There’s not much to look at with this website, and I don’t know how you managed to get here, but thanks for turning up. Right now, this post is just about all you’ll see for a bit.

My name is Emerson Schwartzkopf. And the reason I’m here is because I’m prediabetic. If you’ve arrived here, changes are good that you’re prediabectic, too.

This isn’t a new 12-step program, or a pitch  for some whippy new diet or medicine or vitamin tablet. I’m here to share my journey — my prediabetic trek — in the past 14 months.

Since August 2015, my A1C dropped from 6.6 — past the line that moves you into full-blown diabetes — to 5.7, and almost out of the prediabetic range. My fasting glucose went from 109 mg/dl to 96 mg/dl.

In August 2015, my blood pressure rang in at 134/76, with a pulse rate of 64. A year later, my check-up showed a BP of 109/55 and a pulse rate of 54.

And, yeah, my weight. Fully clothed, I tipped 271 lbs on the clinic scale with a 5′ 8 1/2″frame and body mass index (BMI) of 40.6. A year later? Try 207 lbs with a BMI of 31. That’s still obese on all the health charts, but a  drop of 64 lbs in one year.

What I’ve probably picked up is your full attention, with the question of how did he do that? It’s a long story — it’s why I’m going to do this website — but I’ll tell you what I didn’t do:

I didn’t get bariatric surgery.
I didn’t go to a health spa.
I didn’t join a gym.
I didn’t hire a personal trainer.
I didn’t buy any exercise equipment.
I didn’t run 10 miles a day. I didn’t even jog 20 steps in one year.
I didn’t fast (except before blood tests at the clinic).
I didn’t go into induced comas and take all nutrition via IVs.
I didn’t go on Whole30, or Paleo, or gluten-free, or any publicized diet plan.
I didn’t join a weight-monitoring group.
I didn’t join a delivered-food plan.

There’s no miracle here. I did a bunch of very simple things that just about anyone, anywhere, anytime can try for themselves.  However, don’t mistake simple for easy. And don’t think all of it is a joy. (Oh, man, do I miss Red Velvet cake. Man, oh man, do I miss it.)

I’ll be writing blog posts in the coming weeks to flesh this out a bit, and then go into more detail. What I did may not work for you. Maybe you can adapt and improve. Maybe you’ll get going in a different direction and find success in dealing with prediabetes. Whatever works is OK.

The point of all this is that I don’t see a lot written on how an everday, ordinary person can deal with prediabetes, save for a lot of non-specific lists vetted to mundane deaths by lawyers.

I’ll be back. I hope you’ll return soon.