When my career job went away, so did my company wheels. My changed situation presented new challenges including how to transport myself.

With no job, there is less need to own a car; but what to do when I had to get around? Several kind friends offered to drive me where I wanted to go, but I didn’t want to impose on them. Sure, I could borrow my wife’s car when she didn’t need it, but I wanted this option at a minimum.

I developed this two-pronged approach:

1. walking to where I could get what I wanted
2. riding public transportation for the greater distances

My plan so far has reaped extra benefits:

1. the walking has given me much needed exercise
2. at age 65, I could ride the trains & buses for $1 or free.

How much money is my approach saving? The number crunchers have set an average of $8,003 per year to own and operate a car. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/pf/08/cost-car-ownership.asp

Sweet!

As a diabetic, I crunch those all-important numbers: my daily blood sugar readings and the results of a three month long hemoglobin test. But my general practitioner also has me focusing on other equally boring numbers.

One of those numbers is my weight. In my undiagnosed diabetic stage, I went from 175 to 135 in about three months without exercise or dieting. I had suspended belief in an immutable physical fact: an inactive healthy American male defaults to being overweight unless he is sick. I even found the ability to ignore all those other red flags that could only be harbingers of diabetes. http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/symptoms/

With my diagnosis came oral medicines. I gained control of my misbehaving blood sugars; regained a higher level of energy and yes, gained some needed weight.

My “good” weight zone has been set at 140 to 155, and I’ve lived in the zone for six years. But then insulin came along.

My Doctor warned me all type II diabetics will need insulin if they live long enough. Our pancreases get lazier with each passing month until they decide to stop pushing out insulin at all. At this point, oral meds will not do much good. Simply put, they are not insulin which the body still needs it to chug along.

Kicking and screaming, I went on the “spike”. I learned quickly insulin does the job quite well. With this adjustment, I became a normal healthy American male with that pesky penchant for overweight.

With winter closing down, I believe I’ll shed my winter weight and quickly get back into the weight zone I should inhabit.

Which leaves me with this one quandary: should I buy new and larger jeans?