My Virta Journey

OK.. so by the title, y'all may be thinking I've joined some sort of cult or clone club (that's a reference for all you Orphan Black fans out there), and while there ARE moments where I stop to consider if I did, that's totally not what this is about... so sit back and take a read...

Admittedly, I should have started this blog 3 weeks ago. Or even a month ago. But here I sit with bygone good intentions and am finally getting started.

My Story

So if you've known me for more than a day, you probably know my family doesn't have the best health history which means my sister and I have probably not won any genetic lotteries. And I eat an average American diet- which means I enjoy pretty much whatever I want to eat and try to throw some healthy food in there about half the time. :) But that being said- I try to overcome that by working out, having regular bloodwork, and visiting my doctor at a frequency that would send many of you running straight into a hypochondriacal coma. But even in creating interventions such as working out multiple days a week, there has been little change in my physical appearance nor my bloodwork numbers. And that's quite frustrating. So occasionally I give up and drown myself in a 5lb bag of gummi bears (Albanese Rocks!!!), only to perpetuate the situation and help me cut to the heart of the matter which is I'm pretty sure I'm a sugar addict. I am SOOOO an equal opportunity sugar eater! Yep- even the nastiest of the nasty candy- I'll eat it. (you know, the ones the old lady always gave out at Halloween and you were like, I'd rather she had given me pennies than this stuff... bring it on... ) And like it. Cake- it's my favorite. And never met a pie or cheesecake that I said no to.  Soda... yep that too. I was the generation that discovered Jolt- "twice the sugar"...remember that? We can have a different post about ice cream and cookies later... but the bottom line is, even though they weren't my favorites.. I still ate them.

So fast forward out of my sugar coma and basically I've had fluctuating blood sugars for YEARS.  By fluctuating, I mean I've had high highs and low lows. With no rhyme or reason... no consistency based on med dosages, etc. Just sometimes they were low.. and sometimes they were high.. and sometimes they were normal. People ask me if I'm diabetic, and my answer is "I guess so? " I do things diabetics do, I take meds diabetics take, but my body doesn't respond in traditional ways... so that's where the question mark comes in.

But for the past 6-9 months my blood sugar has been high - and no interventions are helping it come down.  Well... until now.... (more about that soon)

I had read a bunch about plant based diets and how they can regulate blood sugars and was about 2 days away from going full vegetarian-even if not borderline vegan. Of course, I had rationed in my head that the occasional bacon bit or cheese was not going to be harmful.... and so my plan had included "meat as a garnish" too.

But then... an email came from Purdue. They were offering a program to qualifying employees that could REVERSE diabetes and pre-diabetes, not just manage it like previous attempts. And I was intrigued... so what was it?

Stay tuned to the next post to learn more about Virta!