Like many people I eat too much sugar.

I love chocolate, I love cakes, I love pies and pastries and all the things we're told are no good for us.

The taste testing we often do for food articles doesn't help. Trying hot cross buns from every supermarket is nobody's idea of a healthy snack.

Yet while you can often get away with these binges and sugar fests in your younger years, now mid 40s, it's a different story.

It was a couple of years ago now I was warned about my blood sugar being too high. Eventually, after two successive high readings, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a condition where the body either doesn't produce enough insulin, or the insulin it produces doesn't work properly.

With Diabetes UK estimating that more than 5.8 million people in the UK are living with diabetes, which is an all-time high, I'm far from alone. Data shows almost 4.6 million people have been diagnosed in the UK and nearly 1.3 million people could be living with type 2 diabetes who aren't even aware of it.

My HbA1c readings - which measure your average blood glucose (sugar) levels over the previous two to three months - weren't so high that I needed medication and I was reluctant to start taking any without attempting to reverse it myself.

Thankfully, with a bit more walking and some diet changes, like swapping white bread and pasta for wholemeal and making my own low-sugar wholemeal blueberry muffins - which have helped massively at curbing the cravings for sweet stuff - I was able to bring it back down to prediabetic levels.

But keeping it that way, or ideally reducing it further, is a constant challenge.

I'll be honest that when willpower was dished out, I certainly wasn't at the front of the queue. Had it been cheesecake on offer, I'd have been there! And I'm fully aware of the need to take care of myself to stand the best chance of having a long and happy life - and not becoming a burden on our already struggling NHS.

Yet far too often it's the mantra of 'you only live once' that shouts loudest in my mind and overrides any rational thought, leading to bad decisions and a bloated belly.

Of course our bodies react to foods in different ways and what causes one person's glucose to spike, won't do the same to........

© Manchester Evening News