About Me

About Me and this blog:

(AI is weird)

Hello, and welcome!  

My name is Tyson, and I started this blog just as a place for me to post about whatever I've been cooking, or whatever I've been thinking as I'm continually learning how to live with diabetes and constantly chasing that low A1C dragon.

My day job is working with computers.  I'm a network administrator / sysadmin, and I have worked in the technology department for a K-12 school district for nearly 29 years (around 5 as the director of the department) as I'm writing this.   I've been married for 26 years, have two kids, 18 and 20 both in college (Go Utes!), both of them way smarter than me.

When I was a teenager I taught myself how to cook, mostly by just trying any recipe that sounded interesting, and watching things like "Good Eats" (certainly a contender for the best cooking show to ever air), America's Test Kitchen, Lidia Bastianich, and other similar instructional cooking shows (I don't really like what food network has become since they've gone to just all reality shows now, --the way of MTV).  

If it's not apparent from the title here...I love really spicy food!  If you were to look at the ridiculous number of hot sauce bottles I have in my fridge you might think I have a problem.  However not everything I post here necessarily has to be made spicy, I try to make it an option for most things.

So I feel like I'm a pretty accomplished home cook, but certainly not a pro.  I think that background has helped me cope with diabetes, because cooking for yourself is something you really need to learn to do to properly manage your blood sugar.

Anyway, sometime around 2015 I was diagnosed as type two.  I'm no bodybuilder, but I'm in decent shape (though I'll admit that losing a couple pounds isn't going to hurt, I'm 6 feet tall, around 165 lbs.), my family history shows that it's definitely possible to get diabetes without being the stereotypical obese American who is just "asking for it".  Both of my grandmothers had it, also both of my parents. As well as various other uncles and family members, none of them are/were living an unhealthy lifestyle.  My mom, and her mom are/were skinny as a rail, yet still had/have to deal with this.  My dad and grandma on that side were also never what people always seem to imagine as "big fat diabetics".

My point here is that T2 people tend to get judged by those who don't know better, because too many people think that it's "our fault" that we ended up with this condition.  Weight is certainly a risk factor, but not taking good care of yourself is not the only reason people get this disease.

I'm not insulin dependent yet, hopefully that lasts for a while still.  Over most of the last 11 years I've been able to pretty much control it with just medication, and for a while was getting away with eating (somewhat) normally..  Dr. made adjustments to the meds over the years, increasing dosages, etc. over time.  I made some minor lifestyle changes, eating generally healthier, but didn't really have to get too extreme with my diet for several years, the pills were doing their job, the doctor was happy with the numbers, etc.

Until this last little while.  2 Doctor visits ago my A1C was 8.1.  Doses were increased, I even lost a couple pounds trying to eat healthier and increase exercise, and the last time I went it was up to 8.8.  Soo....It's progressed to the point where I've had to start really seriously making more drastic changes and paying much closer attention to nutrition and carbohydrates.  doctor put me on a CGM, (which seriously, is maybe one of the best things I've ever done, having a continuous picture of what your sugar is like all throughout the day instead of just when you remember to stick your finger is an absolute game changer.)  I'll make a post about my experience with the CGM and what it's taught me and general thoughts about it soon.

(Update:  The CGM post is linked here)

And then there's the big change: I've started using a once-weekly GLP-1 injection (Ozempic) which seems to be very effective so far.  I haven't been back for an A1C test since starting it (I'll update here and surely make a post when I do), but the sugar levels through the day on most days are better than they have been in a really long time.  The doctor tried to put me on the CGM and the weekly shot at the same time, but due to an insurance...issue, I ended up using the CGM for around a month before I got on the shot.  So that created an interesting picture of what using only the oral meds were doing, in contrast to how it's working out now with the shot.  Anyway, I'll also make a post about my experience with and thoughts/opinions about Ozempic here sometime in the near future.

I'm happy you're here! I hope you find something I have to say, or a recipe I have to share here useful, flavorful, interesting, or all of the above!  And I hope you'll come back to visit occasionally (or often!), leave comments on the posts, let me know what you think, things you've learned on your own journey, vent your frustrations, etc.