Progress update #14

Million step challenge

I've completed the one million step challenge on Sunday 14th September. Thanks to everyone who has sponsored me. It's helped to give me an added sense of purpose to the three month challenge. Before the challenge, my daily average steps were around 5,500 steps per day as part of my daily walk to the office from the car park and back. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to manage the 11,000 steps a day average to be able to complete the challenge so I started practicing at the beginning of June and built up to that level, but still feeling a bit daunted. Now I can easily manage 16,000 steps per day and my personal record is 26,828. My furthest walk was to Stoneclough and back through Farnworth which was just over seven miles.

I've found walking has been one of my best tools in tackling type 2 diabetes because it's low-intensity and you can easily build up to longer sessions and gradually increase pace. I've also tried doing some Japanese interval walking - where you alternate 3-5 minutes of very fast walking followed by 3-5 minutes of relaxed pace walking over 20-30 minutes. I find listening to music makes this easier as I just switch pace at the end of each song.

I think the regular walking has been the main thing that has helped me shift an extra couple of stone over the summer. Last week was nice because I managed to fit comfortably into a medium size in Next. Two years ago, I couldn't fit in any of their clothes and had to make do with 3XL from M&S.

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The benefits of epicatechin

This week I've been learning about the benefits of dark chocolate and trying to figure out how best to get more epicatechin into my diet. I've been trying different cocoa recipes to get a regular habit in place that doesn't make too much mess.

The curse of good news

At the end of August, I'd got my 7-day average glucose down to 5.0 mmol/L and I knew maintaining that would be difficult. There's a natural tendency that follows a good health report - where you feel that you've done well, so it's okay to ease off a bit as you've earned a break. I think this is an almost subconcious thing, and I've been through it before, so I knew that maintaining such a low glucose level would be tricky. Even so, I've gone from bad to worse this week and that's down to two things:

• Easing off the carb-counting with pub dinners when out socialising
• Adding pulses to my beef chilli recipe

The smell of curry when I walked into our favourite food pub on Saturday was too much to resist so I had the lamb madras. I really should have had more sense to swap or remove the naan bread, poppadom and mango chutney... Having chips was already pushing my luck.

Beanz meanz bad glucoze

I made a huge slow cooker pot of beef chilli last Monday which was enough for four meals each (for two people) throughout the week. Because I don't like wasting food, rather than throw it away, I've been having to fast for most of the day after each portion. I knew legumes are quite high in carbohydrate, but I've underestimated just how high they'd keep glucose levels up for a prolonged period of time. I'm putting this one down to learning - I won't add anything other than a small amount of one type of bean to any chilli recipe next time. Legumes are fantastic for endurance athletes, but maybe not for diabetics who are trying to keep glucose levels down.

Alcohol

The previous weekend was a bit heavy, but looking at last week as Monday to Sunday, I've managed four dry days and 33 units which has beat my target of three dry days and 40 units. For this week, I'm going to try to keep to just two drinking days and keep it under 38 units which is roughly:

• 2.5 bottles of wine
• 2 pints of lager
• 4 measures of spirits

Gym

I'm keeping to my three days per week routine. I'm gradually increasing weights and managing 9.5km on the bike in my 20 minute cardio session. I'd like to be able to get to 10km in the next few weeks but not going to push too hard too soon, as I'm conscious of my heart rate getting very high while doing this. My goal is to focus on training myself to maintain the 9.5km over the next few weeks to help me get my heart rate down while doing the exercise.

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