Since 2006, I have been registered and treated as a patient with type 2 diabetes. With my 88 kg of body weight at a height of 172 cm, I became part of the club of one million Czechs suffering from this disease. Another approximately 300,000 people are not yet aware they have it.
In nine percent of these cases, due to genetic predisposition, the immune system confuses the enemy in its defense against infection. Instead of attacking foreign or altered cells, it starts destroying the beta cells of its own pancreas, whose job is to produce insulin. These patients are then condemned to a lifetime of insulin injections. They have type 1 diabetes.
However, ninety-one percent of that million keep our healthcare system busy and spin a business with an annual turnover of 10 billion CZK, mainly because they don’t move enough. Thanks to genetic disposition, lack of exercise, and consequently being overweight, they are diagnosed with type 2 diabetes.
And what do the vast majority of them lack? Yes, willpower. And that’s exactly what is needed to get the body moving.
Until the summer of 2013, I too attended regular check-ups, took medication for seven years — pills that only treated the consequences — and kept thinking about how to lose weight in a simple way. I experimented with various diets, which always ended in failure due to alcohol. An evening liter of white wine would always spark such a craving for everything in the fridge that only a straitjacket might have stopped me.
A name day gift — a pair of running shoes — combined with music worked like a miracle cure for this insidious disease. After six months, during a check-up, my doctor could hardly believe her eyes. And at the next appointment, it was confirmed that this approach was indeed the best treatment. We agreed that I no longer needed any medication and that, in fact, I no longer had diabetes. Still, I continue to go for an annual check-up. I’m happy to do so — it compensates for the report cards I used to get in school, which were always average. Finally, I’m at the top of the class in something.