I did the Metformin and glyburide thing for YEARS before I went to my primary care doctor (this was the week before I entered the ACCORD program).

My sugar was NEVER controlled. I also ate what I was not supposed to eat. I used to self-medicate with food.

So one day I am in my primary care physician's office and he saw my sugar was 200 and something and he said "Melody get off all of these oral crap and go on Lantus. He explained that it was a basal insulin, given once a day (injection). I could choose to give myself one shot in the morning or one shot in evening. I have heard that evening is better, but at the time I chose the one shot in the morning.

The week I started on the Lantus, was the week I enrolled in the ACCORD program at Cornell. I knew that if I didn't do SOMETHING, well, I just new I had to do SOMETHING.

I also went to a nutritionist. Cornell supplied me with the Lantus.

I started initially with the one shot of Lantus and two Metformin (totalling 2000 a day). They usually start you with 10 units of Lantus to see how much to increase it. I went up to 46 units of the Lantus and 2 Metformins.

Then I got smart, stopped eating all the bad stuff and slowly they reduced my meds. First to go was the oral meds.

Then they began lowering the Lantus. I am now on just one shot of Lantus (19 units). Can't tell between 18 and 19 with my syringe but mostly it's 19.

Doing just fine. I have learned what I can't eat. I cannot eat any rice, brown or white, I can't eat fruit. (sure once in a while I can have berries), but it all depends on what my sugar is in the morning.

I can eat protein. I eat fish every day (Omega 3 is good for keeping blood sugar stable, at least in my case).

I eat chicken but small portions. It's all about portions.

Oh yesterday guess what I bought myself? A baby doll blouse. It's just a cute top, in pink and white with a little ruffle at the sleeve. Never could do that when i was overweight. It's amazing how you feel when you walk around a store and you know "I can wear that outfit, or I can fit into this blouse'.

Never could do that before.

So it's been about 6 years now that I am eating this way. I don't eat in the evening. Have no desire to.

I think it all starts in the brain.

If you take a 300 lb person, and go WHOOSH, and put them in let's say for example, Beyonce's body, well you might have a person in a nice body, but the reason they weighed 300 lbs, well, the reason is still in their brain.

So eventually that person will weigh 300 lbs again, because that person never found out why they were over-eating.

I have had to make major changes in my outlook towards food, and how I look at life.

Baby Steps.

Yesterday I was around the corner and met a lady who has lap-band surgery last year. She was a cute little thing and she lost 60 lbs so far. She has a 18 month old baby.

Ever see those adorable fat babies with the thighs that you love to bite. Everybody was oohing and aaahing over this baby-doll, but I knew immediately that genetically, this kid is going to have BIG PROBLEMS.

She must have weighed 40 lbs and at 18 months old, NOT GOOD.

Genetics play a part, and when they do, (like in my case, my mother weighed 200 lbs till she was 18 years old, then took it off and starved herself for the rest of her life, because she was 5 feet tall) I'm five feet 7.

I never knew my mother as an overweight person. I always thougth she was this little thing. But genetics played a part.

So I had to overcome genetics, overcome depression, and overcome self-medicating with food.

It took a long time. But I did it.

And the fact that I didn't have to become diabetic, well, I tell myself, "If I could go back 30 years and talk to myself".

BUT WE CAN'T DO THAT!!!

So we deal with the present.

So you hang in there.

You can do this. Check your sugar and don't eat anything white.

Melody