[Ronin]

Hi Dora!

Welcome to "The Club" the club nobody ever wanted to join, that is. Being diagnosed a Pre-D is confusing. On one hand you are not "diabetic" in the traditional sense, but you are on the path and the diagnosis allows you change your life and possibly avoid becoming a full-blown Type-2.

Linda is correct about the exercise. I will give you an analogy that I got to explain "Insulin Resistance." Imagine your cells, in particular the muscle cells, all have little door with locks that allow glucose/glycogen inside to fuel the engines inside the cells. Insulin resistance is the condition in which somebody has come along and shoved toothpicks into the locks so that the keys cannot open the door. Now, there are two solutions. One is drug therapy where you are provided drugs that clean out the locks, but these have some nasty side effects and don't always work for each person. The other is exercise. The problem here is that most folks have learned to hate exercise (as is exemplified in the fact that the "Exercise Forum" is one of the least visited among the Diabetes Forums).

Then, what should you do? I recommend exercise, but it has to be something that you like doing that will burn calories. Assigning yourself to hours on a treadmill is not going to work unless you get a kick out of hours on a treadmill. My personal choice is bicycling, a return to my youth as it were, when I loved riding my bike. I will willingly ride for hours on end, in in turn my muscle cells add more little doors with fresh locks ready to take in all kinds of glucose/glycogen.

The next thing you must do, yes you really must, is to start testing yourself. Now, there is a lot of debate about the value of self-testing for non/pre-diabetics. It is worth it and the expense because you begin to get an idea of how your body works. I test about four times per day -- A Fasting Blood Glucose (FBG) every morning, and one about two hours following breakfast, lunch, and the last before bed.

Finally there is eating. In America it is generally true that we overeat. If you look at the calorie load of most meals, generally, unless you are aware and careful, one American meal usually provides all the calories you need for a full day, and then we have dessert, and snacks! The good news is that if you exercise you get to eat a bit more. My bicycling burns about 850 calories/hour and I ride my bicycle at least 1.5 hours per day and often longer on weekends when riding with my tandem bicycle club (okay, I'm retired so I have that kind of time).

The Pre-D diagnosis is your "Wake-Up" call. So, welcome to the club nobody wanted to join and start learning about how your body works.