Resolution?
Usually, by the end of January, any resemblance of a made resolution of early January has disappeared in my life. I really wish I was better at keeping them. I always found it interesting when I hear someone with T1D say that their resolution is to ‘do better’ and lower their A1C. Let’s be clear. Saying I want to go to the gym more or eat less pizza is a goal that is reachable and it is based on trying to break the cycle of human behavior. Making a new year resolution on lowering one’s A1C makes me want to say……give yourself a break.
The idea of a resolution is to do better and surely if lowering your A1C becomes a goal, I say good for you but please make sure there is not a self-blaming issue going on. The A!C, and I have stated this before, is not a report card, it is a gauge. I am not going to make a resolution to stay within the speed limit, am I?
Should my speedometer be higher than it should be, I take my foot off the gas and car slows to the desired speed…..and I am on my way. Now should I have a glove compartment full of speeding tickets, the resolution may make sense but for every day life, I think not. If you are living life where you have seen your A1C rising and rising due to some habits that could use tweaking, by all means make a decision based on that. But if you have been doing your best, to live life as you should, and the A1C could be in a better place, work at it. But don’t give diabetes more attention than it deserves.
When people have asked me over the years if I thought they could do x, or do y, with diabetes I almost always responded the same way; could you do it without having diabetes? When they say, “yes”, I chime in with; “well, there is your answer”. The same with A1C, would you be saying the same thing if you did not have diabetes?
Now I am surely not saying, here, do not work at your A1C—what I am saying is give yourself a break. Doesn’t your diabetes get enough attention on a daily basis that to have to use up a new year resolution? Make a new year resolution to be nicer to people while you are driving……..better yet, might be easier for some of you to lower your A1C.
I am a diabetes dad.
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One reply on “Should Diabetes Ever Be Given Space in our New Year Resolutions?”
On June 21, 2023 I will celebrate my 49th year with diabetes. That is not something I ever dreamed possible. 1974 was a long time ago., So yes I this year I do have a diabetes resolution. Though it is not better numbers or great doctor visits.
Mine, make it to my 50th diaverasary. Sometimes that goal seems far away and others it seems close at hand. Now how do I get there? Live the best I can and enjoy life as I have it.