Got diagnosed with diabetes

So, I am a somewhat newly diagnosed Indian Vegetarian Diabetic. I have always been a bit overweight, but never overly so. In fact, for the past 7 years, I have been running 3x a week between 4-6 miles, and ran a few half marathons. I used to do a lot of strength training and in general I mostly kept track of what I was eating... At the time of being diagnosed, I was 186lb at 5'6"

And I usually would get a checkup once a year and last year's numbers were slightly elevated but not overly so... So, when this year, during a routine checkup my blood sugar came up to a 164, they drew more blood for a thorough lab work. They pretty much said that I was diabetic but the doctor was very hesitant in committing until I pressed her for a hand-waved confidence level.. She said near 80% chance and my heart dropped... I still could not believe it. I thought I was living a well balanced life without much in terms of excess. I mean I eat the usual daal and sabji and I had switched to brown rice almost completely years ago...

This happened on a Friday, and the physician’s office was closed for the weekend, so I went to the pharmacy and got a Bayer Contour Next blood glucose meter, needles and strips and the poking journey began.. I checked my blood sugar many times on Saturday and then Sunday. By Sunday Evening, I was ready to believe it. All evidence pointed to me having diabetes. Sigh. Facepalm.

Here were the readings that convinced me...

11/21/2015 12:53pm 128 Fasting
11/21/2015 3:22pm 171 2+ hour after meal
11/21/2015 6:53pm 217 2 hours after meal
11/22/2015 9:45am 150 fasting
11/22/2015 8:00pm 156 2 hours after meal
11/23/2015 7:11am 136 Fasting

Anyways, so Monday, resigned I went to the doctor's office and asked for the diabetes medication. By then, the results of the bloodwork had come in and the A1C was at 8.3%. Certain Diabetes.

The doctor came in and started telling me things and in about 5 minutes she realized that I have been diagnosed. She was taken aback and then she was back in about next 5 minutes. She explained about the diabetic physiology, how things work, mentioned that for her internship, she had picked Diabetes as her research subject and that there is a slim chance but diabetes can even be reversed (or be put in remission, as I later realized.) I had researched and found this magic "starvation diet" which could reverse diabetes and the doctor frowned upon that and said, don't do that... One it does not work and two you will lose a ton of muscle mass which will actually go against you.

Anyhow, She gave the standard food chart: 50% veggies, 1/4 plate beans/lentils and 1/4 rice etc, put me on 500mg Metformin (break in half and have 250mg in the morning and 250 in the evening) and sent me on my way and asked me to come back in a week so she could adjust my dosage if required. She also asked me to keep a food log so she could see what I was eating.

So off I went and being an engineer, I wanted to understand and be able to measure where I stood. So, for the next many days, I measured my blood sugar at fasting levels, 1 hour and 2 hour after food and was a bit startled at what I saw. I always thought steel cut Oatmeal was a good food - I usually use about a 1/4 cup for breakfast and I could count on that, but I noticed that my blood sugar would spike almost to 150-170 within two hours of breakfast. Similar things would happen after lunch dinner where I would have 1/4 cup legumes/beans.

The doctor had mentioned that I should have only 1/4th of my meal from Wheat and Rice so I completely gave up on them. Now that legumes/beans were spiking my blood sugar, I had to give up on those too... So, I was down to just eating Salad.. tasteless salad.. my Indian tastebuds that had for all my life been used to spices and rice and daal etc were screaming.

Here is the blood sugar and food log for the week before I went to the doctor. I had gone cold turkey with my diet and completely cut out ALL GRAINS from my diet. Yes, that is ALL GRAINS!

Note: DNC below means Did Not Check (or could not check)

11/23/2015 11:33pm 148 2 hours after meal 185 1/2 tab
11/24/2015 8:43am 143 Fasting 180-morning
11/24/2015 1:02pm 169 1.5 hours after breakfast 1/2 tab
11/24/2015 4:06pm 147 30 minutes of meal shaky hands.. walked 7.5k steps before lunch
11/24/2015 10:38pm 140 2 hours after meal 1/4-1/2 cup kidney beans + 2 zucchini + 1 stalk celery + kale/cabbage + tomato chutney
11/25/2015 9:16am 136 Fasting
11/25/2015 11:35am 147 2 hours after breakfast 1/2 tab 1/2 cup uncooked oatmeal in water + 1 scoop whey
11/25/2015 1:43pm 139 after running, before lunch
11/25/2015 2:44pm 152 1 hr after lunch feeling sleepy 1 cup chinese stir fry veggies + 2 cups kale/cabbage + 1 tbsp cheese + 1/2 apple + tabasco
11/25/2015 3:50pm 128 2  hours after lunch
11/25/2015 10:18pm 108 1 hour after dinner 1/4 cup black grams + 1 cup salad + 6 tomato chutney . earlier snacked on chinese stir fry veggies
11/25/2015 11:20pm 130 2 hour after dinner
11/26/2015 9:40am 123 Fasting
11/26/2015 11:07am 178 1 hour after breakfast 1/2  tablet 1 scoop whey and 1/2 cup oat in water and 1 cucumber
11/26/2015 12:00 148 2 hours after breakfast
11/26/2015 15:49 121 1.5 hours after lunchwas walking 2 cup kale salad + 1/2 avocado + 1/2 apple + 1 tbsp nuts + 1/2 cup black gram + 2 cup broccoli/asparagus/celery/zucchini/ mushrooms
11/26/2015 8:32pm 144 dinner 1.5 hours after 1 cup chinese mix + 2 cup kale salad + 1/2 avocado + 1/4 pomegranate + 1 tbsp nuts + 1/2 cup black gram
11/27/2015 9:40am 123 Fasting
11/27/2015 12:16pm 155 2 hours after breakfast 1 cup carrots + 1 cup mushroom + 1 zucchini + 2 tomatoes + 1 scoop whey + indian pickle
11/27/2015 5pm 176 1.5 hours after lunch 2 cup kale and 1/4 cup pomegranate and 1/2 apple and 5 sweet mini peppers and 1 tbsp cheese and 1 tbsp vinegar balsamic 1 tbsp pine nuts and 1 zucchini
11/27/2015 9:44pm 166 1.5 hours after dinner 1/2 tab 2 cup bok choy + 2 cup mushroom + 2 cup chinese mix + 1/2 cup brown rice + 1/2 cup black gram + 1tbsp oil and spices
11/28/2015 10:05am 125 fasting
11/28/2015 11:42 133 1.5 hours after breakfast 1 scoop whey and 2 zucchini and 1 cup asparagus 1 tsp canola oil, 1 tsp olive oil
11/28/2015 12:45pm 118 2:15 after breakfast
11/28/2015 Dnc could not check 3 cup salad /zucchini/cucumber/kale 1/2 red bell pepper and 1/3 block tofu sauteed in 1/2 tsp oil and spices
11/28/2015 10:38pm 113 1 hour after dinner ran 3 miles boiled/blended 6 cups spinach + 1/3 block tofu + 10 grams nutrella + 1 tsp oil + spices  and garlic + 1 cup salad with 1 tsp djion mustard
11/28/2015 11:42pm 115 2 hours after dinner
11/29/2015 9:40am 101 Fasting
11/29/2015 126 after breakfast 1 scoop whey + 2 cup Salad + Cheese?? don't fully remember
11/29/2015 3:40pm Dnc could not check 1.5 cup spinach + nutrella + tofu + 1 avocado + 1/4 cup parmesan + kale salad
11/29/2015 10:40pm 117 Forgot to take med with food so took with measurement 3 cups salad 3 tbsp Djimon mustard
11/30/2015 7:55am 97 Fasting
11/30/2015 Dnc after breakfast 2 cup salad kale and zucchini and 1 tbsp cheese and nuts and 1 scoop whey

So, with this diet, I was able to bring my sugar back to almost normal levels in about a week. It was a really harsh learning though. Note all the highlighted lines above. Having carrots+tomatoes in the same meal is bad (155). Having  1/2 cup brown rice and 1/2 cup black gram is BAD (166)!

Armed with this data, I went to the doctor a week later. I was depressed. She was impressed. She said that she would be amazed if even half of her patients could keep their blood sugar regulated like mine. She was a bit alarmed though... She mentioned that I am a pretty "Spartan" diet and that I should adopt a lifestyle that I can maintain for life. I told her how ANY GRAINS spike my blood sugar and she offered to increase the dosage of Metformin. WHOA! That was something that I did not want to get into. Here I was trying to change my lifestyle so I could go into remission and the doc was telling me to eat more carbs and to increase the dosage of Metformin... We had a pretty long conversation.. almost an hour and she gave me a few ideas.. She mentioned the video Forks over Knives, gave me ideas about eating tofu, mentioned that I should not have a full apple, only half at a time and that I could use cheese even though she discouraged using milk as it has milk glucose.

She told me that She was hesitant to put me on Metformin really since I was going all gungho with my exercise and she was worried that I could become hypoglycemic. She told me to skip Metformin if I was going to skip a meal..

She mentioned the SPARTAN lifestyle again but I was a bit adamant. I told her that I can be very stubborn and steadfast... That is how I kept up 7+ years of running 3x a week and I told her that I am going to worry about keeping up my food lifestyle for the rest of my life after 3 months when I bring my A1C and weight completely in check. She was a bit amused. She gave me another prescription for 2 more months of Metformin so that I would not have to come back just for a prescription and sent me on my way.

Thus ended episode 1. Week 1 of the Indian Vegetarian Diabetic's journey.