My Heart Matters: Dealing with Type 2 Diabetes

Diabetes—a disease that everybody’s heard about, but so few people understand. For Canadians living with type 2 diabetes, heart disease is the number one cause of death, with 50% of deaths due to some form of cardiovascular disease. Type 2 diabetes can reduce life expectancy by as much as fifteen years. You can help better manage combat diabetes through diet and exercise, sure, but if you have type 2 diabetes and a family history of heart disease, healthy lifestyle habits might not be enough to protect your heart. Through this post, I want to educate you all about diabetes (all opinions based on personal experience), and if you have type 2 diabetes, to inspire you to take an active role in protecting your heart.

Let me tell you some more!

The 2017 100

Last updated on April 1st, 2021 at 01:08 am

Unless my life sees some major changes this year, 2017 may mark the last list of 100!

It’s January 13th—I’ve spent nearly two weeks of my new year agonising over 100 items that matter enough to hit a list of goals and aspirations for the year ahead. And that’s a key difference from the lists that came before it.

Before it was a task list—I’d look around at everything that needed doing and jot it down, because my life would obviously be better with them out of the way.

But task lists aren’t inspiring. They’re not motivational. As a creative, that’s like dropping a pile of 100 things I dread on my lap and nagging myself to get ’em done by the year’s end.

Once I realised what I was doing to myself, so much so that I just went through my least successful year yet for my list, I knew I needed to make a change for 2017.

I’m particularly proud of the list I’ve put together for The 2017 100. I didn’t take any shortcuts—I wrote out 100 things that’d help me live the life I’d like to lead and prove instrumental along the path there. Rather than hurriedly scrawl out a list I’d likely ignore ’til December, I wrote one that I’d happily check off, knowing that each accomplishment would take me a step closer to a far better 2018. I feel like I’m finally getting it right this time, and I hope that shines through as you give it a look for yourself!

But that’s enough of my chatter—I’ve already made you wait long enough. Here for your consideration is The 2017 100—because it’s not what you do… it’s how you do it!

The 2016 100

Last updated on April 5th, 2021 at 10:39 pm

I can’t even lie, guys—coming up with a list of 100 goals for the fourth year in a row was hardridiculously so. I’m a very different me than I was when The 2013 100 came out, back when free time was still an abundant commodity I didn’t even know I was taking for granted, trying to fill it with countless things that’d keep life interesting.

A problem I most definitely don’t have in 2016!

As I work at surviving the upcoming year—especially with our second child’s imminent arrival—I needed to make the list a lot more realistic; I’m all too skilled at chasing ambitions that exceed my lifestyle’s capacity, and I’ll need to keep wary of that in 2016 if I want to see myself make it out the other side!

So without further ado, The 2016 100. It took a couple of days to polish off after recovering from the gauntlet that was 2015, but I feel like it’s a list that will really make waves in this life o’ mine should I see it finished!

But hey—that’s what I say every year 😂

Thanks for reading!


1) Write an amazing series for Black History Month
2) Win a vacation for my dry cleaner
3) Watch Creed; Mad Max: Fury Road; The Martian; Ant-Man
4) Take Eric to a sporting event so he can stop complaining about getting left from sporting events
5) Phase my old 3.5″ hard drive out
6) Get rid of my old electronics
7) Stop biting my nails
8) Get rid of the wedding thank you cards I never sent
9) Clean out the basement crawl space
10) Build shelves into the crawl space
11) Give my FWD Powershot 2 to my old manager the hockey coach
12) Do the CN Tower Edgewalk
13) Sort out my old TD employee RSP
14) Consolidate everything down to a single notepad

Though a chiropractor I started seeing late into 2015 told me I’d developed some mild sciatica in my back, I didn’t need him to tell me I carry too much STUFF. In a digital age where we can pack mountains of information into a single device, there’s really NO NEED for me to carry all the draft posts and note that I do—save the fact that working from hard copy’s the way my brain’s WIRED.

In 2016, I need a little more focus to keep all my ideas stored in one place so I’m not constantly carrying EVERYTHING in my house made of paper, knowing that I probably scribbled SOMETHING on ALL of ’em.

15) Sort out the Internet situation at home so I can stop relying on tethering to LTE data
16) Learn enough Spanish to understand my sister-in-law’s Mexican wedding in May
17) Find time for date nights, which will involve finding someone who wants to babysit two kids… how about we just find more awesome things to do at home, just in case?
18) Try Uncle Tetsu’s cheesecake
19) Get to 0 drafts on CaseyPalmer.com by converting everything into live posts
20) Install the growth chart for my kids that we got at my office baby shower
21) Update all the old content on CaseyPalmer.com
22) Upgrade the site infrastructure to better support contest traffic
23) Redesign the heck out of the blog (Twenty Sixteen, what up)
24) Find the time to pack more lunches for work
25) Clean up and optimize my Pinterest account (I still have that copy of Pinterest Savvy lying around somewhere)
26) Shave more regularly
27) Hand out my remaining business “cep” cards so I can put in a new order (wait—do we still do business cards?)
28) Clear out the bookshelves to prepare for Baby #2
29) Replace the lost key to our 2011 Ford Edge
30) Figure out what I ACTUALLY need to run my site and invest in THAT.
31) Replace our bathroom sink
32) Meet with the people who I never seemed to schedule in through 2015 (Aaron, Emma, Ria, Adrienne, Dianna)
33) Get a Brookhaven Computer Cabinet

The 1% of the Casa de Palmer workspace I use to do all the things isn’t the best—in fact, it’s falling apart. As I get older and start formalizing my #BloggerLife, Sarah and I agree that my workspace should evolve to show that. It’ll take some saving to make it happen, but it’d be a nice addition to the home.

Schwinn Onus | In It to Schwinn It

Last updated on March 30th, 2021 at 01:32 pm

It was the summer of 2000, and I’d enrolled in a Grade 12 Physics class at a nearby summer school to make up for the poor grade I’d gotten in the school year that’d just come crashing down around me. I was turning over a new leaf, but swapping my convenient downtown lifestyle for a more suburban routine—and without a set of wheels to call my own, I took to biking the 20 minutes to school to keep things simple.

I figured I could get used to this—I’d finish my last year of school in The Credit Woodlands, a school where many of my Grade 6 classmates wound up and had the program I was looking for. As I spent my summer days there under the tutelage of Mr. Burnham, I made my peace with its windowless interior and started filling my transfer form to make it all final.

That is, until I walked out from class one day and saw nary but a cut lock where my bike should’ve been.

Subway Canada x Carl’s Crew!

Last updated on March 29th, 2021 at 03:52 am

I respect my friends who’re all about their workout regimens, dietary plans and paradigm shifts on how they can lead lives that benefit their minds, bodies and souls. It’s almost like a religion for some, their daily exercise like a sanctuary where they’re one with themselves, shedding the woes and frustrations from the rest of their lives away with the sweat equity of their workout routines.

Even well before the #BloggerLife and fatherhood, the only exercise I’d ever get was through competitive sports. Sarah tried to get me jogging, but I’ve never been one for going anywhere without a destination in mind. A number of friends have asked me to try their gyms, but I’ve never seen the appeal of paying money to run in place or lift lots of heavy things ad nauseam when there’re so many other things I could do with my time.

No, my friends, I suck at fitness, and it’s slowly taking its toll on this body that ain’t as young as it used to be.

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