Friday 2 September 2011

Eat Properly

I asked my doctor today if I can have a blood test for diabetes. My appointment was to discuss something else though, so I haven't actually talked to him about diabetes properly yet. I have a feeling I know what the result of the whole exercise will be: I'll come back negative for diabetes, and he'll tell me I need to eat properly.

Why do I think I need to be tested for diabetes? Well, ever since the period of really bad illness last year my body has been doing some strange things. If I don't eat for a while I start feeling trembly, sort of inside, and then will start visibly shaking if I don't eat soon after that feeling starts. However, frequently, when I do eat I have that feeling afterwards if I didn't have it before. Having said that, I don't react strangely when I eat sugar.

I'm having the blood test next week, and then an appointment with my doctor to discuss it a week later. I'm going to start keeping a food diary tomorrow (if I remember), so that I can show him what I am eating and when. I should probably write in that diary when I get the shaky feelings too.

I know I don't eat properly. I don't eat as badly as people seem to assume I do though. At the moment my diet is fairly consistent:
- I started having breakfast over the last couple of weeks, which is just Frosties with skimmed milk.
- if I forget to have breakfast, I'll have a yogurt later on (Vanilla Activia)
- I have either gluten free pitta bread with tinned mackerel in it, and a packet of Walkers ready salted crisps
- or a baked potato with tuna mayonnaise and sweetcorn for lunch and dinner
- I then find I need to eat something later on, so may have a packet of square crisps, Pringles, or some form of chocolate.
Sometimes I crave something specific, so if I have the spoons to do so I go and get it. Usually what I crave is beef, so I go and get beef fried rice from the Chinese take away.

It's very easy to say to someone 'you need to eat properly', but I just don't have it in me. I'm doing my best, and suspect G will have me eating better when I move in with him. I forget to eat frequently. I'd rather forget to eat than start making a meal and forget what I'm doing though. I struggle to stand up to prepare food, let alone then standing up to cook the meal, and then do the washing up afterwards. And even if I could do all of these things sitting down, I lack the cognitive function to follow a mental map of how a meal is put together.

It's embarrassing to admit that I am 33 years old and can barely cook myself a meal. I don't know how I'm going to explain all of this to my doctor if that is what he says.

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