Diggerwam,
I have Diabetes and I’m worried about what might happen to me as I age.
Would you mind telling us what happened to your father when you say he was “ravaged” by Diabetes and at what age it happened?
I am 60.
I honestly don’t know how my wife came up with me going out 3-4 times a week. To be honest, yes, if I go out for a quick bite on Tuesday and then Friday comes and my boss buys Chinese for the team, then yes I will have that as well. So why don’t we count 6 lunches out for a 4 week month.
My dad was diagnosed with Diabetes in his mid 50’s and he did not change his lifestyle except for taking the drugs (orally at first, shooting up when that didn’t help). At the time of his passing, he still had all his lower extremities but that wasn’t going to stay that way for long. I really can’t get more specific than that. I just know from the diabetes/smoking he had very little circulation below his knees.
He had his difficulties due to his unwillingness to adjust his lifestyle, I’m rather proud that I have been open and enthusiastic about lifestyle changes up to this point. I again must be honest, if this round of adjustments don’t do the trick, i’m not certain what my next steps will be. I suppose I could take the dogs on a nightly walk, but I don’t think I’d be willing to cut too much more out of my diet. But let’s hold that conversation until 2015.
Diggerwam, I’m glad to hear that you have made some changes and are willing to make more. Congratulations on that. When I hear about people who say, “F that! I’m not doing any of that crap. I don’t care about any consequences”, I just inwardly cringe. What do you say to someone who has that attitude? They sure do have the right to have their attitude. Whatever it may be.
The one thing that opened me up to making changes was when my doctor asked me how it would affect my lifestyle if I had to go to the hospital every other day and spend a few hours hooked up to a dialysis machine. For some reason, I didn’t care about anything before. I knew it could cause blindness. I knew it could cause amputation of the lower limbs. But I didn’t care. Pretty dumb, huh?
But thinking about what my life would be like going to the hospital every other day … that would just be a nightmare. There is no way I’d want to live with that. But I know it’s easy to say you wouldn’t want to live. But when you are faced with actually dying, I know that things then change very quickly. So, after thinking about that, I’d be willing to do most anything to avoid that. I wish you all the best and hope you never have to endure anything like that.
From what I understand, much of this is random. I mean you could have two people who are alike in most ways and live the same kind of lifestyle. But one is impacted greatly and the other hardly at all.
I don’t know the stats, but I do believe that people who will make the recommended changes have a much lower chance of suffering any of the bad consequences. So, sign me up. I’d do anything to avoid those hospital stays. Every other day? IMO, that would be almost as bad as it could ever get.
You’re contradicting yourself, and those two changes have a direct impact on the cholesterol levels of anybody for whom high levels are diet-related.
The substitutions of vegetables for meat and carbs was basically to reduce calorie count and feel fuller during meals. There were differences in nutrition but I think they were significantly less important than just reducing calories in.
FWIW your father lived a long life too, late 70s is pretty good for a smoker with 30 years of heart disease.
Yes, but it wasn’t the life I know Digger wants to live and it is certainly not the life I want to watch him live. We want to keep working, travel, go out, and enjoy the next 40 years.
Without going into too much detail, Pops pretty much gave up and parked himself in front of the TV for 30 years. Meanwhile, Mom spent those years ensuring his every need was met- cooking fatty foods and baking sweets, doing all the housework, making sure he never got upset or angry, oh, and working full time.