Rob's story: focusing on eating healthier to manage my diabetes

• Diagnosed with prediabetes in 2010 – where your blood sugar levels are high but not high enough to be in the diabetes range, putting you at high risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
• By 2014, he'd developed type 2 diabetes.
• His daughter Lucy has binge eating disorder and was also diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
• The pair use their experiences of the condition to support each other.

Diabetes impact on family

In 2010, my GP said he was concerned about my blood sugars. He thought they were a little high and that I might be pre-diabetic. In 2014, I was told I had developed type 2 diabetes, although the vast majority of the time, leading up to my diagnosis, I didn’t have any symptoms.

I remember telling my daughter, Lucy, and her sister and my stepson. They were all very supportive and understanding. My big concern was that, because of Lucy’s weight issues, which are caused by her binge eating disorder, that she would end up becoming diabetic too. And lo and behold, it was about a year later that she was diagnosed with type 2. Like a lot of people, I think she hoped that it wouldn’t happen.

When Lucy was diagnosed I was upset, because you don’t want to think of someone half your age having the same diagnosis that you’ve got in your sixties. I wanted to help, as I had a head start in terms of understanding diabetes.

Now, we sometimes go shopping with Lucy. My wife, Jan, has showed her what to look out for on food labels, but because she has dyslexia, those little tables with numbers in them are quite difficult for her to process.

I have been overweight most of my life. However, I also used to be extremely fit and active. I’ve always been a walker. From the 1970s through to 1993, I was a runner. I used to swim and play squash too.

Then, in 1993, I was getting ready for my morning run and as I was putting my socks on, I slipped two discs in my back. I was off work for over two months. It was really bad.

My GP said he thought my days of running were over. For more than six months, I couldn’t do any exercise, and I put on a lot of weight. I’ve never quite been able to shift it since. 

Walking and swimming are the only things I can do, and life’s been very hectic for the last 25 years, and I’ve never managed to get back to where I was before in terms of fitness. Much as I miss it, I can’t run.

My diet has changed a lot over the years. These days, I’m vegetarian most of the time. My wife’s vegan, so we don’t have much in the way of animal products in the house. I’ve always had a passion for fruit and cereals. Looking back, I think my diet has always been a bit carb-heavy. Since I’ve been diagnosed, I’ve tried to decrease my carbs a bit and increase protein.

Something that’s really helping me is a whole approach to food called intuitive eating. Fundamentally, it’s about your relationship with food. We live in a society where we’re absolutely surrounded by food. It’s everywhere.

I’m a bit of a tech ‘geek.’ I like my gadgets. When I was diagnosed I asked my GP if I should be monitoring my blood sugars. He said that wasn’t recommended according to the national guidelines, which state that you have your HbA1c monitored every six-12 months and you have an annual diabetic check and advice. 

I wasn’t happy with that. So, from 2014 until last year, I was monitoring my bloods after every meal. It did have some benefits in terms of helping me modify my diet, but not as much as I’d hoped. I’ve stopped monitoring my blood sugars now, because I feel I’ve gone as far with that as I can. For me, that process allowed me to identify some foods that would make my blood sugar spike. 

My HbA1c has steadily been going down from the high 50s to the high 40s. I think it’s in part due to having been prescribed Alogliptin in addition to Metformin. I think that has enhanced my control. 

I’ve also been more active, which I think has helped. I’ve been trying to increase my walking. On average, I walk 3-4 miles most days, which is a way of controlling my weight as well as helping my blood sugars.

Something that’s really helping me is a whole approach to food called intuitive eating. Fundamentally, it’s about your relationship with food. We live in a society where we’re absolutely surrounded by food. It’s everywhere.

When I injured my back and stopped being so active, I wish I’d realised there were other things I could have done to replace running. 

When you run, you get hooked on the endorphins it gives you. I became depressed, not just because I’d hurt my back, but because I couldn’t do what I wanted to do. I think it took me a long time to come out of that, maybe two years. I started trying to swim a bit, but it didn’t really fit with working. Gaining weight didn’t do my mood any good. 

It wasn’t so much being diagnosed with diabetes that made me feel low. It was the fact that I had to rethink what I was always used to doing.

And maybe if I’d tried harder, I could have changed things. But when I spoke to my brilliant GP about those feelings, he was very helpful. He knew any kind of diagnosis is not nice. With his support, I was able to accept it and do my best with the situation I am now in.

I’ve found online resources, such as the Diabetes UK website, very helpful. I look at the forums and read the newsletters. I like that some of articles seem to be evidence based and scientific and others seem to magnify the results of recent research. My daughter, Lucy, and I have found the cookbooks very useful, you can get them from the online shop and they give you food and meal ideas if you're struggling to think of what you can have. 

Food labelling is one of my real bugbears. I’m lucky in that I have a scientific background, but the way it’s done is ridiculously unhelpful. It’s too complicated and it’s not helpful for people with food sensitivities or diabetes. Check out Diabetes UK's Food Upfront campaign on better food labelling.

As to how my story will impact people, that's more complex. I hope it will show that there are many ways to have diabetes and many ways to cope. I hope my story will show how important information and support are to people with all types of diabetes. Above all, I'd like to see more focus on some of the issues I have raised.