Sadly my old GP has moved to a new practice in Devon. I regret this as he was tolerant of my politics (though obviously a screaming Guardian reading trot himself), we chatted at length about olive trees and he always had to chide me on my lack of progress in tackling my type 2 diabetes. How I wish Dr Curry had been there today as I met up with his replacement and met up in a blaze of glory
The blood sugar results from last week are a trailing measure and having scored 122 (whatever that means) three months ago I was in Dr Curry's bad books. That is off the scale. My bloods taken last week were just 70. The target is 42. But those bloods are a trailing measure going back 6-8 weeks. I know from my recent blood tests on my pocket kit that in the two or three weeks leading up to the test I was in "normal range" and thus, ceteris paribus, a test taken in a few weeks would see me coming in at well below 60 or even 50. The word used to describe my progress was "fantastic."
We discussed exercise, a low carb diet and the doctor smiled and nodded approvingly. My cholesterol is not that high and my blood pressure is normal. All in all it is very good indeed. We then turned to the subject of my weight for this morning I braved the scales.
I am just over 6 foot tall and, without divulging my weight, I can say that it is more than five and a half stone off its peak when I was a complete and utter lardbucket but my Body Mass Index (BMI) just puts me by 1 lb into the obese category. I can blather on about how I have a lot of muscle from playing sport when younger and working out in the snake-fields this summer but I cannot hide the fact that I need to lose weight. Okay I am 15 stone 13 pounds.
I cannot see me hitting my fighting weight of 13 stone 7 in a month of Sundays - that would get me into normal range.
But surely I can shed a couple of stone or even get into the mid 14s and just be classed as mildly overweight? That is the task that lies ahead of me. Meanwhile I continue with my 5 pills a day and low carb, almost no alcohol, diet ahead of my next blood tests and chat with the quack in three months time.
"Fantastic progress" - words I never thought I'd hear.