97 days ago
As you may be aware my type 2 diabetes was raging and I was in a bad way at around Christmas. Since then, there has been a complete lifestyle change. I cannot reverse some of the damage done but it is in my power to stop things getting worse. This morning there is a very positive an update on my weight and my blood sugars.
502 days ago
I realise that the cakes made by CakeBox (CBOX) are not strictly comparable with those you can buy at Tesco, Aldi, or for metropolitan elitists like my pal Jonathan Price, Waitrose. Cakebox cakes contain no eggs so are great for Hindus (1.7%of the population) and vegans ( 4.5%). And there are some with a sweet tooth and, almost certainly type 2 diabetes, like Lucian Miers who really dig the taste. But…
1492 days ago
I speak as a type 2 diabetes sufferer, today’s Covid ramp from Vela (VELA) is total bollocks. I also cover stinky share dumping by the Trainline (TRN) bird, Petra Diamonds (PDL), where I am vindicated again but not holding my breath for BBMs to apologise, Wishbone Gold (WSBN), Panthera Resources (PAT) and POS Mosman Oil & Gas (MSMN) – now in the Minus 99% club. Time for boardroom bonuses all round I reckon, as it places again.
2252 days ago
One week down and my every other day visits to the gym continue. Joshua loves it and asks to go every day as kind Perry, the stalwart of the local Tories and the gym manager, allows him to watch Thomas The Tank Engine on the screens while I slog away at the treadmill.
2255 days ago
I am conscious that I have put on a few pounds during the summer, that my blood sugar is too high – though not off the scale as it once was – and that action is needed to lose weight and to get/keep my type 2 diabetes in check. Thus it is time to visit Perry, the stalwart of the local Tory party, who runs a gym half way between Joshua’s nursery, aka the borstal, and our house here in Bristol.
2334 days ago
It is now less than four weeks until myself and Brokerman Dan try to walk from Horse Hill to Woodlarks to raise money for this charity which I have backed for 16 years and which does amazing work as you can see HERE. Dan is far fitter than I am and sent late night texts on Friday saying that he had managed a 21 mile walk but was a wreck and needed a lighter rucksack. I know it is hot up in Manchester what with all those fires on the Moors but I think he is kidding me. It is all psychology. My plan was to do 26 miles on Sunday.
2399 days ago
I could not sleep this morning as I pondered me and drink. My prompt was the ramblings of a pal who was, I fear, drunk in charge of a keyboard. In days gone by I too was a heavy drinker.
2414 days ago
Please do not get me wrong, the Shadow Home Secretary is very stupid and wrong on almost every issue going. As a type 2 diabetic myself I cannot forgive her for using her diabetes as a reason to dodge the heat of an election campaign, it gives the wider population a bad impression of her fellow sufferers. But this morning on the radio the old bag was being interviewed and I said to myself "spot on Comrade." I never thought I'd find myself saying that.
2672 days ago
I now drink almost no alcohol as I battle to keep type 2 diabetes in check by keeping my blood sugars down. But apparently I may have got it all wrong. Or maybe not.
2681 days ago
This is not the sort of matter that my father would consider that a gentleman should discus in public. But, as my critics often point out, I am no gentleman and, in 2017, we should perhaps talk openly about men's health. I have for some weeks had intermittent pains in my private parts and my left testicle now appears to be larger than my right one.
2686 days ago
As i explained earlier, it is my duty to pick fruit in the Shipston garden created by my father and late step-mother. And thus I cleansed most of the dessert goosberry bush.
2701 days ago
Sadly my old GP has moved to a new practice in Devon. I regreat 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
2714 days ago
I am meant to test my blood sugars twice daily and be in a range of 5-7 whatever that means.Almost two months ago I was 15.3 but these days an almost zero carb, almost zero alcohol, low stress and modest daily exercise lifestyle plus five pills a day has seen me happily in "normal" territory for someone tackling type 2 diabetes, for some days. But I just tested myself and it was 9.6. WTF!
2716 days ago
I really do not understand this type 2 diabetes. There was I celebrating several days within a normal range of 5-7 and I woke up in the sevens. That was bad enough to prompt me into leading a very blameless day with a normal breakfast of a bit of bacon and eggs and a very modest lunch of fried zucchini. I then worked up a great sweat with hard manual labour chopping frigana at the Greek Hovel. And thus by eight PM, pre-swim my blood sugar reading had plunged to ...WTF?
2721 days ago
Amid a general feeling of despondenc and uncertainty, the one constant joy is my blood sugar levels as I tackle type 2 diabetes. It is eleven days since I got back to Greece and I continue my regime of moderate exercise and avoiding booze and carbohydrates at all cost. Well almost.
2724 days ago
Please do not read into this that I am enjoying a day of gorging on baklava or downing gallons of retsina. far from it. As it happens I have not had a drink for more than ten days and I am really enjoying being sober every day. It is not that I have had so much to drink that I have had a hangover for months and months. I really do not enjoy that sort of drinking any more. But I actually feel better for not drinking at all.
2727 days ago
Just a very quick note on my blood sugar levels as I battle type 2 diabetes. Yesterday i reported how the trend was my friend as i re-started the fightback. After a day of hard olive pruning, swimming, no booze and healthy eating more dramatic progress has been made.
2728 days ago
As you may remember when I was joined in Greece my by wife and her family my type 2 diabetes control went badly off the rails. In the ten days i spent in England there were days when I almost gave up. I was not dreadful, I ate no chocolate and I did take some exercise but not a lot. But I had a few drinks and some days I skipped my medication. I was angry with myself and depressed. But my flight back to Greece on Tuesday marked a new beginning. So we start the clock again.
2746 days ago
I am now, once again, doing regular resting of my blood sugar levels. And after a break of a few days I am again taking my medication. Being by myself since Sunday lunchtime has assisted in a no alcohol diet and a meal schedule which is regular and healthy. I wonder could I spin out a diet based on two Greek Salads a day plus raw oats into a 30,000 word diet best-seller? Probably not.
2748 days ago
I have not even bothered to test my blood sugar levels for the past few days. I know they are up. I can feel a couple of the symptoms of type 2 diabetes making a minor comeback. Last night, for instance, I felt the need to piss several times. Net result: no sleep. And it is all so predictable. I could kick myself. Or certain others.
2750 days ago
An hours olive pruning each day is good for the olives and good for me. For starters it is some exercise to keep the type 2 diabetes at bay. Reach up, saw, reach down, axe, reach up axe, look around to check for snakes, hear a noise, panic, discover its not a snake, stop panicking, walk over the rocks and bushes to the next tree, check there are no snakes. Repeat. Repeat again. If I could do this every day the pounds would roll off.
2764 days ago
My strips for my English meter should have arrived by Fedex yesterday. They have not. And so i am still on the Greek meter where my readings are all over the shop. Overall the trend seems down and yesterday post run I scored a reading of 106 which I gather is 5.9 in proper money. Okay vigorous exercise really spoofs the meter but three weeks ago I could have run a marathon and still not got anywhere near that level. Okay that is a lie.
2767 days ago
As you know I measure my fluctuating weight by the waist size of the trousers that best fit. 32 inches and I am back where i was at 18 when Abbe Aronson broke my heart, something that still traumatises me to this day. I was also at 32 when the Guardian newspaper, in a very rare moment of vision, described me as "the housewife's favourite" as I presented SMTM on Channel 4. 44 ( or was it 46) was my bloated peak. I started this holiday in 36 inch jeans.
2768 days ago
This is all great news if a tad embarrassing. Very healthy eating, lots of exercise and no booze is definitely helping me shed the pounds. As i wandered back into the hotel elevator yesterday evening I looked and with my trousers slipping down my boxers were clearly visible. However much I hitch up my 36 inch trousers they keep on falling down. What good news.
2770 days ago
Having explained to the nice lady who runs my favourite restaurant here in Kalamata why I had to turn down a free ouzo she expressed great sympathy about the plight of a man with type 2 diabetes. And thus, having finished my grilled octopus and black eyed peas and mountain greens, I was presented with a bowl of soup.
2772 days ago
On my new machine, the blood sugar reading this morning was 195, up from 146 the prior day. What on earth had I done wrong? I ate sensibly, I took good exercise and I only had one ouzo. It must have been the ouzo. I cursed myself. I reckon that reading is up in the high ten points old scale. Type 2 diabetes is a real bastard,
2774 days ago
The excitement of the snake killing left me so excited that I skipped lunch which I know is not the way that a man with type 2 diabetes should behave. There is no need to lecture me. Perhaps i should not admit that i had also more or less skipped breakfast, having just one small piece of rough bread. The oddity is that I am eating far less but am not hungry. Well it is not that odd.
2774 days ago
After my sedentary Easter Sunday I was determined to make amends with a perfect display of type 2 diabetes virtue on Bank Holiday Monday and thus having skipped breakfast I picked up my car and headed out to the Greek Hovel. There were wildlife encounters as I explain here and that must have seen me sweat off a few pounds. Indeed my 36 inch trousers are not very obviously starting to fall down. I must, every now and again, hitch them up to spare my blushes.
2775 days ago
My blood sugar levels s have remained pretty good over the past few days. After my 9.3 on Friday I came in at 9.5 on Saturday and 9.9 on Sunday morning. I am running low on the little sticks you put in the machine so am on morning only tests pro tem. But Easter Sunday saw me hammering away at my laptop and drinking coffee. I had no car at that point and the cafe kept on giving me a little biscuit with my coffees. My day was almost all sedentary. It was a day that was just so typical of my poisonous lifestyle that saw blood sugar levels at 15.3 two weeks ago and me battling severe type 2 diabetes.
2777 days ago
I wake up in Copenhagen after a night at the WakeUp Hotel which is the Ryanair of Danish hotels. That is to say, it tried to nickel and dime you at every chance. The place is literally on the wrong side of the tracks - that is to say the view from the small window of my smaller room (cost £152) is of the railway tracks. Everything is on top. Breakfast, coffee, I am almost expecting to face a surcharge for using the loo in my tint bathroom or for having pulled the curtains shut last night. If I want my boarding pass printed off at reception it will be an extra £8. Bastards. If Michael O'Leary did hotels...
2778 days ago
The penultimate day in Sweden saw the Mrs and I drive out to vist another friend of hers in the countryside around Gothenburg. Within minutes of arriving our host was explaining why she and her family had decided not to go on holiday to America this year. "For all the reasosns am sure you understand we decided not to go after November." I bit my lip. She then said that they were thinking of going to France instead.
2782 days ago
The main purpose of this holiday is for the Mrs to meet up with a series of her friends from her time when she worked as a sociologist here in Gothenburg. Not a lot of people know it, but the Mrs is a fluent speaker of Swedish and is thus, as I write, yakking away in a wine bar in town about the evils of capitalism, Trump, patriarchy etc etc etc. Meanwhile, myself and, almost seven month old, Joshua are in a small rented house on a small, very windy and bloody cold, island somewhere out to sea.
2783 days ago
I loathe flying. The truth is that it frightens me a bit. And so I usually have a drink or two in the hope that it knocks me out on the plane. But taking this type 2 diabetes seriously, there was no alcohol for me at Bristol airport on Friday. The place was crammed, largely with fat people flying Easyjet for stag and hen parties across Europe. The rotund stags and porcine hens were already drinking heavily by noon when the Mrs and I arrived and they were also stuffing their fat faces with processed junk food, aka sugar filled suicide sandwiches. I had a coffee.
2786 days ago
Day 2 of my battle to tackle type 2 diabetes showed just exactly why there was no way I could do so without shoving my keyboard in a cupboard and changing every aspect of my life. I had to go to London to do some expert witness business for a friend. So it was all on board the 4.47 AM having done a very early morning blood test which came out at 11.7 down from 15.3 the night before. I know that post fasting measures will be lower but even so: I was told those new zappo pills would work fast!
2788 days ago
Of course I have been diabetic for years. I think that i was first diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in about 2007 so in my late thirties. It is the price paid for years of drinking too much and eating the wrong foods and - after I stopped playing rugby aged 32 - for not doing that much exercise.At times I have managed the disease so that it might as well have not existed. But then I get complacent and let things slip, kidding myself that things are not really that bad. Now they are very bad.
3349 days ago
I cannot remember exactly when I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I think it was around six or seven years ago. It was not a surprise. I had eaten and drink too much and the great West Ham supporting Tory blogger Iain Dale had described his symptoms and diagnosis a few months earlier. I knew what was coming.
There have been times since when I have managed it with medication and sometimes just by clean living and taking stacks of exercise. There have been times when I just let myself go. Four years ago I was a 19 stone 6 pounds blob and really all over the shop. But relationship breakdowns, work crises, near bankruptcy and a nervous breakdown did wonders for my (physical) health sending me off to walk around the mountains of Greece and Albania. I may have been a bit of a fruitcake but I sure knocked my body into shape.
Of course marriage and owning a restaurant are not good for the figure but I think I sort of have things in some sort pf check but perhaps I was a tad complacent. I know that Iain has also gone through such phases. However, the Mrs forced me to register with a doctor and last week an eye test showed the first – albeit minimal at this stage – signs of an issue in my right eye. I knew what was coming next.
This afternoon I strolled down to the doctors,
