Hi all, i have an interesting articles want to share with you. Here it is.

After writing my last post on using diabetes as a crutch, I thought I'd made a commitment to change.

Turns out it was a soft commitment.

A soft commitment is one you make of your own accord – like "I'm going to walk 10 miles today." A hard commitment is one you ensure is going to happen by setting an external deadline or force – like "I told the gang at the office I was going to skip Donut Thursday."

But circumstances can change a soft commitment into a hard one. Enter Florida.

A few weeks ago I was invited to a party in Hamilton (I live in Toronto). Because of mechanical issues with my parents’ cars, I would have had to take the bus. It was freezing subzero weather, and the forecast wasn’t pleasant. The plan was to take the bus and subway down to Union Station, then the Greyhound bus to Hamilton, where we’d party until late and return on the last Greyhound to Toronto.

I wanted to go, but I didn’t end up going...because of my diabetes. And now it’s making me question a lot of things I have done or not done ‘because’ of my diabetes.

With the end of January, I’m still contemplating changes to my lifestyle for 2008. I lost over 40 pounds since I started with my trainer in late 2006 – also improving my mobility and helping me do a lot of things I couldn’t beforehand. But I’ve stalled at that 40-lb loss. Hence, the thinking about low-carbing.

"A huge federal study in people -- not rats -- takes the fizz out of arguments that the diet soda sweetener aspartame might raise the risk of cancer.

No increased risk was seen even among people who gulped down many artificially sweetened drinks a day, said researchers who studied the diets of more than half a million older Americans."

More information here.

And Snopes debunks aspartame claims generally here.

I continue to be stressed, and it’s taking me back to the early 2000s when I was stuck in Vancouver looking for work, dealing with the diabetes, and without a decent support system.

Somehow I managed. And today, thinking back, I remember some of the creative and weird ways I found to deal with the stress. Try some – you may be surprised!