Diabetes, I Ain’T Having It!: Diabeaters’ Lifestyle Solutions Made Simple

Copyright © 2013–2014 David Johnson Ph.D.

Co-editor Christine DeLuca

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-8537-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-8539-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-8538-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013919471

Balboa Press rev. date: 11/24/2014

Contents

You Have Made Your Bed… But You Can Change The Sheets

Prologue

Introduction

My Story

Aims

Disclaimer

So What Is In Each Chapter?

Chapter One The Diabeaters’ Mindset

A Diabetic Fairy Tale

7 Diabeaters’ Mindset Rules

Chapter Two Recognizing the Symptoms

Blurred Vision

Dry Eyes

Dry Mouth

Forgetfulness

Hunger

Itching

Night Sweats

Sexual Dysfunction

Thirst

Tingling in Hands and Feet

Tiredness

Weight Loss

Chapter Three A Soupçon of Sabotage

It Looks Like Eventually Is Now So Do What Matters

Chapter Four Diabeaters’ Activity Charts

Chapter Five Diabeaters’ Anchor/Trigger Combos

Chapter Six Diabeaters’ Ten Factor

Chapter Seven Diabeaters’ Dailies

A-Z of Diabeaters’ Dailies

Chapter Eight Conclusion - Think, Be, Do

Dedication:

For Lloyd, Edna and others who have made me strong.

Epigraph:

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The Optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty. – Sir Winston Churchill

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to my dear friend and co-editor Christine for believing in this project and making the numerous edits so much easier for me.

You Have Made Your Bed… But You Can Change The Sheets

Prologue

Life became very simple for me whilst watching my friend fight for survival after a critical accident. Breathe. That is all we ever have to do to be able to keep going and give ourselves the opportunity to create something different and preferably better in the future. Breathe now. As I watched and waited for her to convince the doctors she would live (it never occurred to me that she might die), a decision was made deep in my core.

Just as I had watched her choose that against all odds she was going to live, I would make my life choices. My musings helped me as she fought. It did not seem feasible to me that she could go through all this, while I had also had my own health issues and that our lives could ever continue as normal as if nothing had happened. I was re-committed to being in the most fruitful, loving life possible. A life where the best of everything would go to my core rather than stop at whatever clothing I wore.

I created a space in my mind, Dimension David, from where I could guard against negativity of any kind. I placed a mental crap-o-meter there. If I heard crap of any kind, whether internally or externally the dial on the crap-o-meter zoomed into action and graded the information from one to ten. Anything above two was a waste of my time. I would politely zone out and think of something constructive until the crap went away.

On the back of my crap-o-meter was my mental quota-meter. I used this to gauge how much time any particular event or person would remain in my life. If the quota of time in my life was complete, based on how much negativity was brought to me, the quota-meter told me, Make space for something new. I obeyed instinctively.

Whilst waiting for her to live I breathed. In breathing I remembered. I remembered I wanted to help others. I wanted to help others who have diabetes living with them by writing about strategies for living a healthy life. I wanted to invite them to become Diabeaters.

A Diabeater is someone who has diabetes living with them, who refuses to let it control their life and who is pro-active about maintaining their best possible physical and emotional health.

This is what I wrote . . .

Introduction

A new philosophy, a new way of life, is not given for nothing. It has to be paid dearly for and only acquired with much patience and effort. - Dostoevsky

My Story

There was a concerned message on my phone. I had not turned up for work. Everything looked blurred as I checked the time and realized I had hit the sack fifteen hours earlier without stirring. I forced myself into the routine of another hectic day. Showering with my loosely hanging and tingling left arm by my side, I remembered I had meant to sleep in the bed last night. I just had not made it past the hallway floor of my Geneva hotel room. Something clearly was not right.

Back at home in London, my doctor was sad. He looked at me, a very healthy looking, athletic, middle-aged man and delivered his verdict, It’s bad news. I’m afraid, you’re diabetic. He handed me several leaflets, a helplessly apologetic smile, the instruction, Take this medication… and an explanation, You’ll go through four common stages; denial, anger, depression and finally acceptance. I heard myself respond, I’ll never accept it.

In reality my doctor was kind, sensitive and tirelessly helpful both when delivering the diagnosis and ever since. It just did not feel that way back then. It was 7 p.m. on December 31st 2008. Happy New Year!

Fast forward to nine months later, after regular HbA1c¹ tests (both in London and Geneva) and encouragement from both of my doctors on maintaining excellent blood glucose levels, I decided to let them in on my secret, I’ve taken no medication at all. Through the lifestyle solutions I offer here, I will share with you what I did to help myself back to health during that period. More specifically how I became a Diabeater and got my HbA1c reading from 13.6 to 7.00 in three months naturally.

Regardless of your regime, stress and instability can cause spikes and inconsistencies when diabetes is living with you. Each of us is affected by stress in different areas and to differing degrees. Be mindful that any undue stress may lead to having to take additional pharmaceutical medication and/or insulin. I know this first hand.

The basis of what I am sharing with you is experiential. It is based entirely on what I did for me that worked. I am not a medical doctor, but I do have diabetes living with me and am pro-active about maintaining my best possible health. I am a Diabeater.

Prior to my diagnosis, I was used to the kind of life and achievements many people chase. I am fluent in four languages, play two musical instruments, have three degrees including a Ph.D., from respected UK universities, travel the world teaching my passions of languages and performing arts, laugh a great deal and have wonderful friends and family.

When my body went into collapse this was not part of the plan. I was forty-four years old and diabetes had come to live with me. This went against my healthy, sporting lifestyle and it did not seem fair. What followed was a frenzy. I hid away. It was not a case of not eating sweets anymore, I was convinced that I was going to die.

At the same time that I received this life-altering news my great friends Lily and Neil were visiting London from Los Angeles. Neil naturally insisted on coming to see me. I shut him out. He was bewildered but determined. His behavior made sense. I was travelling widely and he was living in Los Angeles. What were the chances of us both being in London at the same time and when was that likely to happen again? More importantly, he knew something was wrong and that whatever it was, he wanted to help. I thought the only way to get him to understand my uncharacteristic behavior was to reveal that Lily and I had planned my surprise visit to see them in February 2009. Not good enough. It was December 2008. I told him my news. Although saddened, Neil was not perturbed. Take a look at the Glycemic Index, he told me on the phone. I had never heard of it before then.

My many years of academic study served me well when I started my research. My five-year reader’s pass at The British Library in London (a remnant from my days of endlessly double checking references for my doctoral thesis), allowed me access to a wide range of materials. I followed Neil’s advice and looked at the Glycemic Index. In my wider research, I soon realized my initial grave assumption was well founded:

1. Globally, diabetes is diagnosed every 21 seconds and is the main cause of death every 10 seconds.²

2. In 2010 there were 285 million diabetics worldwide, set to rise to 438 million by 2030.³

3. In 2010 the estimated global cost of treating diabetes was $376 billion and expected to rise to $490 billion by 2030.⁴

4. The UK currently has 2.8 million diabetics, set to rise to over 4 million by 2025. This is the equivalent of three people being diagnosed every ten minutes). £9 billion (ten percent) of the UK’s National Health Service (N.H.S.) £90.7 billion budget for 2009/10 was spent on diabetes. This breaks down to around £173 million per week, £25 million per day, £1 million per hour, £17 thousand per minute, £286 per second).⁵

5. As of March 2013 the annual cost of diabetes in the United States alone was $245 billion. This is based on a cost of $176 billion for medical costs and $69 billion for reduced productivity.⁶

6. Approximately 18.8 million U.S. residents have been diagnosed with diabetes.⁷

7. An estimated 79 million Americans have pre-diabetes and many of them are unaware of this.⁸

8. Diabetes is the main cause of blindness amongst individuals in the United States aged 20-74.⁹

9. Six of the top ten countries with the highest percentage of diabetes are in the Arab world:¹⁰ The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Egypt and Oman. The United Arab Emirates has the second highest prevalence in the world with 25 percent of all Emirati nationals having the disease.¹¹

The good news was that within all of the scary stuff there was a recurring pattern. Everywhere I looked, I saw the message that diet and exercise can reduce or delay incidences of diabetes. Things seemed a little less hopeless as I came to the conclusion there was one big question I had to ask myself, "How responsible did I want to be about this?"

From here, there were two further questions:

1. How well, independent and informed did I want to be?

2. How prepared was I to do what I would need to do?

Answer those questions for yourself. Do it now. This will help you decide if the rest of this book is for you, if you want to become a Diabeater and if you always aim to have full control of the diabetes living with you. If like me, you answered yes to everything then read on.

What you are being introduced to is a way of life, for life. Ready?

Aims

Most people, if not all people, most of the time, if not all of the time wonder consciously or subconsciously what they are going to gain from every situation they encounter in life. We basically think about ourselves even when and possibly mostly when we want to think we are thinking about others. When you are reading this book, I want you to think about YOU and what you are getting out of it from the very first page to the last.

What follows will help you if:

1. Diabetes is living with you and particularly if it is type 2 diabetes.

2. Your eventual goal of living healthily is no longer something you are prepared to wait for in the future, but is something you want right now.

3. You are living with, close to or helping someone who has diabetes living with them.

So what do I get out of it? I hope to help you by sharing my experiences. If I help you, you can help others. When I was diagnosed as having diabetes living with me, I had to search for information. There is a lot out there. Perhaps I can save you some time. It is great if you recognize that you may well have made your bed, but it is also inspiring to realize you can still change the sheets.

By using this book as a vehicle to demonstrate some of what worked for me, I aim to:

1. Highlight the effective diabetic health care options that are available to you.

2. Offer you information that can help you to be more independent.

3. Enable you to do what you can do for yourself as fast as you can.

4. Improve your current circumstances.

5. Encourage you to rely on yourself and your knowledge of your body.

6. Give a range of useful exercises you can turn to whenever you need them.

If you are taking the time to read this self-help book it is probably safe to assume you understand and trust in the nature of self-help literature, diabetes is living with you or you would simply like a healthier lifestyle. You will also know that there is a common intention with this kind of literature, it is meant to HELP you.

You might be an otherwise healthy person who always ate well, exercised and does not meet the typical diabetic profile. That is me by the way and so I know what it feels like to think, How could this happen to me? This isn’t fair! and Ok, so now I know this is currently with me what am I going to do about it? Regardless of why you might think diabetes is living with you, regardless of how fair you think it is or not, you can think your way to living more healthily. Sadly, the effort does not end there. It is not enough to think yourself into better health. You will have to take action as well.

We are not all the same although we may generally be very similar. Our bodies may respond differently to the same treatments. Where some may thrive others may have mild or even adverse side effects. With this in mind, would it not pay to make sure you know what works best for you? There is no easy way around this. The process of working out precisely what works best for you is trial and error to a degree. Of course none of the suggestions in this book can do you harm so in your trials you are likely to move from finding solutions that work well to those that work better.

The