Experience with (pre)diabetes

A year ago I found out I was potentially prediabetic. That word - potentially - stuck with me. It meant that I had to seriously re-evaluate my habits, but (luckily) still had time to control my destiny.

I was initially shocked, but I soon began researching ways that people had dealt with similar situations. I consulted online blogs, an online tele-doc, family members, and Reddit.

For the following months, I made the following changes to my lifestyle:

• Lifting weights 3-4 times per week
• ~10 miles of running per week
• Short walks after every meal
• ~100g carbs/day, 150g protein/day, 15g fiber supplements
• No alcohol, no junk food
• 8 hours of sleep

I later retested and my A1C had declined into the healthy range, clear of (pre)diabetes(!)

I felt thankful and truly lucky that my lifestyle adjustments worked. In the hope of helping others in the same situation, I published a post on Reddit’s r/Prediabetes thread to share my experience, and I was (briefly) their top trending post.

While my recent labs have stayed in a healthy range, the experience left lessons that will stay with me. Diet and exercise really can work, but many people only discover they are at risk after the window for easy prevention has narrowed. Most of what I found online was paywalled, anecdotal, or outdated, which feels wrong for a problem this large—the ADA estimates that over 40 million Americans have diabetes and the CDC estimates that 115 million American adults have prediabetes, yet it still feels under-resourced and under-discussed. I want to help change that however I can - through both diabetes advocacy and open-source health work when opportunities show up.