AT: A couple of years ago my doctor said, “Listen, your blood sugars have been out of control. Do you understand that if you don’t take care of this you’re putting yourself at risk for problems like kidney disease, heart failure, blindness, neuropathy, possibly even death?” And it finally hit me.

She told me I wasn’t controlling my diabetes with diet and oral medications and I really needed to start insulin. So I did, and that was really the first time I took charge of my disease. I was scared about taking insulin, but if someone said, “You have cancer and you really need to start chemo,” would you say no? Of course not.

I went to see an endocrinologist who specializes in diabetes, I bought a pedometer and started walking, I began taking a long-acting insulin called Lantus, and I started working with a nutritionist to better educate myself about carbohydrate intake. There is so much to learn—I’m still learning.

AT: In hindsight I realized I had started to get really cranky and tired and snappy at times, or I’d cry at the drop of a hat. And I’m not that kind of person. Later I understood the moodiness came from uncontrolled blood sugars—times my sugars would go very high or very low. It’s very common with diabetes.

AT: (laughs) I think they did! Really, you had four wives?

AT: It’s a good one. I’m going to write that one down for when I give my next talk…“My last four husbands”…But seriously, it’s horrible to feel that way, emotionally and physically. I’d start wondering, Who is this person?

AT: I have a pretty bad case of diabetes, so I monitor myself throughout the day, at every meal and at bedtime. At bedtime I use the Lantus, which apparently works a lot better than the old insulins to keep your blood sugar even throughout the day, but depending on what I’m eating I may need to take an additional short-acting insulin with meals—I use a Novolog insulin pen then. So for about two-and-a-half years I have been working hard to control my diabetes. I’m much better, much healthier. I go to fewer doctors.

Sometimes I hear people say, “I just don’t like pricking my finger.” I tell them, “You know what, if you continue living with uncontrolled diabetes you’re going to have a lot more pain than pricking a finger. You’re going to be in the hospital and they’re going to be pricking you all over your body. You can see a little blood now or a lot of blood later.” With diabetes, you have to know what’s going on and you have to write it down.

AT: Nutrition is everything—we could talk about food for hours. Eating healthily is different for a diabetic than for someone without diabetes—for instance, someone who’s just trying to losing weight. If you’re diabetic, you really have to understand what your body does with the foods you eat. Some people think of sugar as just the table sugar you put in your coffee. They don’t understand sugar means all the carbs, even if you’re eating a healthy carb. Brown rice shoots my blood sugar right up—it’s rice, after all. A glass of milk has 12 carbs.

I work with a diabetic educator, who helps me with nutrition. It’s all about the portions—what you eat and how much you eat. It is scary how many people with diabetes don’t understand the role of food and this disease. Of the 20 million Americans who have diabetes right now, over half are not in control of their diet.

AT: Absolutely. Sometimes people tell me their insurance doesn’t cover nutrition sessions, or the education is expensive. So I tell them, “Ask for it for your birthday. Tell your family and friends to save up and give you six training sessions for Christmas. Or don’t go out to dinner for a few nights and go to the nutritionist instead.” Because this is your life—this is how you’re going to stay healthy.