"Pre-diabetic diagnosis"

In October 2022 I was given a pre-diabetic diagnosis. I was also given the offer of talking to the Community Food and Health Practitioner for my area.

Over the course of the last 12+ months, I have had several video conversations. These have helped enormously as initially the conversation was around what the diagnosis meant, how to manage my lifestyle and beneficial changes I could make.

We then moved onto thinking about 'everyday food' and 'less often food' to aid the lifestyle changes and understand the reasons behind this. Other factors were also discussed - sleep, exercise and general energy along with stress. I was also recommended to look into the 'New to Type 2' App which has a wealth of up to date resources and is being continually updated.

Through the encouragement I received, I researched alternatives to 'sugar' cakes and am now baking using sweet potato / bananas / dried fruit etc. I have not had to resort to artificial sugars (I do not add sugar to drinks etc and refuse to use artificial chemical sweeteners) although we did discuss plant based sweeteners.

The conversations moved to talking about other factors I can control and thinking about my own body awareness. I became aware of stress factors and we talked about different types of stress and management, along with the brain / gut axis.

The conversations have been positive and non-judgemental throughout. I frequently raised points I wanted to talk about and these were well addressed. I have been pointed towards a wealth of resources to support my learning and journey. I was encouraged to make sustainable lifestyle changes, these were discussed and it was ensured that I could control these changes; subsequent conversations checked to make sure I was still Ok with any changes and looked anything else I wanted to do - things were driven by myself with discussion & suggestions.

Throughout the conversations, I felt that the practitioner was knowledgeable and up to date with regard to recent research.