Well, I'm now 39, and still stutter when I'm nervous, but I'm slightly less socially awkward. I'm still diabetic -- no cure for that yet, sadly -- and overweight, but I've been getting more exercise and am somewhat more fit.
The biggest change since I wrote that almost 5 years ago, however, is that I found a wonderful woman who somehow manages to put up with me, and we got married in June. :-)
Congrats bud. As a bit of an introvert, getting married made a significant improvement on my life. I'm much calmer and happier. My then recent occuring panic and anxiety attacks even disappeared. I hope yours is enriched similarly.
Taking care of health is interesting optimization problem. Too bad that almost advice in the topic is given by people trying to change fit bodies to professional bodybuilders. Or from crash course to fastest results with diminishing returns of time invested. My personal experience that not exercising takes more time than exercising. Yes, when I didn't exercise, I lost a lot more time of being tired and sick than I spend when I started to exercise.
Here's how I started and lost 10kg in under a year, and more than that in fat but didn't measure fat, but belt holes showed it even when I stagnated in weight. Not diabetic so this is just my personal experience should consider your own body.
1) Lifting adjustable dumbbells at home. Done right before taking shower anyway. So avoiding transition time to exercise and avoiding taking extra shower and drying time can go back to computer right after shower. For beginners maximal muscle growth is 3 exercise sessions per week to have enough recovery between sessions, and single well done set is enough stimulation per muscle, it doesn't grow during exercise but during recover from exercise. I had my exercise sessions on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to be in constantly in a state that if I eat slightly too much it goes to growing muscle instead of fat. Not because maximizing muscle growth, but just to avoid gaining fat at random times. I just had random bodybuilding dumbbell program moves that I thought would hit every muscle and learned those from a book. I didn't have any body weight exercises since moving my weight would of put strain on joints. The time recommendation for that would be more when learning the moves and doing them slowly and checking correct way of doing them and after a while under 30 minutes per session, but keep minimum 10-15 minutes.
Now healthy muscles with about a hour per week after initial investment, and not feeling as tired definitely worth doing.
2) Slowly reducing sugar consumption, and my taste buds eventually adjusted to the change.
3) Random eating habits based on if I'm too concentrated on something to miss a meal. If I eat too little I loose fat, if I eat too much I gain muscle.
4) Once I was healthier I spend some of my thinking time just walking outside thinking the problem before returning to computer for actual implementation. Worked since there was quiet forest path near by.
Now my mistake. I upgraded to going gym trying to gain more muscle after my dumbbells became too small. It increased time requirements for each exercise session. After a while I got so busy that "I'll exercise next week", and it stayed that way for a year. And once the habit was broken it was really hard to get back.
IDK how old are you, I am 42 and I am better off, health-wise, than I was at 38. Those are the changes:
1) Just like you, I started to work out, but I have one more recommendation: a weighted vest. An absolutely great tool for plankings, push-ups etc. If you want your body core to get really tough, weighted vest is a great tool.
2) This, plus intermittent fasting. Got my blood pressure back into the normal range, I am no longer on medication which I took for 17 years, hooray.
3) See 2), it seems that eating/fasting time matters a lot, not just total calories. Constant snacking is probably really bad for us. (The pancreas is forced to produce too much insulin too often).
4) Absence of civilizational noise is definitely something that has healing effects.
To this, I would add
5) Some supplementation is useful, if not outright necessary. Lots of people are vitamin D deficient, for example. 4000 IU a day should help a lot. It seems that vitamin D is even more important for us than we thought. (Specifically, D3).
6) People who like the entire anti-aging and longevity field, can horse around with things like resveratrol and NMN, or perhaps senolytics like fisetin. I like to do that, so far the only visible difference is that my eyesight got a lot better (unexpectedly so for someone who looks into screens all day long). But there is a risk that you are wasting money on "producing expensive urine".
I told you what I did when my first real transformation from unhealthy to healthy happened in my early 30's . Now I'm 41 and I'm having second transformation beyond what happened in the first. Most people really need the first transformation. And one of the driving factor of getting it rolling reasonably well was that I realized how little was truly required to get a lot healthier. There ways to optimize it, but most important thing is to make one simple change and stick with it. Two were real changes I decided were the lifting weights and slowly reducing number of spoons I put sugar in my tea. Everything else was just what I did naturally anyway. The huge point helping me to stick with it was that there were only two simple rules that I had to stick, and both of those were low enough effort for me to stick with.
It wasn't completely without civilization noise, but it was something where I could actually think better when walking outside than when sitting still in front of computer. It was quiet enough that fresh air and walking actually helped me to think.
I started off with 16:8, but my body shifted to longer intervals (20:4, 21:3) on its own. Only rarely did I try longer than 24 hours fasts.
My blood pressure definitely responds to fasting. I went from 150/100 to 115/75 within months. IDK if this can happen in other people, we are a fairly diverse lot.
Food eaten during the eating window matters. Fats (avocado, olive oil, bone broth) will carry you longer than carbs. But one of the things I enjoy about IF is that I no longer have to watch my food intake too strictly. An occasional treat is OK.
As for resources, I believe that Jason Fung, a Canadian doctor, is a good start. He has a lot of videos on YouTube and a few books out. His main idea is that you need to keep your insulin level fairly low in order to avoid metabolic disease, and that IF helps with that a lot.
Also, the r/intermittentfasting subreddit has a lot of veterans.
Thank you for writing that. The "everyone's life has difficulties" is true and often said, but it's such a platitude without someone providing a concrete example.
I've tried losing weight many times with varying success. The only time I've had full control over my appetite was after attending a silent meditation course (the free Goenka one). For 5 weeks after the course, I meditated twice a day for about 30 mins each time and resisted eating sweets. I lost 10 lbs. Then I ate some cake at a friend's birthday party and fell off the wagon. Maybe meditation would work for you?
Depends on the type of diabetes. There are several. If it's type 2, then yes a keto diet, or just plain fasting (Jason Fung seems to be the expert to read up on for this) can help.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10524346