Embracing Your Diabetes I: YOU Decide How Diabetes Will Affect Your Life

This Well-being article tells a short story. It’s about a man who, on finding out he had type 2 diabetes, decided not to deny it or try to run from it. Instead, he embraced his disease and the new lifestyle he knew he would have to create to manage it. This article is about one man’s experience and how to apply what he learned in your own life.

• It explains that although you can’t decide not to have diabetes, you can decide how to integrate it into your life.
• It describes how to embrace your diabetes in ways that will help you manage the disease and actually improve your quality of life.

Stanley’s Story

Stanley was a successful businessman when he was diagnosed with diabetes. The diagnosis could have devastated him. After all, he and his wife loved to cook. They entertained their family and friends with gourmet meals on a regular basis. How much would his life change and what would he have to sacrifice to manage his disease?

Instead of being devastated, Stanley took his diabetes as another challenge and another opportunity to learn. Here are some of the steps he took to integrate diabetes into his gourmet lifestyle:

• He read books, magazines, and information on the Internet about diet and diabetes. When he knew what foods were the best choices for a diabetes diet, he collected, created, and perfected delicious, new, and healthful recipes using those foods.
• Instead of avoiding social situations that might get him off track, he controlled those situations.
  • He often entertained guests in his home, where he chose the menu and cooked the meal. When he went out to eat, he chose restaurants familiar to him.
  • When he tried new restaurants, which he often had to do when traveling for work, he asked about the menu beforehand, whenever possible.
  • When he was invited to someone’s home for dinner, he didn’t hesitate to tell the host about his diabetes ahead of time. And he also didn’t hesitate to turn down the pecan pie the host might still insist he try for dessert.

Exercise was more problematic for Stanley. He had never been physically active. He wasn’t even sure he believed in exercise. He said he never saw joggers or runners smile when they ran, so it couldn’t be fun.

But his doctor told him that his diabetes was serious enough that he would need to use physical activity as well as diet if he wanted to avoid going on insulin. So he created a program that was a good fit with his lifestyle:

• Stanley and his wife lived on what had been a farm outside the city where they worked. They decided to start a walking program that got them out and around their property at the beginning of each day. A neighbor helped them smooth out a walking trail that was free of rocks and other debris. Over the next month, they increased their walking time to 20 to 30 minutes a day in good weather. And although they didn’t greatly increase the intensity of their program, the gentle hills provided a good workout.
• Stanley’s doctor told him he needed to get even more exercise to control his blood sugar levels. He wondered what other kind of physical activity would appeal to him. Stanley had begun practicing meditation, so he decided that tai chi was a good choice. He found a local tai chi class and began to practice this mind/body discipline regularly.

The diagnosis of diabetes urged Stanley to create a healthier lifestyle than he had ever had before. His new lifestyle isn’t distasteful or difficult because it’s based on his personal preferences, likes, and strengths. He embraced his disease.

Another Perspective

Catherine Feste is a health educator and author who has had diabetes for more than 40 years. Some years back, the American Diabetes Association asked her to write an encouraging and uplifting book about dealing with the disease. In 1999, the ADA published her book, entitled Meditations on Diabetes: Strengthening Your Spirit in Every Season.

Catherine Feste’s book is, in a sense, a guidebook for embracing chronic disease. She says:

“Integrate diabetes and life. Diabetes affects and is affected by all aspects of life. Empowerment is a process whereby we identify our goals and our problems and our resources. If quality of life (as defined by the individual) is the goal, and diabetes is the problem, then we identify all the external and inner resources to achieve our goals and overcome our problems. The outcome of this empowerment process is the integration of diabetes and life.”

Feste maintains that only after people with diabetes “move beyond anger and denial” and stop placing blame for their condition, can they find the strength and resources to face the challenge and live well.

The author quotes a proverb from the African nation of Senegal:

“God made the sea, we make the ship. God made the wind, we make a sail. God made the calm, we make the oars.”

The proverb, she says, points out that “we [people with diabetes] have a role to play, a responsibility, and an opportunity.”

Your Story

Your own story, of course, is different from Stanley’s. You have your own past, set of circumstances, issues, likes, and dislikes. Maybe you love to play tennis but hate to cook. You live in a high-rise apartment in the middle of a big city and not on a farm. You have no interest at all in tai chi.

But you get the idea. Assess your own circumstances, preferences, and strengths and build your diabetes program on them. The exercise below will give you a start.

• Think of three aspects of your life or three activities that you really enjoy and don’t want to give up because of your diabetes. Cooking gourmet meals for friends? Watching movies on TV? Eating out with friends? Baking? Making model airplanes?

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• Based on what you now know about healthy lifestyle practices for people with diabetes, decide whether you think each activity helps, hinders, or has no impact on your program of weight loss and diabetes management.

  	Helps	Hinders	No Impact
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• If you decided that you think a favorite activity may be hindering your ability to manage your diabetes, think about how you might modify that activity so that it fits into your healthier lifestyle. If you love to watch movies on TV, for instance, you may want to do some kind of physical activity while you watch.

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Summary

• Diabetes has happened to you: You can’t really decide not to have diabetes, but you can decide how to integrate it into your life.
• Assess your lifestyle and circumstances, focusing on what you enjoy — activities you don’t want to give up. Then, rather than denying your disease, embrace it. Find ways to manage your condition so that you don’t have to sacrifice everything you enjoy. And the healthier lifestyle that you create will actually improve your quality of life.