From the Editor’s Desk: Five Months In (Premium)

Five months ago, I resolved to take responsibility for my health and work with my doctor to lose weight and address some other related issues. It's been a resounding success, frankly, and while my most recent check-in today did not include the glucose measurement I care about the most, the results are still obvious. I've lost about 50 pounds since June, and in doing so I reduced my waistline by 6 inches and reversed my pre-diabetes. The only downside is that I've had to buy a lot of new clothes.

This came to a head in Mexico City in October, as almost none of the clothes I keep there fit anymore, and I didn't bring much in the way of new clothes on that trip. I spent the three weeks we were there hiking up my pants and retightening my belt every time we walked anywhere, to my wife's consternation, and she finally demanded that it was time for me to go shopping. I hate shopping. But that, too, was interesting, as the first set of jeans I brought back from the store were two sizes down from where I was but were still a size too big, forcing me to go back and do it all over again. That's a new problem.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not thin. But I am much thinner than I was. And I see no reason why I can't keep doing what I'm doing. The weight loss will slow down, it always does. But what I'm doing---intermittent fasting with no breakfast every day, a healthy high-fat, low-carb diet with lots of greens, vegetables, and other fiber, and a reasonable level of daily exercise---is clearly working.

When I visited Seattle last month for Microsoft Ignite, I unexpectedly ran into Scott Hanselman at a dinner event and on seeing him I suddenly seized on that moment to thank him. I told him that I had seen his continuous glucose monitor when he spoke at Build in May---Scott has Type-1 diabetes---and that it inspired me to go on this journey and use continuous glucose monitors over a two-month period in late summer. But his response surprised me.

"What are your numbers?" he asked.

I kind of stumbled on that one. I hadn't expected to see him and wasn't really thinking about this stuff until about 30 seconds ago. "My numbers?"

"You know, there's some controversy in my world about normal people using CGMs," he went on. I hadn't even considered that, but in his case, for anyone with Type-1 diabetes, a CGM isn't a nicety, it's a requirement. And I'm sure the whole bro culture of health hacking that pervades the tech space these days is a bit off-putting to those in need. This I understood. Our son became deaf because of bacterial meningitis and there is a vocal, militant part of the deaf community that believes that the cochlear implants that allow him to hear are a threat to deaf culture.

I eventually recovered by pulling out my phone, opening my healthcare provider's app, and looking up my lab results from June and September. There was a meaningful decline between the two, and he was impressed and agreed. He asked about how much weight I had ...