‘I’m scared I’ll get diabetes’

I was chatting with a new member on my body transformation programme last week

She was worried that if she carried on the way she was

She’d get Type 2 diabetes

The thing is, she already knows what to do

But admitted to not looking after herself and putting it off

‘lacking the time’ to exercise or prepare good food because she’s too busy sorting the kids out

‘putting off starting’ because she’s worried she’ll be the ‘least fit there’ and it will be embarrassing

Worried she’ll fail again and what other people will think

‘I can’t justify this to my other half’

But here’s the thing

When I consult with the NHS and deliver Type 2 diabetes programmes for newly diagnosed patients

I explain how Type 2 diabetes progresses

And – often – it’s in silence (unlike my little bambino)

Without you really knowing

You see, you might be thirsty a lot

Going to the toilet

More tired than usual

Experiencing fungal infections

BUT

you might just ‘be fine’

Yet…

Inside your body

You’re working overtime!

You see, your makes a hormone that ‘opens the locks’ on your muscles and cells to get the energy from your food to you

^^^ So you feel awesome

But you see, just like the gym equipment you bought 8 years ago…

These ‘locks’ on your muscles and cells can become bit rusty

In need of a bit of WD40 to get the energy into your muscles and cells

^^^ So you can stop feeling tired, weeing out energy, and potentially damaging your organs due to high sugar in your blood

But in the meantime, your sugar levels in your blood rise

And this makes your body produce more ‘keys’ for that rusty lock of yours

But here’s the thing

How do you feel after working MORE and MORE?

Tired?

A bit stressed?

Like giving up?

Well, that’s how your pancreas feels after working overtime to make more and more keys to try and open this rusty lock

^^^ Which is why some medications are used in Type 2 diabetes

Now, sometimes your ‘locks’ on your muscles and cells get rusty due to genetics, ethnicity or for some reason we just don’t know

But in around 90% of cases…

Your locks on your muscles and cells are rusty because you’re carrying too much body fat around the midsection

And / or

A lack of exercise and poor diet

Which you can control

And this seem to really hit home with the member on my ​​​body transformation programme

Because she’d been prioritising things that she couldn’t actually do without her health​​​

She was telling me about how she’d be out of breath doing the school run

Feel conscious about going swimming with the kids

And then guilty for just watching on the side

And we finished with a quote I remind myself of most days when writing down what I’m grateful for in life: