With my diabetic’s hat on, it’s been a busy few weeks recently. And my general mood has swung up and down with alarming frequency. One day I’m feeling quite good about things, the next I’m wondering why I bother. On the whole I’m still feeling pretty positive, but I would quite like to get off the rollercoaster and have a nice steady stroll for a while, thanks very much.

Having reset my weight and exercise targets for the three months to the end of September at the beginning of the month, it’s been a bit of a mixed bag. If the scales are to be believed, I am more than halfway towards my target weight of 16st 5lbs already. The exercise, however, has been less good. For a variety of reasons – some of them health-related, others completely down to me – I was lax in the middle of the month, although I’m back on the case again now, albeit with some catching up to do.

Feeling crap

All the downsides this month have been related to how I am doing physically. Where do I start?

Generally, I know my blood sugar levels have crept up marginally over the past couple of weeks (evenings out, visiting relatives, barbecues – the usual sort of thing). They weren’t where I needed them to be before; they are even less so now, although they are not critically high by any means. Those high sugar levels have manifested themselves in a number of ways.

Firstly, I have been suffering from extreme tiredness. My elevated glucose levels contribute towards this, but I have also been routinely spending long evenings blogging this month. That is now starting to taper off, and it is something I can easily be more careful about in the future.

More tiredness and being busy writing means I have been less inclined to exercise in the evenings. Again, this is something I need to be more creative (and ruthless) about making the time for. I ended up pedalling the exercise bike at midnight one evening last week. I don’t need to be that extreme, but I need to be more conscious of taking advantage of opportunities to exercise, rather than passing them up.

Exercise has also been more difficult because of other physical issues; some diabetes-related, others probably more general. I have had soreness in my feet similar to gout which left me hobbling around pathetically for a couple of days last week. Pins and needles in my arms and legs. (That’s definitely a blood sugar thing.) And dull, throbbing headaches related to my blood pressure being slightly high. (No idea, but it’s not good either way.)

Doing OK

Other than that, I’m bearing up pretty well. Controlling my diet hasn’t been too bad, although there has been the odd slip here and there, and last week was a heavy week for a variety of reasons. There is still scope for improvement, and I need to be careful I don’t allow myself to slip slowly back into bad habits, but overall I’m just not missing chocolate and crisps as much as I thought I would.

As I’ve already mentioned: weight loss, good; exercise, not so good to start with, but getting better now.

And I’ve been doing the rounds of specialists getting myself tested, all with pleasing results. Podiatrist (checking for deteriorating nerves in my feet and legs) – tick. Retinal check (looking for damage to blood vessels in the eyes) – tick. So that was quite reassuring, although obviously things may deteriorate as I get older.

For the moment, I seem to be doing the right things – I just need to keep my discipline high and stop myself from slipping as often. I probably ought to be feeling much better about things than I currently do, but it’s hard to do that when I have a nagging headache every other day.

Anyhow, we’re off to France for a few days next weekend, so no doubt there will be no small amount of consumption of wine and cheese – in moderation, of course, as the days of me pigging out on brie and baguette washed down with a bottle or two of red are now long gone – but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to enjoy myself. There’s not much point otherwise, is there?