Recent Article In the Chronical Herald (Halifax NS)

Living large no moreHalifax man turned to running after Type 2 diabetes diagnosis
By KELLY SHIERS Staff Reporter

If Harry Jacobs tells you he’s running for his life, he’s not exaggerating.
In 1999, as the former chef was embarking on a new, more lucrative career in the computer industry, his marriage broke up. His life sank into a downward spiral and depression set in. For four years, his daily routine was reduced to working eight hours, playing online video games for eight hours and sleeping eight hours.

"I ballooned up over 300 pounds. I don’t know how much over . . . 305-310 wouldn’t be an outrageous guess," says the Halifax man. "My total exercise was (to) get up from the chair in front of the computer, go to the fridge, grab pop, chips, burgers and come back."
You wouldn’t know it now.

At 49, Mr. Jacobs is training for Team Diabetes Canada’s 2008 Goofy Challenge in Orlando, Fla. where participants run a 21-kilometre, half-marathon one day in no more than 3½ hours, and a 42-kilometre, full marathon the next day in no more than seven hours.

Runners must raise $4,500 to be used by the Canadian Diabetes Association for research and education on the life-threatening disease that affects more than two million Canadians and almost 80,000 Nova Scotians.

Fresh from a morning run to work, Mr. Jacobs refers to the period after his marriage breakdown as his "hermitage years" and credits his desire to date again as one thing that put him back on the right track.

Encouraged by a new love, he saw a doctor for a routine physical — and was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

"You haven’t had your heart attack or stroke yet," Mr. Jacobs remembers the doctor saying, as he explained many men only learn they’re diabetic after suffering one or the other. "You’re lucky."

The Canadian Diabetes Association says 80 per cent of diabetics will die from heart disease or stroke. Diabetes can also lead to kidney disease, blindness and amputation.

Like Mr. Jacobs, about 90 per cent of Canadians with diabetes have Type 2, a number that is rising as the population grows more inactive and obese. Once considered an adults-only disease, almost 15 per cent of diabetic children in Nova Scotia have Type 2.

But experts say its onset may be prevented or delayed by exercise, healthy eating, weight loss and not smoking.

Mr. Jacobs’s diagnosis sent him scouring for information about diet. He began walking and pedalled an exercise bike in front of the TV.

Then he bought a pair of running shoes, taking up a hobby he had pursued in his 20s.
Over 18 months, he dropped 100 pounds. Just as gradually, he picked up the pace.
"My kids used to joke that my running was as fast as their walking," he said. "After a couple of years, last October, I got the last laugh. I ran my first half-marathon."

Typically, he runs six days a week, averaging eight to 10 kilometres daily, with Sunday mornings reserved for longer stretches.

Still, running a marathon and a half-marathon back-to-back will be a challenge.
He’s already raised a few hundred dollars, plans a silent auction in May and calls on his culinary skills to sell muffins at work to help him reach his goal. He provides updates online at thediabeticrunner.blogspot.com.

Mr. Jacobs said he hopes people hear his message.
"I want people to know I’m diabetic. I want people to know I did this to myself and I want people to know you can have a life with diabetes. It’s not all doom and gloom but you have to take care of yourself, eat right, exercise and you’ve got to monitor (blood sugar levels)."

( kshiers@herald.ca)