The G-Zone

 One of the people I had a very limited time with during Ragnar was Dr. Mark McCullough.  Dr. McCullough was on the ultra team and had flight delays and made it to the event very late in the night.  Also I can't believe that I didn't snap a single picture of him and I together so I just took a picture of him on the back of his book.  Either I am losing my tourist skills or just getting lazy.

 When I did get a chance to sit and talk to him after the event I played my usual 20 questions and got to know the good doctor quite well in a couple of hours.  We discussed a bit of his book called: The G-Zone and how glucose affects our bodies.  This little amount of time with the good doctor was basically a good life changing moment for me.  He discussed simple things I was doing to reduce my insulin sensitivity such as the bag of jelly beans I was using to try to keep myself above 60.  The jelly beans were of course high fructose corn syrup which I already knew that but thought they were OK since they were a fat free BG raiser for me and they sit on my tummy well.  Then we discussed how the processed corn syrup actually made me insulin resistant and the processing and dyes in the beans are harmful in ways that reduce my sports endurance (I need alot more sports endurance).  Later that night I gave the rest of the bag of jelly beans to a homeless person and he was very grateful, even though he wanted beer or money instead of jelly beans.  Looking back now I might have created another diabetic and maybe the jelly beans should have been placed in the trash or something.

The last thing I did before Dr. Mark went to his room to rest for his early flight in the morning was bug him just enough to give me a copy of his book and if that isn't far enough I even had him sign it with a personal note to me.  Diabetes now gives me an excuse to almost demand crap from people or at least I like to use it that way.  He was not bothered by my needy-ness and I got my personalized and autographed book from Dr. Mark.

Now I was not going to just sit this book on my coffee table, the things Dr. Mark and I discussed sounded very good and if I am to ever have a six pack that is not covered in insulin laden fat then I was going to give this book a try.  So far I am on chapter four and it is actually a good book to read.  Some of the information is very basic for diabetics.  I think it is the constant medical information we have thrown at us that we are doctors by default but the easy and simple things Dr. Mark has in the book is working on me.  One of the things he says to do is take your weight and divide it in half and whatever that number is you need to drink that much water in ounces every day.  So say I were a 200 pounder, divide that by 2 and you get 100 and so I need to drink 100 ounces of water a day (if I were a 200 pound person).  Probably the neatest part of the book is his relationship with his wife.  One point he talks about his son and how he has a disease (sorry I can't remember which one) but their physician told them he would basically grow up and push a broom for a living.  That is when his wife said "If he is going to push a broom it will be for us at our company."  That is the power of positive thinking and Dr. Mark became a chiropractor.  Check out more on Dr. Mark McCullough at www.doctorMarkMcCullough.com and definitely buy a copy of his book.