This is my eternal struggle, a fight that a lot of us fight day by day.
Each day I have to say to myself....Not today Mister, maybe tomorow, I will treat myself tomorow.
This is not a weight or dieting struggle, yeah I am a bit overweight and a belly that slows me down a little bit but, I have made peace with my body a long time ago. This is a struggle with Type 2 Diabetes. I was diagnosed a couple of years or so back and although this was not the reason for going to the doc that day it is the present she left me with.
At first I felt like my world was tumbling down a deep dark abyss and everything that was me was suddenly lost.
Visits to the dietician multiple times, walking away with lists of what to eat and what to avoid, dos and don'ts left me more confused than I ever was. The depression that follows is almost unavoidable....my body is letting me down and my life is over.
After the initial shock and wanting to lock myself in a dark room a light started flickering in my mind: "You can get through this." That's when my research mind kicked in and I started reading as much as I could get my hands on. I spent hours on the net trying to find answers and a way to live with this wall that just popped up in my life.
At first I changed everything in my food cupboard, nothing was good enough and if it had an inclination of any carbs or sugar it was out the door and into the bin. My poor housemate and long term friend suffered through it all with me....noooooo sodas .......NOOOOOO BREAD and above all no ALCOHOL the most evil of evils. I think this was the most major change in my life.
ALCOHOL.....
I was never an abuser of alcohol in my mind but as any young male, unmarried with no children I could have a couple without getting an earful. I never really went partying during the week as I have a very responsible character and being hungover at work just did not work for me.
On the weekend was a different story and we frequented pubs, clubs and had many house parties. My friends usually knew when I was in a party mood, they would joke and say the "TRAIN IS COMING," as soon as the vodka and redbull came out. When this train started going very little could stop it and no brakes would work. Luckily everybody always had a great time as I am a very funny and loveable drunky.
Hindsight... All those sugar rushes getting drunk and hangovers on Sundays recovering from a weekend partying, drinking sodas to ease the pain and the headaches was a major contributer to my situation. My biggest loss here was not the alcohol but that fun-loving, loveable teddybear I became when I was drunk. I was left with "serious me" who was always responsible, can't tell a joke for the life of me and struggled to have fun with all my friends.
No sodas ?
This was not that hard for me as I was always a big water drinker. Missed it a little but coke was a friend when I was at work on the sites and the sun was burning down on us. It was a great energy boost when you needed that lil extra but of course it was pure sugar.
No BREAD noooooooo..... How will I survive?
I basically was brought up on bread. It made up at least two meals of each day, breakfast and lunch with a good meal most nights that included vegetables in my parents house. It was me and how I lived all my life. Grownup me worked outside and all over the place. Waking up at 5 am and getting home late left little time for wholesome cooking and healthy packed lunches. BREAD was the go-to and BURGERS and PIES were the staple food during the day. When I could get home early enough to cook we would have some veggies but some nights we were to tired or lazy to cook and ended with more burgers and pizzas..... more bread
This was most probably the hardest thing to shed from my life. It's been a part of me for so long and a friend to depend on when the sudden hunger strikes. There is nothing like the smell of freshly baked rolls, almost comparable to bacon.
Irresistible ....
To ease the withdrawal I tried these puffed breads, basically air if you ask me. Tried the seed type breads but then out of the blue got another bad diagnosis called diverticulitus and then eating anything with seed or roughage was out the window.
What was I left with...... lettuce???
Eventually I brought my sugar levels down and although I still had to take medication it seemed under control with a very strict diet of lettuce...lettuce and more fucking lettuce...joking there was some broccoli in there.
I started experimenting ( the researching me ) having a slice here and there but keeping a close eye on sugar levels. I realised with the amount of daily activities on the construction sites that it gave me a small window of leeway to cheat a little bit here and there with no real bad sugar level spikes still keeping things under control. I kept my alcohol consumption down to a minimum and THE TRAIN has maybe left the station once or twice in the last couple of years. I still like that teddybear but the consequences the next day is just not worth all the hugs. I have learned other ways to get those hugs in any case.
So while you read this during your lunch and chuck down that Subway and coke I dont want you to stop eating anything you love, eat that sarmie , just not every meal, drink that cola, just not 2 gallons of it, drink a whiskey with water, not that vodka and redbull and you could prevent having to go through what I did.
I now live a much more balanced life and step out every now and then. All hard work needs to be rewarded, just not today....