It’s been some time since i’ve written a blog post, nearly 2 years in fact. I’d love to say i’d turned my life around and i’m now the fittest and healthiest i’d ever been, but we all know how that story goes….spoiler alert…I am not there yet. In fact i’m probably as far away as i’ve ever been. Sigh. No-one is more bored of this story than I am, I can guarantee you that.

Anyway, I think the last time I wrote, I was saying that I was diagnosed as pre-diabetic (I can’t even face reading the old posts, they’re like a nightmarish deja vu). Despite always telling myself getting a diagnosis like that would be the kick up the arse I needed, it was not. At least not entirely. I cleaned up my diet and felt better, but the old, heavily ingrained habits crept back in, and it wasn’t until I got it retested to find my HbA1c had gone up from 6.0 to 6.1 that I realised I needed to stop pissing about. Even then, it’s not been smooth sailing. In March this year, seemingly out of nowhere I had a weird health scare that did actually knock some sense into me. I started to get these odd leg issues where suddenly it would feel like sciatica, with a burning sensation from my left glute down to my foot (so far so normal, I had a bit of sciatica last December), but at the same time it felt as though someone was pouring concrete into my right leg, and it would just stop working properly. That’s the best way I can describe how it felt, albeit it’s not wholly accurate, I just can’t figure out how to describe it. Anyway, it was coming and going, happening daily, sometimes multiple times. I went to the docs and very long story short, got it checked out by a neurosurgeon. By the time I saw him, the episodes had stopped, I believe because they shocked me into moving more and cleaning up my diet. I had an MRI, and happily the results show my spine is fine (some wear and tear but I have no back pain so that’s good, and i’m not worried about wear and tear)….but i’ve now been referred to gynae as they could see something wasn’t quite right, but not sure what. So it’s good on the one hand, but frustrating on the other. Anyway, new consultant appointment at the end of June and i’ll see what happens next. The whole episode has been extremely stressful, i’ve been wavering between “it’ll be fine” to “is this life-shortening?” and “how will I cope on my own if it’s something bad?”. It’s not over yet, but i’m getting things seen to, so that’s the positive.

The other positive is it’s helped me make changes. After the leg thing I paid to get comprehensive blood tests to see what was going on. Happily my liver function is great (optimal in places), blood cell health is good, thyroid all good, but lipids are shit, as is fasting insulin, and my inflammation markers are too high. Happily fasting blood sugar is normal, and my HbA1c is now down to 5.8, so some positives in amongst the negative, but ultimately there’s lots to work on. The biggest change though is my mindset. I feel like i’m an ‘all or nothing’ person, but that approach just hasn’t worked for me in the past. So i’ve adapted my way looking at health and fitness: tiny changes one at a time, and aim for progress not perfection. The ‘knowing-doing’ gap is the killer; i’ve known what works and what doesn’t work for me for probably two decades, but actually doing it has been the hard part. So focusing on mindset has been the missing piece, and has allowed me to more successfully do the following:

1. remove processed & ultra processed foods from my diet
2. increase daily protein and reduce the carbs (the latter pretty much sorted by point 1)
3. get morning sunlight before work
4. move more everyday – working from home and sitting at a desk for 8 hours is killing me
5. drink more water, not just more coffee
6. get back to daily meditation/mindfulness. I did this for 6 years straight then lapsed for a year or so, back at it now though
7. stay off the alcohol. Other than New Zealand & Australian wines on holiday in January 2025, and a couple of wines in January 2026 because I just wanted to, i’ve been off the booze since March 2022.
8. be kinder to myself and finally let go of all the shame and embarrassment from letting my self get this overweight and unhealthy because that doesn’t help
9. Focus on long-term solutions rather than trying to do everything quickly, and accept it’s going to take probably a couple of years to get to where I want to be, maybe even longer, i’m not sure.

It’s frustrating that I know it’ll take me an age to get to where I want to be, but my insulin resistance is so high that I’ve had to accept that it will take time. I know doing the right things will help, even if I can’t see much change. Since my heaviest in August last year, i’ve lost 10lb, and my joints aren’t as achey, and I can get up in the morning without feeling as stiff as a board. That said, doing yoga and trying some ‘easy’ mobility work reminds me that I may actually be 99% mahogany, so again, it will take ages to change that, but hey ho. I may not be happy about that, but I have accepted it, urgh! I don’t have patience for these sorts of things at the best of times, but i’m forcing myself to learn to be patient, as there’s nothing else to be done. I get my bloods retested in 3 months, so i’m hoping some of those higher numbers will be trending down, albeit again I think it will take some time for them to hit the ‘normal’ ranges, but time will tell.

Wish me luck, i’m going to need it!