Excited to celebrate my birthday 6-yrs after diabetes diagnosis

@chocolate5lover, have a Happy, Happy, Birthday! I am grateful for every one the Good Lord gives me. I am 74 and have had diabetes for 2 1/2 years. I can appreciate your problem as I live in the South too and food is always a part of any celebration whether a birth or a death and everything in between. I also find that even relatives and close friends are not as tolerant if people don't eat and praise all the illegal foods. But, I have changed my eating completely to everything roasted or baked and lots of chicken and green veggies. I am lucky so far that I don't have to take any meds for my diabetes. I am just over the line and check blood twice a day and watch what I eat. At my age, I do not have an exercise routine, but cooking and housework are enough. I need to lose weight, but so far I have stayed basically the same. I have just had to accept my situation and deal with it. I do occasionally cheat but just a bite or two. One thing about living in the South we have wonderful fresh veggies and fruits---so lots of choices. Good luck and have a wonderful year!

@retiredteacher

@chocolate5lover Oh no! Here I am about to head south for a quick vacation and I hear that! I will have to try hard to be good. Of course there is a lot of very fatty food everywhere these days. Up here in the northeast fried seafood is popular, but alas, I no longer eat it.

I love your name, I too am a chocolate lover. I generally have a piece of dark chocolate in the morning. My excuse is that it's good for my heart and since I can't drink red wine the chocolate will have to do.
JK

@retiredteacher If you have a health club, Y, or facility as part of a local hospital, you might be surprised at how many people your age and older go to exercise. I go to a health club and there are many people there in their 80s. I myself just turned 71 and go about 6 days a week -- three for water exercise, and three in the gym. Oddly I don't think of it as being for my mild diabetes but I guess it must help too.
I have had diabetes now for at least 12 years, maybe 13 or 14. I believe it was the first indication of my silent cirrhosis which the hepatologist told me I probably had for about 10 years before it was diagnosed. My A1c is good so my endo only has me checking my bg once a week, two hours after a meal, and I take no medications.
I do really miss some of the starches that I limit and of course the sweets, but I eat most meat and fish, just not fried.
If you actually do want to lose weight, I suggest using myfitnesspal.com. You keep track of EVERYTHING that you eat. It helped me enormously. I lost a lot of weight.
JK

Enjoy your vacation! A day or two of indulgence won't kill you, but try to keep it in moderation. Here in Louisiana, I pass on most of the food here about 85 to 90% of the time--but, the other 10 to 15% is Heavenly!!! I love milk chocolate, I never did like dark chocolate very much; but even that, I only have like once a month. Unfortunately, I have 29 more days till my next bite of chocolate! Of course, I break all of my rules from time to time--no one is perfect Is that a Snickers bar I see sitting on my counter? : )

@chocolate5lover, I don't live close to any type of gym, no Y, no facility attached to a hospital. I'd have to drive over and hour one way to get to something, and I don't drive. My husband does all the driving, so a trip to exercise isn't in the cards. I used to exercise when I was young and busy all the time, but not now. Some people like to go to the gym and others don't. I'm in the others group. I was skinny all my life until I had to retire, and then boredom led me to be a couch potato. I had a tread mill that I looked at every day, but how boring is that? I also don't like to sweat, so as long as I can stay in line with diet and having good numbers and not having to take meds, I am accepting of the disease. Thanks for mentioning all of the options, but I don't live where any of these options exist. I do my household chores and grocery shopping, and that's my exercise. It works for me.
Congratulations on all of your activities. That's terrific.

retiredteacher

@retiredteacher that's too bad you don't live close to a facility with some of those features. I enjoy the people at my health club in the pool classes and although I do not maintain friendships with any of them outside of the club it's always nice to socialize with them in class. I actually do HATE going to the gym, the pool I hate less.
I have a recumbent bike here at home that I use about four nights a week. It's in my bedroom and while doing it I watch various non-absorbing TV shows, mostly the food network and the home network because I can easily walk away from them when I am done on the bike.
When I go to the gym at my club I do the treadmill. I used to do about 30 minutes but due to boredom I often only make it to 20 minutes now. That gets me about 1.25 miles so I figure, good enough.
I really pushed myself to exercise when I was on the list for a liver transplant so I had a pretty big incentive. I knew if I lost weight and got into some shape I would fare better when recuperating. It worked. I am having trouble maintaining that loss now without that huge incentive. I have gained back about 10 pounds. I would be OK with the weight but I have a whole wardrobe I bought when I was 10 pounds lighter so I don't want to have to buy more clothes.
JK