Let's get serious about this blog!

Okay, so Bill & I started this blog assuming that one of us would have time to post to it every now and then. (I know, I know -- it's so sweet when we're randomly optimistic, isn't it?) Once optimism gave way to reality, our blog went quiet. Too quiet.

I'm going to change all that.

Let's start again, this time where it matters.

Hi, I'm Malea. I was diagnosed with Type Two diabetes in June 2009 (a little more than 7 months ago).

When I was diagnosed I had an AIC of 7.1, blood pressure of 120/84 (sorry, lowish bp runs in my family), cholesteral of 201 (triglycerides 196, LDL 116, HDL 46). I weighed 266 pounds with a BMI of about 43. (I'm cringing as I type these numbers but I think it's important to put them out there. They make the disease real.)

My knees hurt all the time, even when I was sitting, and even a single flight of stairs made me pant. I was killing myself by not deciding what to do about my lifelong weight problem coupled with my family history coupled with what seemed to me to be some unfairly difficult life events and a stressful job.

On top of that I'm a foodie. Not only has food equaled love for my entire life, but learning to cook "fancier" food has always been a way for me to mark my own class ascendance for at least the past decade! Clearly, a lot of my identity was, and is, tied to food.

When I was diagnosed, I did precisely what my doctor, my dietician & diabetes educator told me to do. I changed the way I ate, added exercise, took my meds, monitored my blood sugar and did as much research as I could to understand my disease. My degenerative disease. I joined the ADA, bought books, and was lucky to have a FWD (friend with diabetes), Bill, to lean on.

Sometime over the past few months, something changed for me & the way that I look at my life. I think I'm a different person now -- at 47, I'm now a person who's living her life instead of waiting for her life to begin. It's not just the change in my diet or the strength training or the yoga or the stationary bike (officially, my nemesis!) or the changes in my body.

It's the change in me that's made the difference. And it's really pretty simple.

I want to live. And I want to live well.

For me, this blog is about living well.

So there will be recipes and updates about progress and advice about exercise & stuff -- what my doctor calls "lifestyle" advice. Mostly, I want folks to know that you can still eat amazing food while you lose weight and maintain a healthy life.

Malea