last thirty days, I had twelve better blood sugars than the thirty days before that with most notably only 3 blood sugars over 140 compared to 6 the month before. I am adding back a little weight lifting for upper body because I do notice that those muscles are starting to wilt a little. Overall, this form of exercise has shown me the most body sculpting, has made me feel good in my skin, so I will most likely stay with the long ride but throw in the few lifting exercises to keep the upper body good.
This was a super long blog. If you made it this far, you care about what your body does. I am not saying that this workout regime will be best for you, but what I am saying is that providers aren’t giving you all the best tools to make you succeed. You have to take charge of yourself. Your body is an amazing machine and if you feed it right and move it right, it will do amazing things. I am not one to encourage the Dr. Google lifestyle because there is so much non-medical garbage out there, but if you are looking things up, choose articles from major hospitals who have all the resources available to them to do research. They will package things in a more readable language. If you want to take a crack a medical journal articles, please do so, but they are hard to read. You have to also do experiments with your exercise. I recommend doing a routine for at least 2-3 months before you decide if it works or not. Take measurements of your body before your start a new routine and then after the 3 months is over. This will tell you if it is working. Weight can go up with lifting as you are building muscle and make you feel like you’ve failed. Don’t let it get you down.
I have been at this for a year and three months. I have lost 30 pounds and 18 inches. I am about 25 pounds from my end goal and I dropped two pant sizes and a shirt size. I look the best I have since I was 25 and more importantly, I feel amazing most of the time. Food will always be a challenge for me I think. It was what I used to comfort myself. Some people do drugs, I did donuts. These days when I want to reach for the sweets I ask myself: are you hungry? are you thirsty? are you tired? are you upset? If I can answer NO to those things, then I probably just want a damn chocolate croissant because it tastes good. Don’t be hard on yourself mentally. Once you make it a permanent part of your life, it will feel easy. High protein, high fiber, lower carbs. It’s a pretty easy recipe.
Thanks for reading and believing in yourself. You can do it. We can do hard things and succeed. Be kind to yourself. Always do that last rep or last mile you think you can’t do. You will surprise yourself just how damn tough you are.
Aleathia
Aleathia Drehmer 