Finally over...after 6 months!

My school had a "weight loss challenge" for all faculty members that wanted to participate in it, which began in the very beginning of November and ended today. I feel like I work with many people who do not live as healthy as they should, but whatever, it is their life and not mine. Most people are much older than me, mostly in the upper 40s or 50s or even older. It all started because one of our staff members was diagnosed as being a pre-type 2 diabetic and another teacher wanted to try to help her lose weight.

We got into teams of three or four and started our challenge. Now, I am fairly lean and knew that by signing up I was doing it more for the team aspect because I miss that about competitive sports, not becaues I felt like I needed to lose weight. Before our first weigh-in, I acutally did something very unhealthy and purposefully ate a lot of carbs the day before so I would be a pound heavier. My team members were all bigger than me and could afford to drop numerous pounds. Some of them just changed their diet and were able to lose some weight.

Going into our final weigh-in today, my team was neck-and-neck with another team, who had a rediculously anal and competitive team captain who got on my nerves. Anyhow, my team pulled it out at the finish and beat the other team. I contributed a small amount to my team, but enjoyed my numerous talks with our school nurse about diabetes, exercise, and heathly eating. I got to know her a lot better, and was able to be a "cheerleader" for her. She actually ended up losing 30 pounds. At my last weigh-in today, I weighed the least I had all throughout the competition.

This summer I was trying to lose some weight in order to become a faster runner. It was a long process, but I lost some and now am faster because of it. Something that has always stuck with me over the years was a doctor (not my own, though) saying that type 1 diabetics with A1Cs in the "normal range" (below 6) are likely to be fat. I have always taken great offense to this...and this summer I wanted to prove that I could be skinny and have an A1C under 6, and I have achieved my goal. In a way I like to think that I have overcome all odds, but really, I know that many athletic diabetics have A1Cs under 6 and are in shape, like me.

I did not realize how "in shape" I was until my last endo. visit. When I was talking to my doctor about where to put my CGM on my body, he said, "(my name), you really don't have that many options. You don't have much fat on your body." We talked about the places - legs (I have always hated giving shots there because it hurst too much, so that was ruled out), butt (I have never tried it here, but cannot work up the guts to do it - it just seems wrong), and my "love handles", where we decided. I guess it is not too big of a problem to have.