It's Not All Roses and Lilies

Documenting my journey also means talking about the rough parts, too.

Photo by Online Marketing on Unsplash

Insulin Resistance - ever heard of it?

Well, I have it. The condition is described as your cells refusing to act on Insulin, so the pancreas creates more and more. My doctor told me that my fasting glucose levels are on the rise, according to my periodic blood tests. I still have time, as it’s well within the normal range of blood sugars, but if I don’t act on it soon, I could be diagnosed with full-on Diabetes.

The thing is, I’ve been trying to lose weight for years. It’s been one of the most impactful parts of my self-esteem. And frankly, I don’t even know what I’ve been doing wrong. I’ve decided I will not self-diagnose and just look at the most obvious things I’m doing wrong:

1. I drink a whole lot of coke zero every day - that can’t be good for you.

2. I’m not doing resistance training much, and I work at a sedentary day job - my muscle mass is probably reduced from way back when I worked as a shift manager in retail and moved every day (I was also 20 kilos lighter).

I could also dive into my food patterns, but honestly, I don’t want to make too many changes at once and then fail all of them.

A good place to begin would be to incorporate two-three resistance exercises in my gym weekly just to get my body used to it. And start replacing coke zero with sparkling water. With coke zero circulating in my blood, there’s always some amount of caffeine in my bloodstream, preventing my body from truly resting. Also, I'm unsure if some of those sweet cravings are caused by coke zero.

Why Am I Telling You This?

If you’ve ever been on a flight, you’ve heard the flight attendant instructs you to put your own mask on before helping others in case of an emergency. Another saying is also true, “You can’t pour from an empty glass.“

Some of you are also trying to make your dreams come true at the price of neglecting something in your life. And I’m here to say, wait a minute. What are you actually sacrificing?

If I hadn’t slowed down to think about my health, I would not be fit to pursue my dreams. Imagine what it’s like to work on your dreams when your mind is clear and your body is thriving, instead of making small dents in your progress while you also fatigue quickly and struggle to keep focused on the task at hand.

We live in our bodies, and we need to make friends with them. And now, in my life, I feel like I’m not doing my body any favors.

I did my job if it inspired you to pursue your own health or other required growth to follow your dreams.

I thought I might document this health journey in videos, but I’m too fatigued and scatterbrained to commit to making them. Not every success story should be on YouTube. It could be in writing as well.

Lifestyle Change > Attaining Health Goals

I also don’t want this to become a goal to lose weight or something like that. Unless you are struggling with a health issue you are working on with your doctor, your current body shape is the result of your past decisions.

If I were a person who is working out, my body would have reflected that. If I were a person who doesn’t eat junk food, my body would have reflected that too. So, saying that I need to lose a specific amount of weight is the wrong way to solve my problem. Instead, as James Clear said in his book Atomic Habits, we need to change who we are to see our bodies reflect our personalities.

And that’s why I don’t want to make such a fuss about it aside from just documenting the process.

What Else?

In the coming days, I’ll update this Substack with previous articles from across the web. You won’t get emails on those ones because I don’t want to flood your inbox. But I will send you an update with a neat list of them.

Feel free to reach out at any point about anything! Your replies to this email (or comments below) reach me directly.

Also, I will formally announce this here as well: My geek peek podcast will now take breaks on the last Sunday of every month. So, no new one this coming Sunday, but we’re already setting up June 4th and those that come after it!

Talk soon,

Oren