Missing my Fit4D Trainer
She's been on vacation since the 14th and I didn't realize how much I missed her.
Hope she's having fun!
During the webinair Thursday they said they were offering incentives if you referred a new member, so let them know I sent you!
Fit4D™ offers people with diabetes access to health, fitness and nutrition experts, at your convenience.
Seriously) the service has been great. I've done a full exercise" and nutrition cycle with them and a extended exercise only. l am planning on another exercise session then go to their year long plan.
I am almost where I was after I first went on Symlinand before I injured my knee. About another 5 lbs to go.I really think I can do it.
I did finish my first program last week. I lost 11 pounds with them, which wasn't part of the plan. I've increased exercise from about 15 minutes a day to 60 minutes, but it's not really the same since I started the program while I was teaching.
I do think dog agility is going better.
Lately I've been having problems with food again, had quite a bit of stressing events this summer, but I've learned to eat "better" foods when I'm stressed. More salads and I've added dried fruit to my foods. Everything prepackaged, which makes it easier to dose, and makes it less likely I'll completely lose track of what I've eaten.
I'm extended the fitness portion of my plan for another 4 months.
Great article -- and enough some information on Fitness4Diabetics
Today athletes with Type 1 diabetes are blasting out of the starting gate in full force. Because of new technology, the emergence of companies that help them manage their illness, the rise of successful role models and sheer determination, they are running marathons, doing 100-mile bike rides, completing Ironmen — many with their doctor’s blessing.
I'm off to Monroe (Louisiana) to an agility trial in a few minutes. Bad thing about traveling with dogs, the truck is completely filled with their stuff and there isn't much room for my stuff.
They have an exercise pen and matt for the trial site, and an extra set of cages for the hotel -- that DOES make life easier, food, bowls, water, etc. Three dogs takes up a lot of room in a small truck.
I'm traveling with the Dexcom for the first time. I am going to leave manuals, etc. at home as they have 24/7 support AND have the manual on line, and I have that available to me.
I'm also taking Fitness4Diabetics on the road for the first time too. My workouts will be curtailed to some extend, but then I've been known to put in over 15,000 steps at a trial.
Next week I'm going on a road trip by myself, so this will be a good rehearsal.
I've had a busy week. I've knocked out 2 1/2 days of staff development -- all on Wed Mastering topics. Tuesday, the first day, made me remember just how tired I get in staff development. Sitting still all day is hard work when you are used to running around the room.
I am also working on test development for my district. That's also stressful, but getting better.
I'm using a new style of insertion set -- clinical trial, and am having erratic blood sugars, but it could be the heat, the workshops, the stress from different work, or the phases of the moon.
My Fitness4Diabetics workouts are still going well, and also my food intake. I've lost 15 pounds now, and I think I'm also starting to notice. I'm up to 25 minutes of straight walking, which I couldn't do at the start.
I'm definitely going to resign the exercise the portion, haven't decided entirely on the nutrition, but I probably ought to since I'll be eating away from home during my Monroe and Pittsburgh trips.
Still working on planning Pittsburgh, but I'm pretty sure about Monroe right now -- I am planning to pack and start my drive after dog class on Monday night (several weeks from now), and getting some of the trip out of the way. I am going to take my emergency CPAP battery and sleep on the road. I have 3 dogs, so no one can really sneak up on me. One thing I'm thinking about is getting my concealed carry license and carry a weapon but I have to find out about laws in Louisiana and Mississippi. Same thing for my trip to Pittsburgh.
My A1c is better, I understand how to counteract exercise with my pump now, or at least I understand better. I also know better how to use exercise to control how much insulin I use.
The bonus, is that I lost weight!
I'm not sure if my agility times have improved -- I really won't know that until Monroe -- I tried an outdoor trial but it really isn't a test, and I need to do more matches with Marcie to convince her I really am faster.
I'm definately happy with the program and the support. They do a good job.
My knees are better too. Both knees have been bothering me lately but I've also learned to work through it. Or to stop and do something else and then go back to it.
So I'm definately going to sign up for another round.
The last two weekends were about increasing my aerobic ability and dropping my TDD. This weekend, because I wasn't sleeping well last week, has been about catching up on sleep. I'm also focusing on getting my house back together.
I only got 2 20 minute sessions done on the treadmill, yesterday, but my TDD was still around 40 units.
I also have good news. I saw a new low weight yesterday for a weight loss of 7 pounds! I didn't see it again today, but that's normal for me. I'll see a 2-3 pound fluxation from day to day. Some of that is due to water retention.
All in all, I'm still very very happy with fitness for diabetics and even planning to sign up for another intensive 4 month session.
Yesterday I finished my 5th week of working out with Fitness4Diabetics.
Things are going well. My TDD has gone from 80 units a day to just about 45 units a day. I have increased my walking from 10 minutes straight to 20 minutes. I think I've lost about 5 pounds.
My average blood sugar accoding to my meter went from 171 to 148.
All in all not bad.
And I really didn't expect to lose any weight.
Had an excellent day (my Fitness 4 Diabetes coach even says so....
I got up, ran Marcie up to the vet for phenobarbal levels which are good.
Then when over to school, sat down and made sub notes, and made sure I had everything for field testing on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Picked up Diet Gourmet food and ran by Office Depot because I was out of ink and paper and it's 10% off teacher appreciate week.
Dropped that stuff off, went over to City Hall and voted in early voting.
Got back to meet A/C people at 11:00. They sent out a guy to start tearing stuff out at 11:00 and the actual unit came at 1:00 pm just as they said they would on Saturday.
They were wonderful -- though next time, I'll go get the dog when the vet calls at 3:15. They said we'd have cold air in an hour and figured that meant they would be done then.
They got done at 5:15. Just enough time to get Marcie at the vets and get to agility class 45 minutes early, even though we stopped and hung out at Petsmart for a few minutes -- FYI if you have to get your dog pills they make a dog food flavored thing you can hide the pills in. It's the one thing I've found that the beagles won't eat while spitting out the pills.
Even hit the hot tub.
Man, it's nice to sleep in a cool, dry (it's been humid) house.
I think I've lost 5 pounds in the 5 weeks I've been working with them. It's hard for me to know for sure as my weight varies so much.
I did 80 minutes today -- about 20 minutes every time I ate something plus 20 minutes. It's the most I've walked in a long time. I still do the Symlin, but that means no bolus insulin. Or at least very little. My blood sugar has stayed between 135 and 180 all day.
I'm looking forward to my TDD going down some more -- it did last week after last week's experiment. Not a lot, but a nice steady pace. I'm definately at 50 units average TDD right now, and often see a TDD in the low 40s.
I'm also doing lasix, though I don't see the weight loss like I did before (though I'll see tomorrow).
Right now, I'm waiting for a guy to come and give me a second quote on A/C. I got one this morning which we can do, but I'm hoping this one is more doable and hoping he can get it done on Monday.
Thankfully we've had slow rain and overcast all day so we can have the windows open though it is VERY noisy. And humid.
Well, I don't consider the lasix thing an experiment anymore, since the endo not only approved it but wrote a script up for it.
I'm still showing a 4-5 pound weight loss, not bad with almost 4 weeks of working with fitness4diabetics. The approximate is because of the water weight fluxuations.
I have been doing another experiment this weekend, and it's to see how little insulin I can get by with. If I do a fairly decently low carb meal, and walk for 20 minutes after, I don't need much of a bolus -- I am still doing basal insulin AND symlin though. So I'm not completely insulin free. It only saved 10 units yesterday.
I have to watch the low carb -- the more I low carb, the worst the gastric reflux.
So all in all, I'm still losing weight, still happy with fitness4diabetics, though I have to be careful during the workweek not to get too tired. Had a couple of bad days of eating as a result of that.
The five pounds I lost are still missing. I really bounce around on the scales though. My friend edema.
I screwed up last night's meal -- gave myself 10 units instead of 5. Didn't sleep well, but I don't think it was gastric reflux as I have not been coughing as much today. I tend to have trouble sleeping on Monday's as I get home from dog agility late. Blood sugar was beautiful yesterday evening.
Got yesterday scripts off to Medco. Decided to go ahead and ship off the new blood pressure pills, may even switch to them instead of waiting.
Wish there was a place to take good but no longer needed medication to. I've had the same problem with contacts.
More good news, since I've decided to limit my calories (but way higher than fitness4diabetes has suggested), I've been able to do it. And still off the carbonated drinks. In fact, haven't touched one today. Though that doesn't seem to influence the GERD.
Since starting fitness4diabetes, I've lost 3 pounds! That's a pound a week so that isn't too shabby!
I've also dropped my TDD from 80 units a day to 50 -- of course, contributing to the weight loss.
I'm definately pleased with the program.
Good news, both the physical coach and the nuitrion coach contacted me spontaneiously this week (or at least on their schedule).
I think I've solved the "going low in the evening" problem. I just don't do any insulin or Symlin with my evening meal.
I do believe my activity level is higher when I'm doing dog agility -- especially when I was training Macy this week.
I keep seeing the same two pounds disappear and reappear -- a lot of that is edema.
My insulin usage has dropped dramatically -- in fact I'm going to be able to go back to changing my set ever two days.
So is it worth it? Yep!
First, the physical coach has been absolutely fabulous. She's gotten me to up my activity level -- my lowest number of steps so far has been 9013 and that was Monday when I spent most of the day asleep -- either being scoped or getting the drugs out of my system.
The nutrition coach hasn't been personalizing things, and is a bit slow to respond but when she does, she has good information. Same thing goes with the wellness coach.
All in all, I'm happy with the program.
However, I'm getting frustrated with myself. I keep going low when I exercise. I've figured out workouts -- no insulin and no symlin with the evening meal, and I come out okay at the end of the evening.
But all of the sudden, I'm having to do the same thing in agility class! Of course, I wasn't prepared for that, so I've had to eat extra. And I'm having to eat it late -- which means I'm waking up with heartburn, when I'm trying really hard not to.
Don't worry I'll get over it.
I actually haven't been focusing on losing weight, because it's been really hard for me since I've been diagnosed with diabetes. It was hard enough before with my sleeping issues -- though if I do sleep well, I did lose weight before diabetes.
Well, since I've started with Fitness4Diabetics, I've lost two pounds. I think. Between the edema issues and diabetes, I won't count them entirely gone until they stay off the scales for at least a week, but the two pounds have been gone for two days so far.
More progress. Since I started their second week workout last Thursday, I've been able to get in more than 10,000 steps!
The workouts are going well too!
My fitness coach has been super responsive. I was having trouble with the streching exercises, because they were not written in English, so she sat down this weekend and rewrote the ones I was having trouble with. That's helped tremedously.
Today went better. I've gotten to 11360 steps so far.
First, I'm off from work today -- inclement weather day. I got in 4 5-minute walks earlier in the day.
I think I'm finally finding a good tweak for my workouts. I shut my pump to 0% at about 3:00. I ate dinner around 5:00 pm, no Symlin and 1/2 bolus. 2 hours after eating I was at 145. The best thing is that I didn't crash.
I've got to do a lot of work on food. That is not going to happen overnight.
All in all, it is going well.
Today was almost too much, but I did get in 9817 steps today.
First, they suggested that I add two 10 minute walking sessions. I did one round during my planning period, and another round during lunch -- but that was only 5 minutes.
I got home a bit late -- had a group of students trying to earn more points for the six weeks. Worked on weave poles with the girls -- and I turned my pump to 0 delivery for an hour at about 3:30.
Ate dinner, did my normal Symlin and insulin dose.
Managed to get in 20 minutes on the tread mill, work out on the Weider Max, and started the stretching but started feeling a bit funny. Sat down to record what was going on in an email to the fitness expert when I realized I was low -- 89!
Ate two GS Samoa cookies, and let my blood sugar climb enough so I could get something to eat -- I need to have my blood sugar stable enough so I can drive and get a gall bladder sonagram done in the morning.
Just a bit too much, but I think I will adjust.
I just got an almost overwhelming amount of documentation from them.
From my fitness coach, I got documentation on my exercising in general, with some specific notes on what is happening with my blood sugar when I do exercise and some suggestions.
I've got a set of stretching exercises, which is good, because I haven't been doing that. Hopefully that will help my stiffness and my knees.
Two sets of weight exercises, some with the stability ball and some with my Weider Max.
Suggestions for cario exercises.
From the nuitrion coach, a suggestion of 1800-2000 calories a day. YEAH! I wrote her this morning and that's been a problem. Most nutrionists look at me and assume I sit still all day and put me on a 1200-1500 plan. That puts me in starvation mode.
So I'm busy sorting all this out!
Plus it's the end of the six weeks.
I have a few more hours and log entries before my first week is up. So far I am happy.
My meter 14 day average has gone from 173 to 152 though we can attribute some of that to getting Lasix out of my system.
Have they changed anything my routine. No. But I am logging and thinking about what I am doing. Could I do that on my own, yes. Have I been, no.
I am supposed to be getting workout stuff and nuitrion stuff in the next few days. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.
So far, I'm happy.
Unfortunately the initial contact can be difficult. Be patient, leave phone messages and email messages. They will eventually get you and get your credit card information.
After your credit card information clears, they will send you your initial paper work. It's quite a bit, but does help them get you started.
The next step is clearing everything with your doctor. I haven't seen that form, but it did take mine about a week to process.
So after all that is done -- and it's about a two week process, you are ready to go.
I was sent a food log, an activity / blood sugar type log, and a goals setting sheet. Since this is all personalized AND virtual, don't expect a full blown set of things for you to do -- I sort of did because I've participated in programs in the past that would hand you something that sort of fit you and then they customized it as they went.
So far, everyone appears very cordial, and very ready to work with you.
I am working with a fitness coach, a nuitrion coach AND a wellness coach that is supposed to round out everything.
Not bad for the price!
I've started fitness4diabetics in earnest now. Their Wellness coach and I had a good telephone conversation this evening.
I've got a food log started -- though I think I'm going to make a few changes to it.
I've also got a good bs log going, but no really good exercise log, so we need to get going on that.
All in all I'm placed -- the first week is all about all of us getting to know each other and getting a working relationship going.
I got my first set of information from fitness4diabetics. I got an acivity / blood sugar log, a food log + blood sugar log, and a form about change habits. And a sheet of directions.
Lots of logging but then I'm used to that. I also made some requests of my own towards exercise, etc.
Of course, this morning WOULD be the day that the nuitrition class (we called it home ec in my day) made taco salad and brought some by this morning.
The taco salad was very good, but I ended up doing a wild ass guess for the carbs.
Just got an email from my coaches with some documents I need to read and deal with. I'm going to put them on my Mobile phone -- that way I can get to them at school
YEAH!
They DO have my paperwork. Now I am waiting for their wellness person to contact me.
My doctor's office says they faxed their paperwork on Monday.
I'm getting frustrated. Haven't heard at all from them today -- not even a 'no we haven't gotten your doctor's paperwork' yet.
I know I'm not patient, but this is getting down right silly. They all definately treat this as a very low priority part time job.
Got my forms in email a while ago. Filled them out and emailed them back. Got a letter of acknowledgement.
The next thing is for them to contact my doctors (primary care and endo), and send forms to them. I've contacted each of them, and hopefully that won't take too long.
Got a call this morning to confirm i wanted to join. Shortly after got an email about the credit charge.
Now I am waiting for them to go the approval from the credit catd company and their paperwork.
I hate waiting.
This 10 seconds too short, when I run agility, and not getting physically better has been getting to me. I've decided to try something new. Saw it on Keri's blog -- Fitness4Diabetes.
They signed me up this evening. I'll let everyone know how it goes.