How I Saved My Own Life

My weight was killing me. I had four children and a wonderful husband. I couldn't let the disease that devastated my family get me.

Diagnosing the Common Disease

Denise Armstrong kept trying to explain her symptoms away. The fatigue was so acute that even after eight hours of sleep, she'd wake up exhausted and drag through the day. She was probably working too hard, she thought. A raging thirst forced her to bring a water bottle everywhere she went, but she figured that her sinus medicine was making her dehydrated. Her frequent need to urinate was understandable, considering how much water she was drinking. Then she developed a series of yeast infections that prompted her to seek medical care.

A few days after the exam, Denise got an alarming call: Her blood work was back, and the nurse-practitioner wanted to see her right away. The timing couldn't have been worse, since Denise's daughter-in-law had gone into labor early that morning, and Denise was babysitting her two-year-old granddaughter, Allyson. After strapping the toddler into a child seat, she drove to the medical building and sat with the child in the half-empty waiting room, surrounded by photos of hunting scenes. She was excited about the new baby coming -- and apprehensive about the test results.

She'd just finished making a phone call to check on her daughter-in-law when the nurse beckoned her and Allyson into a small exam room. Holding up the lab report, she told Denise what was causing her symptoms: type 2 diabetes. "I was so shocked, and I was scared," says the 52-year-old secretary from Mount Carmel, Illinois. "My first thought was, Oh my God, am I going to die?"

She had every reason to consider the diagnosis a death sentence. The disease had killed her first husband's mother after the older woman had developed diabetes-related complications and undergone operations to amputate both legs below the knee. Denise's own mother, also a diabetic, was nearly blind, had suffered two strokes and was in a nursing home with Alzheimer's disease -- all conditions linked to diabetes.

Denise Gets a Deadline

Denise wasn't sick enough to need insulin injections yet, so the nurse-practitioner offered a less alarming option. "I'll give you one month to get your blood sugar down with weight loss and exercise," she said. After prescribing a strict 1,800-calorie-a-day diet and no sweets, she studied Denise for a moment. The health care provider saw an overweight woman in a baggy sweat suit perched awkwardly on the paper-covered exam table, looking frightened and defeated. "Honestly, I don't think you'll be able to do it," the nurse added. "If anything, you'll probably gain weight and have to go on oral medication."

Denise burst into tears. "So many emotions raced through my head -- shock, fear, denial, grief -- that I could hardly hear what the nurse was telling me. It was still sinking in that I had diabetes, just like my mother." Her mom had been on oral medication, but her blood sugar was always going up and down, and there were times when she had to go on insulin. And even that didn't really work, since she ended up with such awful complications. "I realized that I could lose my eyesight or my legs, and felt like my life was over," Denise says.

The nurse's grim assessment rang painfully true. "Even as a child, I was chunky," says Denise. "I'd tried lots of diets, but they never worked. I'd lose a few pounds, then gain them back -- plus a little extra." The problem was the unhealthy eating habits she'd learned from her parents, who were both seriously overweight. Her childhood meals had typically consisted of meat and fried potatoes, or pizza piled with extra cheese, followed by a rich dessert, patterns that persisted when Denise was an adult. "I don't know how many calories I was eating a day, but it was a lot. I'd have three big meals, drink four or five cans of Pepsi, and then snack on doughnut holes and Snickers bars," she says. Over the years, her weight soared to 255 pounds on her five-foot-nine frame.

As she left the medical building on that February day in 2004, she was angry. "I sat in my car and thought, Wait a minute, give me a chance! I'll show you, lady! I'd seen what can happen when diabetics don't take care of themselves. My mother used to tell us that she was following her diet, then I'd see her sneaking candy in the other room. Even as a kid, I knew that couldn't be good for her." She looked at Allyson, who was happily playing with toys in her car seat, then thought about the new baby on the way. "I want to be around to see my grandkids grow up," she told herself.

After stopping at a drugstore to buy a blood sugar meter, Denise drove home to break the news to her husband, Gabe, a physically fit man at a healthy weight. Initially, he wasn't worried. "My first wife died of breast cancer, so I figured this wasn't nearly as bad," says the 52-year-old owner of an oil-well service company. "But as I read up on the disease, I learned how serious it really is. I looked at Denise and realized that I could lose her. We'd both been widowed young, and we said, 'No, that's not going to happen again.'" He held Denise in his arms and promised to do everything he could to help. "We'll fight this together."

That afternoon, after getting the good news that Allyson now had a new baby sister, Denise put the toddler in a stroller and set off for a walk. She didn't get far. "I was so out of shape that just going up the flight of stairs in my home left me huffing and puffing," she says. Predictably, after a few blocks, she was exhausted, breathless -- and extremely hungry. Although she was tempted to quit and return to the comforting embrace of her recliner, the grim statistics she'd read online stayed in her head.

Diabetes: The Deadly Epidemic

Not only is diabetes the sixth leading killer of Americans, claiming more than 73,000 lives a year, but the type 2 form of the disease is now a deadly epidemic. Diabetes affects nearly 21 million men, women and children, more than double the figure of 1980. The reason? Rising rates of obesity and physical inactivity (the condition strikes mainly overweight, sedentary people). Diabetes can lead to many complications, including blindness, lower limb amputations, kidney damage, heart disease and stroke. It's also linked to increased risk of yet another fatal condition: Alzheimer's disease.

Denise trudged on. Pausing frequently to catch her breath, she walked for 20 minutes, until she'd completed a quarter-mile lap around the neighborhood. "I was very proud that I'd gotten that far, since it was the first time I'd really done any exercise in eight years," she says. Then she realized that she had a new problem: She didn't know what she was allowed to eat. The nurse had given her a slide-rule device to calculate how many servings of starches and other menu items to have each day. But how big were the portions supposed to be, and which foods were starches?

She spent another hour in front of her computer, poring over diabetes websites until she'd figured out what to have for dinner. Instead of her typical meal of Hamburger Helper, noodles and gravy, she'd have ground round with no bun and steamed broccoli. Gabe went to the store for groceries, while Denise headed online to order a book with dietary advice for diabetics. "I had to learn a whole new way of eating through trial and error," she says. "Now, I have whole-grain cereal for breakfast, a big salad for lunch and small servings of meat or low-fat dairy products for dinner, with lots of veggies. I even learned to love asparagus!" When the urge to snack strikes, she'll have a bowl of strawberries with Splenda, a handful of nuts or sugar-free Jell-O with fat-free Cool Whip.

Along the way, she battled temptations. At her grandnephew's birthday party, the cake arrived, covered with thick, creamy chocolate icing, Denise's absolute favorite. And people kept offering her a piece or suggesting she sample just a sliver. "Even though I'm a real chocoholic, I didn't have any," she says. "When I get the urge to eat something I shouldn't, I remind myself that I want to live. And I want my son to know that I'm doing everything I can to stay healthy -- for him and my granddaughters."

Amazingly, considering her years of failing at every diet, she hasn't cheated on her 1,800-calorie plan, not even once. She's devised several strategies to combat cravings. "First of all, I don't keep food that's bad for me in my house because I figure 'out of sight, out of mind.' And if somebody who doesn't know I'm diabetic gives us a box of candy, I put it in the freezer or tell Gabe to hide it somewhere for himself." She's also experimented with different diabetic foods to find replacements for her former favorites. "It took a while, but I finally found brands of sugar-free chocolates, jelly and pancake syrup I actually like."

Every day, rain or shine, she goes out for her walk, enduring leaky umbrellas, blisters and pulled ligaments on her road to fitness. She told herself that she had to use her legs so she wouldn't lose them to diabetic complications, the way her mother-in-law did. And she's stuck to her diet so well that when she went back for her one-month checkup, she was 25 pounds thinner. The stern nurse had changed jobs, so Denise saw her smiling family doctor instead. "Wow, you've really been working hard at this," he exclaimed. "Your blood sugar is back in the normal range. This is wonderful! Let's try another month without medication and see what you do."

She basked in the doctor's praise and left his office more determined than ever. She bought a pedometer to track her mileage, then increased the distance each week. After she'd gotten stronger, she started working out with weights three times a week. By the end of the second month, Denise had dropped another 15 pounds. As her weight loss became increasingly obvious, her neighbors learned what was going on. "They were practically out with pompoms in their yards, saying 'Go, Denise, go!' and 'Looking good!'"

Defeating Type 2 Diabetes

Having her own cheering squad was thrilling for Denise, who'd had a lifelong problem with shaky self-esteem. As a girl, she says, "I felt like an outcast because I was so heavy. I couldn't run, do sports or find nice clothes that fit, so I'd get big sloppy shirts and jeans in the men's department to hide my body." After her first husband, John, who was also overweight, died of a heart attack at age 51, she was convinced that she'd never find love again. "I thought no other man would want me, looking the way I did." Too insecure to get involved in the dating scene, she met Gabe through an Internet support group for widows and widowers and married him in 1999.

Although Denise was always beautiful to Gabe, he watched her personality blossom as the pounds came off. "The biggie is how much her self-confidence has increased," he says. "She used to be kind of shy, but now that she feels so much better about herself, she has much more fun when she meets new people. That shell she had around her isn't there anymore. I'll even see her looking at herself in the mirror and smiling, when she'd never do that before."

By July 2004, Denise had even more to smile about: Not only had she shed 75 pounds, but her blood pressure, which had been dangerously high at 180/90, had dropped to a nearly normal 135/70. And she had her blood sugar under such good control that her doctor was in awe. She'd defeated a killer disease -- without any medication. "My doctor has known me since I was seven years old, and we were both giddy with excitement at how healthy I'd become," she says. "He is confident that I am going to stay that way." However, she will always have to watch her diet, keep close tabs on her blood sugar and see her doctor for frequent checkups.

Although she'd originally hoped to lose an even 100 pounds, Denise had to be satisfied with shedding 97. Her weight loss stopped when she hit 158, which is ideal for her five-foot-nine frame. "Now that I've gone from a size 24 to a 10, I love to shop," she says. "It's mind-boggling to see something cute in a store and think, I can fit into that! And instead of hiding if anyone points a camera at me, I'm happy to have my picture taken. I even got a new driver's license because I don't look anything like my old photo."

Denise is also thrilled at how much younger she feels. "When I was heavy, it was hard for me to do something as simple as getting up when I was sitting on the floor with my grandkids. Now I can pick up Allyson and swing her around. Instead of huffing and puffing all the time, I zoom up the stairs without a second thought. And in the summer, I decided to try Jet Skis for the first time. I wasn't sure that I'd have enough strength to pull myself up and hold on, but when I did it, I thought, Wow, look at me!""

Some foods and behaviors benefit diabetes prevention and management more than others. Check out Beating Diabetes for 3 expert tips.