Doug: Dropped 25lbs and His Risk of Diabetes FAST!

I’ve completed nearly 70 orbits on this planet, and I have struggled with my weight for most of them.

In spite of my weight, I’ve led a fairly active life; hiking, kayaking, camping, flying airplanes, riding horses, and motorcycles:

Pastimes that are more suited to an individual carrying a lot less “adipose tissue” than I do.

About five years ago, it all got real when my doctor diagnosed me with high blood pressure elevated cholesterol, and then told me I was pre-diabetic. He put me on eight different meds, including metformin, which I’m still taking.

Looking at this old photo of me at Chandler Field I wondered how it was possible my Champ’s little 90 horsepower engine could lift my portly 250+ pounds off the ground, let alone climb to a higher altitude. And if that wasn’t enough, last spring I saw an old photo of me riding a horse in the Hollywood Hills and I cringed. “Just look at that poor animal,” I thought, “why doesn’t that fat guy lose some weight?”

But I have lost weight. In fact, I’ve been losing the same hundred pounds over and over again since I was about 19 years old. Unfortunately, I was never “disciplined enough” to keep the weight off for an extended period of time.

Only time will tell if I can continue to lose weight and maintain it or not, but this time it feels very different. Why? Because in 2018, when I was asked to draft some scripts for a SANE video series for Jonathan Bailor, I got to read an early draft of his book, “The Setpoint Diet.”

That was an eye-opener for this old guy. What had I been doing all these years? Yoyo dieting? Certainly. But it was when I learned that it wasn’t how much I was eating but what, that the proverbial light went on and I started to make a significant change in my lifestyle.

That was in the spring of 2018 and since then I’ve lost about 25 pounds, which makes it a lot easier on my knees and ankles to hike and ride my bicycle, adding even more value to my newly found “fitness” lifestyle.

The most significant change however wasn’t in losing weight but in my lab results: My good cholesterol? Up! My bad cholesterol? Down! And best of all? My A1C, the dreaded measure of long term glucose in the bloodstream, dropped for the first time from 6.5 four months ago to 5.4 just last week. My doctor says he’s proud of me so I told him what changes I’d made in my eating habits, to which he said, “I wish more of my patients would read “The Setpoint Diet.”

So I’m on my way, and without having to starve myself. I still want to improve my lab results, and with any luck, I’ll keep my weight below 200 pounds and be able to ride horses again for the rest of my life!

Thank you Jonathan Bailor!

-Doug