Heather's Vibrant Lifestyle with Borderline Diabetes

Hello everyone, hi my name's Heather and I'm a community champion and I'm borderline, I have borderline diabetes and I'm here to share some of the things in my life that may be of interest to you or perhaps help you in your lifestyle and see how we get on today. Lovely. Thank you, Heather. Do you look forward to the summer months and going on vacation abroad or at home? I really look forward to summer because it's 2024 and we've had nine months of winter. But regardless of what year it is, I always look forward to summer, more time spent with the grandchildren and the family, going out more and if we can afford it getting away either down to Cornwall, Devon, Scotland and the really big one back to the Caribbean to Barbados and hopefully one day Dominica see my son-in-law's family. Lovely, thank you. Now do these summer days bring particular challenges to your diabetes? I think the challenges are that you're eating out quite a lot and really and truly you don't want to spend time in the kitchen. I live in a three-generational household and I do all the cooking and some days I just want time out so really and truly and nobody really wants big hot meals every day but because of the grandchildren I try and make sure that we all eat properly and definitely maybe on the Sunday dinners we eat out more but during the week I try and make sure that at least the evening meal is quite a heavy meal and we start the day pretty Pretty much we still have breakfast, but the younger generation prefer cornflakes or a slice of toast, whereas I'm still on the good old-fashioned British breakfast. You know, fried eggs, fried plantain, you name it, I still have that, but in proportion. That's lovely. And how do you manage with the longer days and the shorter sleeping patterns, and have you found strategies to cope with those? The longer days, well, I enjoy them. I'm out in the garden. I keep a very busy lifestyle. To be honest, you have to give me at least a fortnight minimum notice, um, because, um, I'm running two, uh, diabetes spare support groups. Um, I go out with my son, son-in-law, he's a carpenter. So he's teaching me new skills in I've learned in electrical work, painting, decorating. I do have one day at home for myself. And then weekends I try to have a lie in, but I don't know what that definition is. I'm up anyway, and Sunday I'm taking up with church. We're out visiting family. And what about the shorter nights? Shorter nights is a problem. I don't get enough sleep. I can definitely say that, but you just live with it. I'm 75, so by now you just get used to it. You know, from having my daughter umpteen years ago, you're used to having to rely on a little sleep. I can power nap as they call it, which is very trendy the phrase, but I can cat nap for a couple of hours and feel reasonably refreshed. And overall, do you feel that the longer days and the shorter nights affect your health in any way? Not really, because I really love the sunshine. That's the bit that affects my health because I really have to stoke up the vitamin D and get out. I love gardening, so I mean I can get a better tan in my garden than paying hundreds of pounds go overseas because I'm out in the garden soaking up the sunshine so in a positive way it does it does affect my health. Any second I get to go in the garden I'm out there. As I say I would say deprivation of sleep is probably more of a problem but then you have to balance things in life. I prefer to be in the garden I can always catch up on the sleep once in the day when everybody's somewhere else yeah. And what about the changes in our food and activity during these summer months? We eat a range of things. Obviously you can see I'm from a Caribbean background so that it's sometimes when I cook the meals that's the main focus of my meals but then when you're living with children who eat pizzas every Wednesday when my in fact a lot of things actually are tailored around my granddaughter because she does after-school clubs so Wednesdays she goes swimming that's fish and chip night not Friday fish and chips on Wednesdays Thursdays we're busy with activities as well so we would order in chicken, she loves chicken which is great and she's now eating steak, full-size steak, not little mini things. Oftentimes she'll eat her dinner and ours and she's only seven, my god I hate to think what happens when she becomes a teenager. So I would say it's more around her, the meals, but we eat a range of food. You know, we can have Chinese, we can have Mediterranean diet, but as long as she gets her steak, we're fine, pretty much. She loves stir fries, absolutely. She'll eat as much as an adult actually at the moment. So I would say we're not totally Caribbean in our eating, we eat across the board, whatever the family enjoys, yeah. And do you have any particular challenges to do with the changes in the food and activity levels during the summer and what are your strategies for dealing with those challenges? I would say I don't see them really as challenges because I don't let my health be in borderline effects. What I definitely do is I do intermittent fasting. I'm about the only one but I do make sure I watch the family what they eat. So as I'm the cook I control the proportion side so I do intermittent fasting and try and make sure I my last time I eat is about 10 dish around that time and also portion size so in a way I don't think for me I don't try to change my diet that much because my body knows what it needs so if I keep to the same consistent food but just scale it down and I find the intermittent fasting has made my stomach shrink so I'm really I'm probably eating a child's portion now whereas my seven-year-old is eating what I would eat as an adult and I find that works. I've lost three stone and it is no biggie. It's hard to start the fasting but once you get into, I find, once I get into a routine it just happens automatically. I know how much I can serve out on my plate and it's not a problem. And any concerns or challenges with the level of activity changes that happens in the summer? So in the summer I presume that you have there'll be a change in your activity levels you mentioned gardening and traveling any concerns or challenges with that? No I mean I know I garden all the year round really and then I know when it gets really wet you can't go out but for me I always keep busy and I think that's the secret of it and the other secret with eating is I do the school run so if If any of you can get access to a grandchild, I recommend it. Put the car away, go out on the school round, because if you think about it, I live a mile and a quarter from the school. So by the time I go and come back and go and come back, I'm clocking up 25 miles a week and that's just taking her to school, let alone doing this 10,000 steps. I even bother with any of that stuff. Up and down the house, going shopping. I'm more worried about my bank balance because I'm getting through trainers like nobody's business. It's not about losing the weight and staying healthy. You've got to, you know, it's the money you're buying new trainers. So at the moment, I'm using my daughter's trainers. As soon as she gets rid of a pair, I take them to be honest. Otherwise, I'd be out of pocket all the time. But you've got to fit an exercise with the food. Oftentimes, people move about the food I find, but they're not putting in the exercise to go with it and they wonder why intermittent fasting isn't going to work. If you don't put in some kind of exercise, then you're actually defeating it and you will tend to give up and probably get depressed or miserable, which you shouldn't do. You know, it's not something, don't treat your illness, don't let it walk around with you all the time. In fact, sometimes we don't even talk about diabetes when I run the support group. We're doing other things. We're all learning digital, we're using our phones, learning skills, we're using laptops. I bring in, maybe the closest we get to food is bringing in two cans of bean while we're doing our exercise and we use them as weights. You know, I try and think of things that they can do around the house to help themselves at the same time. But don't make it the be all and end all, it should not be, really. That's lovely, and we talked about the eight behaviours and the 12 characteristics earlier. Which of those, it may be one or two, do you feel are much more relevant to you and your diabetes in the summer? Well, I'm going to be controversial and mention I have a pint of Guinness every week without fail. I've been drinking that. My daughter is now in her 40s. I started then because I was very anemic. That was more of a problem then. the surgeon recommended it's pills or Guinness and I love Guinness and I've had that every day for over 45 years, I think she is now. Works a treat and a tot of rum. I'm from Barbados where we invented rum, a tot of rum every now and again and it's not throwing my diabetes out, it's not pushing me over the top. There may be a concern with, I had high blood pressure at one time and cholesterol and I was given tablets. I'm not a tablet person and I found they affected me more, to be quite honest. So I've worked that I come off of those, to be honest. I've got my cholesterol down, my, well, cholesterol is down, I don't need the other tablets, so I'm totally back to how I used to be. And I think that's something you've got to work at. If you really want to come on the tablets and you will really work to get your diabetes under control or if you're borderline like me you don't want to go in that direction because we do have it in the family. So I would say enjoy a nice lifestyle but you've got to work at it and make it second nature. And any other tips that you'd like to share with other people facing the same health challenges? I think they've got, I would say keep a positive attitude really and truly, do not drag it around like a crutch, you know, yes it's something there but you know as an illness but you've got to be positive and focus, you've got a whole life ahead of you, you don't want to be droning on, I mean I wouldn't invite you to my group if you're going to drone on about your health but if you come up with something interesting, do something with your life if you want to go and do artwork if you want to I've got my lot looking up booking up free courses over the summer all lots of positive things you'll find you are in control of your life don't let the illness if you want to see it as an illness control you you know your grandchildren are never gonna visit you if you're moping and groaning all the time whereas I go I hate to say I've fallen off my granddaughter's scooter even the school has banned me from getting on her scooter enjoy life you know do positive things I go on the swing at the parks, totally things that you wouldn't expect a 75 year old to be doing, I'd do it. I would draw back from skydiving and things like that because I've got a grandchild on the way, so I don't want to kill my parent, you know, pass away before my grandson. And I would say get a very strong faith life. I'm very much into my church, absolutely. Sorry, sorry, sorry about that if I've deafened you. I would say you've got to have a very positive faith life and very strong focus. You know, read your Bible, find something to do. There's a hundred and one things that you may have wanted to do when you were 16 when you left school and what do you want to do? Head to the grave early and you've never tried or experienced these time. You're totally free, I would say. Don't worry about your pension, that's on the economy, don't worry about politicians, you don't have to worry about that anymore. Don't ever look back with any regrets, go forward, do all the things that you're sitting waiting for that that day I don't know what that day you're waiting for but just get on with life and be very positive go and help other people tons of charity work you know I could say I went in to do a charity job and then ended up running a day center for about six months because they were short of a member I got paid can you imagine that and I've been retired and a pensioner since 60 you've got skills that you can share with young people you know mentoring skills you you're not really using your life to the I would say get out into the community.