I get asked a lot of questions about my journey in reversing type 2 (T2) diabetes and finding a healthy life.  LOTS.

They are probing, emotion-laden, frantic, rude, personal, funny.  They are never easy to answer. These are not casual questions, even if it might seem that way on the surface.

I began compiling a list of some of the FAQ’s and conversations starters that I have encountered these past 3+ years. The list is three pages long, single-spaced. I wasn’t kidding.  I told you… I get asked a lot of questions.

I also get asked at least weekly if I have a blog.

I do now.

I want to answer those questions. My answers are based only on my personal experience with this roller coaster of adopting a new lifestyle. I will be honest about the tough stuff that comes with mega-weight loss and battling T2 and learning to love being physically active.

Now for the disclaimer: I’m obviously not a doctor. I’m just a stubborn, former fat girl who decided she wanted something different. And started fighting for it.  And continues to chase it down each and every day. That’s all the credentials I can offer up.

I can talk about what it feels like to have a triple-digit weight loss staring you in the face.  I totally understand having tried every diet/pill/magic remedy no matter how ridiculous or questionable or unsafe. I know what it is like to be told to exercise when walking out to your car after work saps every spare ounce of energy you have left.  I will never forget the overwhelm when my doctor explained my T2 diabetes diagnosis, shoved packages of needles and syringes in my hands and let me walk out the door with no instructions on how to actually give myself an injection. I was told to ‘eat better’. Whatever in the hell that meant…  I mean my track record and the scale would prove that perhaps the judgement needed to ‘eat better’ was not one of my stronger skills.

There was no one to help me navigate those confusing and isolated paths. I would love to be the help or encouragement for someone that I really, really needed back when my health started to unravel. This is no way discounts my friends who never left my side.  But I desperately needed to talk to someone who had been in those 400 pound shoes. Someone to offer up a word of advice as I struggled to figure out a relationship with food that was overtly and ‘suddenly’ a poison to my T2 system. Someone to talk to me about starting to exercise when you wear 4X clothing.

How did you let yourself get so fat?

How did you learn to love running, because I absolutely HATE exercise?

So… Are you telling me that I can never eat ice cream/candy/cake/pie/pizza again?  Ever?

I have to lose so much weight this is impossible.

What’s your secret?  There must be some sort of secret…

I have found a scant handful of folks who have successfully reversed T2. And fewer folks who have lost significant amounts of weight and are successfully keeping it off.  (Surgical or not…)  It’s a lonely little club. Right now at least.

My new-found passion and quest in life?  Find others facing and battling T2.  Find others who are ready to tackle weight loss, want to learn to love exercise and understand that means they have to embrace radical lifestyle shifts.  I will help where I can with support and encouragement. I want to use what I have learned to HELP people.

I would love to grow this lonely little club into a freaking monster tribe of healthy and active friends.