Only getting part of the picture

I’ve lost 23 pounds since April so I must be doing something right for the most part. But there are other things that I know I should be doing…other things that are important to my control of this disease…. things that I know I have to do, but that I choose to ignore.

I hate exercising. I always have. Hated P.E. as a kid and wasn’t anymore fond of it when I grew up. I remember going out of my way to find creative excuses for why I wouldn’t be able to participate in ‘gym class today’. I was pretty good at it…. of course that had nothing to do with why I was constantly struggling with my weight as a child…. oh hell no. It was cool to skip gym and I was a cool kid….

Periodically though the years I’d forget how much I hated sweating and get a burst of motivation and start some sort of exercise program. There was yoga and Jane Fonda and Kathy Smith’s winning workout…. sweating to the oldies and once I even tried to stop the insanity. I would stick with each for a few months and then slowly peter off…. skipping one day…. then two, then a week. Before long my video was collecting dust and I was basking in my sedentary ways.

A week after my diagnoses (or ‘D’ Day) I drug the exercise bike that I had bought during one of those forgetful bursts of motivation, out of the shed, dusted it off and schlepped it into the house, to the bedroom where it now resides. I got myself on that bike and managed to ride 6.5 miles in 30 minutes everyday for three days and then every other day for 2 weeks and then once last night but only for 15 minute…. are you seeing a pattern here? When I managed to ride the bike fairly regularly my BG level was lower…. yep everything everyone had said about exercising being important for diabetes control is true. I know this. But I really really hate to exercise.

It was cool to smoke too…. and I smoked in high school for a hot two minutes. Actually I started smoking Marlboro Menthol lights and they promptly stopped making them and in true noncommittal can’t stick to anything fashion I quit smoking. That lasted for 21 years and then Marlboro started making Menthol lights again and I thought ‘what the heck’ and off I went. I know I need to quit smoking…. I’ve seen all those lovely amputation pictures…. Goggle diabetes complications…. go on…. I’ll wait. Lovely aren’t they…. disturbing…yet not disturbing enough to get me to put the smokes down…yet. I say yet because I’ve convinced myself that once I get a handle on this disease and I’m not so overwhelmed…. I’ll quit.

I don’t have the answers…. I’m not sure how to get and maintain self-motivation but I do know that I need to figure it out. I need to learn to love to sweat…. I need to put the cigarettes down…. I need to get the whole picture.