A Little Bit Off Normal

In today's world, "normal" is a vast inclusive range in which the vast majority seems to fall and yet feel excluded from at the same time. "Normal" refers to our happiness, our job, our family life, our diet, our weight, our hobbies, and the list goes on and on. One thing that is quickly becoming evident in my journey to being fit is that what doctors and lab tests call "normal" may add up to something completely ABNORMAL.

Case in point, I've had insulin issues for the last decade. Not diabetes, mind you (although my grandma is diabetic), but my body makes too much, dubbed "hyperinsulinemia". Because there's too much in my bloodstream, the body has become "immune" to receiving it and efficiently processing the glucose it is there to convert (insulin resistance). In any case, modern medicine's solution was a glucose inhibitor frequently prescribed for diabetes. Again....I'm told over and over that I do NOT have diabetes but have had to take it for the last decade.

In addition to the blood tests to find out that little gem, I was also put through tests for thyroid and cortisol. Both came back "NORMAL" but in the low range of normal. So what does that mean? I was justified in feel off - fatigued, losing my hair, stressed out, knowing my body was "off" somehow, but lab tests still said it was within the fringes of what medicine considered normal. So, I accepted the professional medical opinion. I resigned myself to the outlook that while it was low it was still "normal" so I was find and was just being overly sensative to feeling "off". No matter how little I ate or how much I exercised the weight just would not budge.

Fast forward to today. I had my metabolic assessment at Lifetime Fitness. A little health and fitness test to determine where your body is in health and the best track of diet and exercise for you to pursue. What I found out is that over the last year of dieting and exercising, I have managed to reverse my glucose and insulin issue through diet & exercise rather than relying on pills. I have lowered my cholesterol and triglycerides to low and healthy levels. In fact, the only issues that remain are my HDL and adrenal function are low. The fatigued, stressed feeling holding me back originally is still the thorn in my side.

I've read the symptoms and natural remedies out there and I'm hoping it will be manageable by further altering my diet to focus on increasing lean protein and further limiting carbs, but all these years of trusting a doctor telling me I was "normal" has led to it being the one thing holding me back. I hope that I get these two numbers where they should be and the weight just starts melting off. I hope that it will be the answer that "normal" doesn't always mean "normal" because it would be an amazing accomplishment to show that modern medicine in all their over-priced tests and prescriptions couldn't fix what old-fashioned hard work and self-reliance is able to correct.