From Diagnosis to Balance: My Health Journey in 2025

CATBROGATE

This year started with a shock. In January, I had bloodwork done for the first time in a while, and the results floored me: an A1C of 8.7%. I hadn’t been tracking my blood sugar before, so this was my first real diagnosis — and it came in high. At that point, I estimate I weighed about 210 pounds.

One doctor recommended starting medication immediately. But when I expressed hesitation, another doctor suggested a different path: read The Diabetes Code by Dr. Jason Fung. I decided to try the lifestyle route first.

That’s when I began what I now call my bootcamp phase. Each week, I did a 72-hour fast, and on the other days I ate just one meal a day (OMAD). My meals were stripped down — no sugar, no starch, no grains, just protein, vegetables, and healthy fats. It was difficult, but it felt like the right way to fight back.

And the changes came faster than I expected. By May, when I first started logging my weight, I was already down almost 40 pounds. By July, my A1C had dropped all the way to 5.0%. Honestly, that result surprised me. My plan had been to spend a year trying to bring it under 6.5% — I didn’t expect to reach the normal range so quickly.

After that July result, I was eager to transition to something less punishing. The weekly 72-hour fasts had done what they needed to do, but they were painful. I wanted a plan that would keep working on my insulin sensitivity and weight goals without being so onerous.

That led me to the 4:3 plan. Four days a week I eat about 1,800 calories within a 4–6 hour window. Three days a week I cut down to around 700 calories within a 2-hour window, built on lean protein and vegetables with very little added fat. It lets me eat every day, cook real meals, and still stay on track.

From an estimated 210 lbs in January, I’m now in the low 160s by late August — nearly 50 pounds lighter.

That doesn’t mean I avoid indulgences. Weddings, holidays, or just the pull of an indulgent homemade dessert — I allow for them. The difference now is that I plan around them. If I want a bigger main course or dessert, I’ll cut breakfast that day, or keep the next day lighter. Using those kinds of levers has let me enjoy food without losing the balance.

Along the way, I’ve also learned to refine my nutrition. Cheese and dairy helped me with protein and calcium, but they also nudged my cholesterol up. So I’ve cut back, added more lean proteins, and started thinking in terms of nutrient anchors: 120+ grams of protein, 30–45 grams of net carbs (mostly from vegetables and berries), 25+ grams of fiber, and around 1,000mg of calcium daily. Those anchors keep things steady.

This isn’t the end of the journey — it’s the foundation. My biggest focus now is on maintenance: holding the progress I’ve made and avoiding sliding back into diabetic territory. That feels like its own challenge, maybe even bigger than the initial push.

If you’ve been down this road — bringing your A1C down, losing weight, and then facing the long stretch of keeping it there — I’d be interested to hear how you approached it. What worked for you in maintenance? How did you avoid relapse?

AnnPT77

You might consider reading some of the posts over in the Goal: Maintaining Weight part of the Community, threads where long-term maintainers talk about how they do it. Here are a couple of examples, to start:

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1422943/long-time-maintainers-how-do-you-do-it

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10008273/maintainers-how-do-you-keep-your-head-in-the-game

I'd say maintenance looks different for every person, because we each need to find methods that suit our own individual lifestyle, personality, preferences, strengths, and challenges.

My personal bias is to find relatively happy routine eating and activity habits that can continue almost on autopilot when other parts of life get demanding . . . because they will. I'm in year 9+ of maintaining a healthy weight, after around 30 years of overweight/obesity before losing from class 1 obese to a healthy weight at age 59-60 (while menopausal and severely hypothyroid, if that matters - I think it doesn't). My former bad health markers - blood pressure, cholesterol, etc. - are consistently solidly normal, and have been since part way through weight loss.

This is not a criticism, just another personalization/individualization observation: I went about loss quite differently than you have, so my individual advice might not suit you. When I finally committed to weight loss and joined MFP, I decided I wasn't going to do anything to lose weight that I wasn't willing to continue long term to stay at a healthy weight, except for a sensibly moderate calorie deficit to move myself toward a healthy weight. That turned the weight loss process into a fun, productive, grown-up science fair experiment, working to find new, permanent habits, then practice them until they were nearly automatic. Reaching goal weight and transitioning into maintenance just meant adding back a moderate number of daily calories, and going on with life.

In my case, I was already athletically active - had been for a dozen years while remaining obese; and already ate mostly healthy foods, just way too much of them. (I have a strong hedonistic bent, and food is pleasurable!) I'm sure that made things easier in my case. I didn't/don't do fasts, I eat balanced macros so around 50% carbs (primarily from veggies, fruits, whole grains, dairy), but reasonably high protein and some healthy fats, choosing foods I enjoy; and mixing in a few treats in moderation just for joy. I'm vegetarian, but that's been true for 51+ years, thin to obese and back to thin again. I still do the same active things I'd been doing and enjoying for a dozen years while fat. It has been manageable, verging on easy . . . so far.

My weight has been up and down a bit in maintenance, but consistently in a healthy range and in the same jeans (literally - not just the same numeric size 😉, so vanity sizing isn't in the picture here).

You can master maintenance, I'm sure . . . but IMO it'll be a matter of figuring out what works for you, not simply following what others do. What others do - as you'll see in the threads I linked - varies quite a lot. Other people can give you ideas to try out, but you're the only one who can figure out which of those methods suit you, and which don't.

I'm wishing you success - the quality of life improvement from staying at a healthy weight is worth that effort. Best wishes!

CATBROGATE

https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/comment/48737133#Comment_48737133

Thank you so much for taking the time to share this — I really appreciate the perspective and the links. I’ve been reading through those long-term maintainer threads and it’s been encouraging to see the variety of approaches people take.

We’ve definitely come at this from opposite ends — my loss phase was very structured and even a bit extreme at times — but I think the goal is the same: finding a way of eating that’s livable for the long run. It was also reassuring to see that some maintainers do use a more structured approach, since that resonates with me.

One anecdote that really stuck with me was the person who logged their Peanut M&Ms, realized they weren’t worth the calories, and then found a swap that was more satisfying and better aligned with their goals. That mindset of continuing to learn about yourself even in maintenance feels important.

Logging in particular is something I’ve seen stressed again and again in those threads. I’ll admit I only recently started logging food seriously — up until now I’ve mostly just logged my fasts and done detailed meal planning in advance. But I can see how logging everything could be a valuable tool in this next phase.

Thanks again for the thoughtful response and encouragement. Hearing from people who’ve been maintaining for years makes this stage feel less daunting and more like something I can grow into.