How I manage my blood sugar

5 min read

I got diagnosed with pre-diabetes 4ish years ago while I was in India. I ignored it. However, after moving to the UK, within one year, without making any changes in my diet, my reading came down 1 point. This is what triggered me to take care of my pre-diabetes.

Start of the health journey

I started walking 10k steps daily and as per me, I was not eating a lot of sweets daily. Meanwhile, I had a telephone consultation with a doctor in the UK. He spent a good 1hr with me to explain to me how I am pre-diabetic and this is going to impact my health, and how it will get worse with time. He gave me 3 months' time and asked me to control my weight, get into a healthy BMI, and work on my health.

So, I hired a dietician from India. Long story short, after 3 months I failed the test. However, I have not heard anything from the NHS (UK's healthcare).

What changes I made before

Before this I was already working on myself.

  1. Started using CGM: This was a good way to track how my blood sugar is responding to every food and drink. I learned about my body a lot. I saw I had "dawn sugar". This means that while I am sleeping my sugar goes very high. This is due to the food I ate before, and bad sleep.

  2. Quit sugar 100%. No alternatives: I decided to quit sugar 100% and not to go with any sweet alternative. This was the hardest step but glad I took it.

  3. Eating window: I started having an eating window from 11:00 AM to 8:00 PM. Intermittent fasting. Initially it was hard but with time, I got used to it.

  4. Walk after every meal or calf raise: CGM used to give me a notification when the sugar rose and I used to do calf raises or walk after every meal.

  5. Work on my quality sleep: This was crucial to relax my body, digest food etc. I have started sleeping from 10-11pm and waking without an alarm.

  6. Managed my stress: Stress makes the body go into defence mode. So, I decided not to take stress. I had to analyze what is stressing me, and cut that off.

  7. Slow morning routine: I have started a slow morning routine to keep my cortisol level down. Not checking my phone first thing in the morning, reading a book (a page or a para), 10-15 mins of yoga.

However, even after all this, I failed my 3rd test (HbA1c) again and I have been referred to the Diabetes Prevention Programme.

Diabetes prevention programme

I got a personal dietician from NHS and got onboarded on an app. We used to have weekly calls and I used to upload what I am eating on the app. She used to give me feedback async. The app had a community, and weekly small tasks e.g. walk barefoot in a park, go for a walk in nature and do not check your mobile etc.

She helped me in:

  1. Quitting dairy: I was very sceptical about this but I decided to give it a try. I haven't quit it 100%. My daily dairy consumption was morning milk tea (semi-skimmed milk).

  2. T plate model: Instead of handing me "What to eat?", she helped me to understand how my plate should be. Half of the plate should be fiber and the rest half/half - carbs and protein.

  3. Plant based diet: I have moved to a plant-based diet. I was anyhow vegetarian so this was not hard.

  4. Healthy snacking: I got many healthy snack ideas on the app, from eating an apple with peanuts, carrots, etc.

  5. Reviewed the food that spiked my blood sugar: She had reviewed the food that spiked my blood sugar and helped me redesign it.

Within 1 month of doing all these changes I was able to see the CGM number under control. Also, I went to Paris while I was doing all this. I had desserts, pizza, and all carbs and my CGM did not spike. This also made me think that there was something amazing in Paris's food.

Slowly my lifestyle has become:

  1. No sugar at all.

  2. I don't crave sugar. My body rejects sugar stuff.

  3. I don't take any packaged food - cookies, chips, fizzy drink etc.

  4. I have started reading labels.

  5. I use the Yuka app to check if the food item is safe to take or not.

  6. Limit my fruit intake/day.

  7. No jam, ketchup, mayonnaise etc. If I have to then I check with the Yuka app for rating and sugar level.

This was not an easy journey at all. For me, the hardest was quitting sugar. Also, I have limited options to snack on. Everything is packaged. I use the Yuka app for everything.

Positive changes

  1. No sleep crash after eating food

  2. Skin became clear

  3. No food cravings. I decided when I want to eat and what.

  4. No acne

  5. No more low energy

  6. I have good quality sleep

PS: Recently my sugar has risen again as I have started eating sugar again.

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