Progress update #5

Million step challenge

I've made great progress so far, clocking up over 200,000 steps so far in less than two weeks. I've overdone it a bit with my 4 mile trek through the local country park and managed to aggravate an annoying blister on my small toe so trying to take it easy this weekend. I knew this would happen at some point, so I'm glad I've got a good head start before having to take a break.

Curry wins and losses

I found a new Indian restaurant hack of having a kachumber salad instead of rice or bread (kachumber can come with fruit so just be wary). I had the Dhaba style chicken curry at Delhi House Cafe in Manchester. Very good and no glucose spike at all which is a relief when eating out as you can never be sure how much sugar goes into sauces.

A few days later, I had something of a daal-disaster with a huge spike after combining daal with 1/2 piece of UPF naan bread (this is what happens when I don't do the food shop). I confounded things by adding peas in a desperate attempt to have a break from broccoli. Blood glucose up to 13.6 mmol/L which is way above my maximum target of 7.8 mmol/L. I spent the evening doing more walking than I usually do to try to get it back down again.

Drinking too much

The hot weather has been giving me beer-garden vibes so I've had four pints of lager this week (my self-imposed limit is two). After a two mile shuffle in 30 degree sunshine to the local village fair with my blister bandaged and double-socked, I wasn't going to pass up a hot dog and a nice cold beer, nor the rest-beer in the pub on the way home. Well that's what Saturdays are for sometimes.

Fasting

I've been thinking more about using fasting more as a dietary tool to help bring my blood glucose baseline down. I often miss a meal out if I'm not hungry but I decided to do a full day's fast last Saturday. It really wasn't as difficult as I thought it would be and it did help to bring my baseline back down. I managed a nice steady 4.5 mmol/L overnight which is bang on normal, non-diabetic range. The only bit of a bump up was from my morning walk which I don't worry about too much as that's clearing stored glucose out of my system.

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Tea mission

I'm slowly becoming an amateur forager. There are loads of blackberries and nettles on my walking routes so I've gathered a few leaves for making teas when fasting, and for morning brews where I like to avoid caffeine as it causes short-term insulin resistance. I've also dragged out some unsightly dandelion leaves from around my garden path. All these leaves contain an interesting range of micronutrients and electrolytes which I'm exploring. I'll get a good recipe together with a breakdown of the different benefits.

Blood glucose still not coming down

This week I've been floating around the 6.0 mmol/L point and I'm dissapointed it's not getting back to 5.7s. I've got my average daily net carbs down to an 71g this week which is better than the 106g from last week, but still above my target of 50g per day. I definitley need to be stricter on bread, cut down on root veg portions and avoid legumes. Naan bread is now definitely 💯% on my banned food list.

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