I'm Stuck ...

In various ways.

I got stuck this morning, at a lab.

My A1C is at 5.7. Which is exactly where it was three months ago.

That's not bad -- four years ago it was at 9.9, 18 months ago it was at 8.4, and IIRC, even six months ago it was at 7 or so. I am no longer diabetic (that's 6.5+), but still stuck at the bottom of the "pre-diabetic" range.

I'm also in my "weight rut." At my heaviest, I've hit about 250 pounds. When I start losing weight, I get stuck at 220-225 pounds and seem to not be able to break downward from that. I've been there for several months.

I have some theories about both sticking points.

One is that I no longer get much exercise in the summer. Back when I was an avid cyclist, I did, because the cycle movement kept a cooling "wind" on my body. Walking (or running, which I will try again if I can ever get below 200 pounds) in the summer in Florida sucks. As soon as you walk out the door, you're immediately soaked in sweat from the high humidity. It's just unpleasant and depressing. Now that it's starting to cool down, I plan to work on getting in a daily walk. Probably starting tomorrow morning.

Another is dietary.

I'm working toward becoming pretty much ovo-lacto-vegetarian, mainly because my wife is pretty much ovo-lacto-vegetarian and matching diet with her will create more opportunities to cook and eat together, find restaurants that sound good to both of us, etc. I've tried this before unsuccessfully, but now I'm taking a "lazier" approach. If I really happen to feel like eating something meaty, or if that's what's around the house, I just do it instead of agonizing about it. And after a few weeks, I'm now finding that when I get peckish think of food, I'm tending to think of non-meat food instead of immediately craving e.g. a burger.

The problem with that is that I've just never been big on green vegetables. When I'm not eating meat, I tend toward high-carb stuff like bread and pasta. Which is problematic for both weight and blood glucose. I certainly can't make myself eat a salad every day. That's what I've tried in the past, and after less than a week I'm just done with salad for a little while.

The solution, I guess, is to start working in a couple of salads a week at least. I'm also starting to dig egg rolls. They're not especially low-carb, but they have some green veggie (cabbage) in them, and the frozen ones come out pretty well in an air fryer. So I can satisfy my love for fried foods without drowning in oil, and get that green in. I don't know that I'll ever be able to make myself like peas and green beans, but I'm going to do some recipe research on that.

I think I can get un-stuck. And I'm glad to be stuck in a better position than usual.