After nearly decade of trying and failing to get here, I’ve finally reached this goal. I’m officially under the 300 pound mark.
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Wordless Wednesday: A Goal Achieved
Posted in Health, Inspiration, Life, Photos, Wordless Wednesday, You Can Do This
9 Comments
A New Look for My Diabetic Heart
Dude, what happened to My Diabetic Heart? It’s so… different.
Yep, you’re right, it is different. After four years of blogging here at MDH, I decided it was time for a new look.
While I love the old design, I reached a point where I felt it just wasn’t working anymore. The main navigation area at the top is limiting, main post area isn’t quite wide enough, the header area eats up too much real estate on the screen, and the sidebars are a pain in the butt to maintain.
And, the design really doesn’t work well across the various web enabled devices on the market.
Enter the new design.
It addresses all of the issues mentioned above, and provides more flexibility to accommodate some new ideas I have in the works for the future.
Admittedly, the transition is very much a work in progress. I’m still working on flushing out some of the content blocks that were on the old layout, and will be creating a new blogroll page soon, and updating some of the other pages. But the biggest change is done.
I’m quite happy with how things are shaping up. Question is, what do you think? Drop me a comment and let me know.
Cheers!
Posted in Announcements
19 Comments
Review: Emotional Eating with Diabetes
When I think about a book on diabetes and emotional eating, I think of something like a college textbook filled with hundreds of pages of psychological mumbo-jumbo and medical terms that I would need a PhD in order to understand.
Thankfully, Ginger Vieira‘s new book, Emotional Eating with Diabetes, is nothing of the sort.
It’s essentially a 46 page workbook, designed to help you identify the problems that you may have with emotional eating, pinpoint the causes of the problems, and help lay out a plan for addressing those problems and moving on. The audience? People living with any type of diabetes.
Within the fun, inviting cover you’ll find some of Ginger’s own experiences, as well as the experiences of some well known names with in the diabetes online community, including Cherise Shockley, Scott Johnson, George Simmons, Mike Lawson, to name a few.
The forward of the book is written by Dr. Bill Polonsky, author of the book Diabetes Burnout, and CEO of the Behavioral Diabetes Institute.
Overall I found the book to be rather easy to read and understand. The work sheets through out the book are helpful and thought provoking. And while the primary audience of the book is folks living diabetes, I think it could be helpful to anyone who struggles with emotional eating.
Personally, I have something of a love/hate relationship with food, and I’m looking forward to going back through the book in my own time and seeing about working through my issues.
For now, though, I encourage you to give Emotional Eating with Diabetes a read if you haven’t already done so.
It’s available on Amazon.com in printed edition and e-book edition. And it’s also available as an audio book. Check it out!
Posted in Diabetes, Inspiration, Life, Photos, Reviews, Shout outs
1 Comment
Spare a Rose, Save a Child
Valentine’s Day is rapidly approaching and we, the Diabetes Online Community, have an opportunity to use this occasion to help the International Diabetes Federation’s Life for a Child program.
The idea behind “Spare a Rose, Save a Child” is simple. Take the typical “dozen roses,” a gift that’s quite popular on Valentine’s Day, and save just one rose to spare the life of a child. You buy one less rose this Valentine’s Day and share the value of that flower with a child with diabetes in the developing world. Your loved one at home still gets flowers and you both show some love to someone across the world who needs it.
The initiative was spearheaded by Kelly Close, Manny Hernandez, Bennet Dunlap, Adam Brown, Jeff Hitchcock, and Kerri Sparling, and it is supported by the good folks at Johnson & Johnson.
Share the love this Valentine’s Day. Spare a Rose, Save a Child!
Posted in Announcements, Diabetes, Inspiration, Life, Photos, Shout outs
3 Comments
Wordless Wednesday: Logging results with Victoza
A week or so worth of logging results while taking Victoza.
Posted in Diabetes, Lessons Learned, Life, Medications, Photos, Wordless Wednesday
4 Comments
Diabetes Goes Mobile
Today is the 4th Annual Diabetes Art Day and I’m proud to be able to participate in and support this awesome initiative started by my friend Lee Ann Thill.
Over the last few years, my entries for this event have been solo efforts, thought up, designed and crafted by me. This year, however, April got in on the fun, too. She’s had an idea for creating a hanging mobile using diabetes supplies for a couple of years now, but we just haven’t been able to get it done. We discussed ideas over the last week and decided this would be a great time to make it happen.
So, I gathered up a bunch of empty Lantus and Byetta Pens, some empty test strip vials, some pen needles, some bright blue crafting wire, a hot glue pot and some string, and we spent the weekend bringing April’s idea to life.
The circle that forms the top of the mobile is cardboard from a box that received diabetes supplies in a while back. It’s covered with the full color instruction sheet that is included in a box of Lantus pens. Each Pen-dulum is anchored to the top with glue, with a pen needle as a cap. And each pen-dulum is a little shorter than the next, and are hung in descending order, creating a spiral effect. The spiral effect is symbolic of the fact that sometimes, diabetes spirals out of control, and the steps one has to take to climb back up to regain control. And the Byetta pen in the center? Well, that’s the very last Byetta pen that I used before switching to Victoza a couple of weeks ago. It’s topped with a blue circle that April made with the crafting wire.
And so, without further adieu, I give you our creation which I’ve dubbed “Diabetes Goes Mobile”. Enjoy!
As a Lord of the Rings fan, I couldn’t help but call the top of the mobile “The Fellowship of the Pen Needles”.
Posted in Diabetes, Diabetes Art, Diabetes Art Day, Inspiration, Life, Photos
10 Comments
A Fitbit Durability Test
This afternoon, while out and about, I discovered that my Fitbit Ultra was missing. I usually have it clipped to the side of my pants pocket, and when I reached in to grab a pen, it wasn’t there.
I posted a FB status update stating as such, and a fellow Fitbit fan replied that they always “lose” theirs getting in and out of the car. And then it dawned on me that I heard something hit the ground when I got out of the car as I was returning home from work last night. It was dark and I couldn’t see anything, so I shrugged it off and went inside. Was too cold out to worry about it anyway. And then I remembered that I had to move the car again, so April could get out this morning.
Long story short, I ran over the Fitbit and it ended up under my car tire for the night. I found it lying in the snowy tire tracks when I moved the car this afternoon.
There was some visible damage to the little thing. The device itself was cracked open, and the hard-plastic holder was cracked as well.
Surprisingly, it still appeared to work after being ran over and trapped in the cold, wet snow under my car tire for several hours.
I was happy to see it on and working, but I knew that wouldn’t mean much if it had been damaged enough that it wouldn’t sync with the Fitbit website. So, I fired up the computer, placed the Fitbit on the docking station, and attempted to sync with the site. And, it worked!
On one hand, I think I just got really lucky. And time will tell if this thing is really functioning properly. I’ve been thinking about upgrading to the Fitbit One model anyway, so I’ll probably go ahead and do that now.
On the other hand, though, it says something about how well the device is made if it can withstand the hell I accidentally put it through. So, kudos to Fitbit for making such a durable product.
Posted in Lessons Learned, Life, Photos, Reviews
5 Comments
Nearly Wordless Wednesday: Victoza and the Mail.
Picked this up from the pharmacy today.
The really cool WDD Postcard I received today.
And the get well soon card from my grandmother’s church. Made the prayer list after my fall/cracked ribs.
Posted in Diabetes, Diabetes Art, Photos, Wordless Wednesday
1 Comment
Changing my D routine
Well, I went to the doctor this morning for a routine visit and big changes are coming to my diabetes management routine in the coming weeks, as I work toward improving my BG’s and A1C numbers. New year, new routine.
Starting Friday, I’ll be switching from using Byetta twice a day to using Victoza once a day. I’ll start with a dose of .6 mcg for one week, then increase to 1.2 mcg for a week, before the final increase to 1.8 mcg.
I’ll be changing up my Lantus routine again as well, as I’m going back to taking it once a night starting with 30 units.
After 3 weeks of adjusting to the Victoza and Lantus changes, the biggest change in my management routine will take place.
Adding fast acting insulin for meals. I made the decision to ask the doctor for this. I feel it’s the best course of treatment for me at this time.
I’ll be taking either Humalog or Novolog, I haven’t got the scripts yet, and I’ll be taking it 3 times a day using a sliding scale.
The scale being:
150 – 200 = 4 units
201 – 250 = 6 units
251 – 300 = 8 units
301+ = 10 units
This will be a big change, and will take some time to adjust to, but I’m optimistic that it will be a good thing for me. Time will tell. I can say that I’m thankful that I’m part of a community of supportive and helpful individuals who are willing to help and answer questions I’m sure to have along the way. Thank you all in advance.
For now, I’m trying to take it easy and focusing on recovering from the cracked ribs and bruising sustained during a nasty fall on January 12. It’s now 10 days later and I’m in just as much pain now as I was when I happened. I’m told it could be a month or more before the pain eases, and as much as 6 months or more before things are completely healed and back to normal.
On that note, it’s pain pill time.
Posted in Diabetes, Doctor Visits, Health, Heart, Lessons Learned, Life, Medications
7 Comments
Wordless Wednesday: First Workout of 2013
2.74 miles in 65 minutes = 466 calories burned.
Posted in Diabetes, Exercise, Health, Heart, Inspiration, Life, Photos, Wordless Wednesday
5 Comments
My Diabetic Heart 