Happy and Sad at the same time

I have been to the Doctor several times over the last two months. I don't usually go that often, but First I needed some blood work to check my Meds (cholesterol, Blood pressure and Diabetes.) Then I was having horrible gagging episodes every morning for a week (Dee thought I was having morning sickness ;-) Finally I had stuffed sinuses for two weeks, and I found out that I had a sinus infection (I am still getting through that one :-(

The Happy Part; On each visit I found out that I had lost weight (see my May 29th Blog Post) 15, 5 and 3 pounds respectively. I was really surprised at each loss, and how they have continued. I have made some decent changes to my lifestyle, but there is sooooo much more I could be doing.

The Sad Part; Now that I seem to making progress on my weight loss, other health indicators seem to be going in the opposite direction.

My A1C has gone up quite a bit (it measures your average blood sugar for the past 2 or 3 months.) It has historically been in the good range, even if my daily blood sugar readings were a bit high. During the past 3 or 4 months I have reduced the amount of soda I drink drastically. I used to drink multiple servings a day (64 ounces or even more.) Lately I have been drinking one or two servings a day (12-24 ounces.) I always thought of my soda drinking as my ace up my sleeve, something I could cut out and have a dramatic impact on my diabetes quickly. Despite those reductions my A1C still went up, and they upped my oral diabetes medicine dosage.

On top of that my blood pressure has been very inconstant. Some days it is OK, then others it is high again. From what I understand I am at the maximum odsage for my current Meds, so we would have to look at more serious medicine if I can't get it under control.

To make matters even worse, it seems my gym has cut back on their hours AGAIN, and now they close at 10pm during the week (they used to be open 24 hours, then close at midnight, then 11:00.) This means that I can't go to the gym work when I am closing, I don't leave the store until 9:30 or so, and it's a 25 minute drive to get there. I love working out after work, I can get all my stress worked out, and Dee and Bailey will already be asleep so I won't be sacrificing any family time. I have a great rate at the gym,. but it isn't so great when you can't get there while it is open (I am NOT a morning person, so working out in the morning before work is not really an option.) I am going to go talk to them later this week and see what can be done, I am not to happy with about going to a more expensive gym that is farther away.

I have started making some changes already. I ordered a new high tech BP monitor (thank you @mrxinu !!) to keep close tabs on my blood pressure. I have also started monitoring my blood sugar more closely. My Doctor didn't want me constantly monitoring my sugar, he says it just makes people depressed about having diabetes, and doesn't have much of an impact on most people sugar levels. I am going to work even harder at cutting out soda (I can't do diet, yuck !) Wish me luck, and if you have any advice or words of encouragement please send them my way (billmdee at gmail dot com or @billmdee on twitter, plus I am on Facebook)