This Is My Long Game

I didn’t start prioritizing my health until I became a mother. And by then, I was almost 40.

Pregnancy was the first time I really paid attention to what I was putting into my body. I ate healthy, organic food. I took my vitamins. I did all the “right” things. And still, I developed gestational diabetes.

I knew I’d failed my glucose test before anyone officially told me. When I got home from the lab, I was shaking so badly I almost passed out. I panicked, went straight to my pantry, and ate a handful of Christmas cookies to bring my blood sugar back up. Thankfully, it worked, but that experience scared the shit out of me.

Type 2 diabetes runs in my family. My father has it. My grandfather had it too - and he eventually died from complications, after going blind. So when I got the diagnosis, I felt like I was suddenly staring down the barrel of a future I’d always been afraid of.

But when my OB explained what was actually happening in gestational diabetes, something unexpected happened: instead of shutting down, I got curious. Determined, even. I decided I was going to manage it myself as much as possible. And I absolutely did.

Looking back, being diagnosed with gestational diabetes was one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.

It sent me down a rabbit hole of learning about blood sugar, not just during pregnancy, but in all of us. I learned that it’s not only what we eat that matters, but how we eat it. The order of foods, the combinations, the timing - all of it can have a huge impact (thank you, Glucose Goddess!).

Self-experimentation became my pregnancy hobby.

Every morning, breakfast was the same: raspberries, cottage cheese, and half a whole-wheat English muffin. What changed was the order. I became oddly obsessed with watching how my blood sugar responded. Without fail, my numbers were best when I ate the raspberries first, then the cottage cheese, and saved the English muffin for last.

Of course, I still wanted sweets - because pregnancy ;-). I craved cheesecake. And I learned that if I ate a bowl of steamed broccoli beforehand, I could actually enjoy a reasonable portion without spiking my blood sugar.

That realization blew my mind. So I told my dad.

He’s a lifelong food lover, and like a typical Italian, deeply devoted to carbs. I showed him my “broccoli before cheesecake” trick, and he was fascinated too. What shocked me was that no one had ever told him this. He had resigned himself to a life of restriction because of his disease. But with a few simple, strategic changes, his A1C started to come down. Food stopped feeling like the enemy.

That experience changed something in me.

But here’s the deeper reason I’m here.

I’m an older mom. I just turned 43, and my son will be four in less than a month. When he’s my age - what I still think of as the prime of life - I’ll be 82. And the 82-year-olds I know are falling apart.

I’ll be damned if my son worries about me when he should be focused on living his life and chasing his own dreams.

That truth has fueled a health journey over the past few years that’s completely changed the course of my life. I’ve lost weight. Gained muscle. Improved my biomarkers. I’ve reversed my biological age. But more than any metric, what matters most is this: I go to bed every night knowing I’m doing everything I can to stay healthy - so my son doesn’t have to carry the same quiet worry that my husband and I carry about our own parents.

To me, that’s one of the purest expressions of love there is.

This blog is a place to share what I’m learning - reliable information, resources, and my own experiences - in the hope that it helps someone else, too. Honestly, I already do so much research that this will also serve as a reference for me. And as friends and family grow more curious watching my own health evolve, it can be a resource for them as well.

Just another way of saying “I love you.”