The Blood Sugar of Life - A personal story of how hard it is to change personal habits

When I was eight years old I become a Type1 Insulin Dependant diabetic. At the time I thought it was great, suddenly I had all this attention and interest from outside people in my life.

The doctors were very kind and caring and used to give me lots of complements and encouragement. As a small child I had to manage my blood sugar by pricking my finger and giving myself an injection about 4 times per day. At the time it didn’t really bother me because I was around so much encouragement and attention. Life seemed nice.

Over time everything got a bit tedious and soon the encouragement died away. I was just another patient in a sea of millions of people.

I have now been a diabetic for many years. Recently I acquired a new type of blood sugar testing machine. This testing machine uses a scanner that is inserted on your arm to measure your blood sugar. Instead of having to test your blood sugar through pricking your finger you simply slide another unit over the scanner in your arm and the machine tells you what your blood sugar is instantly.

This was great, it was what I had wanted for so many years.

After using my new blood sugar scanner for a few weeks. I realised something. My blood sugars were very badly manged. I had always considered myself a well-controlled diabetic who looked out for what he ate and I tried to keep my sugars as normal as possible through the years.

My new blood sugar testing machine was telling me something completely different. I wasn’t the person I thought I was. In fact, according to my doctor I was just an “average” diabetic with regards to my blood sugar.

That hurt, reality hurt.

I always considered myself ahead of other diabetics when it came to manage my blood sugar. I couldn’t just be average. How could this be?

I knew what I had to do but I had been doing something different for so long.

I started with breakfast, I soon realised if I have the exact same thing to eat every day and I gave myself exactly 8 units of insulin my sugar would be normal. Yes, I became that specific. For the next few weeks I ate the exact same breakfast each day knowing how much to inject and carefully monitored the result. Sometimes I was a bit out but then I ate something or gave myself more insulin based on the results of my blood sugar scanner.

Over time my sugars have normalized and have improved over time. Manly because I was acutely aware of my sugar almost every second of the day and I made a concerted effort to improve them.

After a while I thought to myself how many other people struggle with habits they think they are doing but in reality they are not doing. They think they are taking steps to reach their goals but in fact are not going anywhere near their goals. It is almost like trying to find Buckingham Palace but running around in New York with a map of Sydney.

For me personally what made the difference was being aware of my blood sugar all the time, this way I was able to change my insulin and eating habits based on the real-life situation based on facts. I knew where I was and how to fix it straight away.

When you are on the wrong path how long does it take to fix your trajectory?

If you have a goal to do more exercise but you don’t measure exactly how many times you go to the gym in a month. You may think you go three times a week but three weeks ago your boss asked you to stay late. You missed gym. Two weeks ago your mother – in – law came to stay over. You missed gym. Last week it was a public holiday. You missed gym.

Therefore, you didn’t go to the gym as much as you thought you did.

Achieving goals is almost a science, a harsh regimented plan of exactly what you plan to do and more importantly a way to record everything you have done methodically.