Awesome work! Great to see another swimmer!
What sorts of workouts you doing nowadays?
What kind of results does the doc want to see until you can cut the medication out completely?
I don't really know what results the doctors would want or need to see to be honest. I kind of do my own thing anyway? My experience with physicians is that they'll happily prescribe an expensive cocktail of meds rather than tell me to lose some fucking weight and hit the gym. I wish they would have screamed that at me ten years ago when I was diagnosed. Honestly they will probably not recommend medication discontinuation due to liability. I'll probably make the decision on my own after seeing what my A1C numbers are and seeing how they change after.
My GP is quite conservative and was very hesitant about keto but trusted me to change my med dosage on my own if needed as a result of the diet. I'm way smarter than his average patient and he knows I won't do anything too stupid. I think I've converted him on keto, he half-jokingly asked me if I wanted to help his other patients lose weight. I've never seen him so happy when in 7 months I went from A1C 11.0->5.8 and lost a bunch of weight too.
My endo is much more aggressive, I only started seeing him after I started keto. He's smart, aggressive, willing to do things that make sense from a scientific standpoint but that might need another 5-10 years before becoming "accepted" standards of care. I have to be careful with him because he will be very aggressive if I want him to, so I balance his advice with my GP. He is regarded as the best endocrinologist in my area but the old conservative doctors sometimes disapprove of his methods, but that's exactly why I go see him.
As for swimming: When it started my rules were simple: I have to stay in the water for at least an hour swimming laps, any stroke, any rate, as many breaks as I needed. I tended to do 100 yard fast crawl, 100 yard sidestroke, 50 yard elementary backstroke, 3 minute break, repeat.
As it progressed I kept the same 250 yard pattern and just swam for longer amounts of time. Up to 2 hours.
As it progressed I did more forward crawl, 200 yards followed by 50 yards backstroke followed by rest. I started requiring myself to do 1500 yards minimum at this point.
As it progressed I started doing moderate 400 yard forward crawl sets with flip turns with the occasional 100 yard sprint mixed in. 100 yard sprints were 1:50 (UGH FAT SLOW).
As it progressed I upped the distance - 2000 to up to 3100 yards? I think that was my max distance in a session, all forward crawl, broken up into anywhere from 800 yard start to 200 yard finish sets as I got tired towards the end.
Then right nagging shoulder pain set in. Took a break for 3 weeks. Then back to pool. Still there but less.
I am now back to my semi-original rules: spend an hour in the water doing SOMETHING, and swim at least 1500 yards.
I usually do 1750 yards continuous (no breaks) very relaxed forward crawl with open turns taking maybe 40 minutes to finish the one set. At the start of the diet my resting heart rate was 75bpm and BP was 120/80. My resting heart rate is 55-60bpm, BP now 110/70, and during the workout it's maybe 110bpm so I'm at the very low end of exercise intensity while I swim unless I throw in some sprints. I then screw around trying to learn new tricks like dolphin kicking across the pool (I suck at this) or just going to the diving boards and pretending I'm a kid again.
So a mile swim takes me 40 minutes, which I think is bad but my form probably sucks (pull is really good but legwork needs work and probably body position too since my legwork is not right). I can do 100 yard forward crawl sprint in 1:35 now which is not awful for an amateur but not good either I think. My first 25 and 50 yard times are great, it would be a 1:20 sprint if I could maintain my 50 yard time but that second 50 yards I'm much slower. I seem to be an endurance guy and not so much a sprint guy, and it's probably form.
Also, I got a flat on my MTB last week and decided if I was going to be pulling a tire off and instead of putting a 3rd patch on the tube I just ordered new front and rear tires, tubes, and rim tape from Nashbar (had accidentally used 17mm tape last time when I should have used 22mm, got two pinch flats as a result when it shifted and spoke holes got exposed. The 22mm barely fits but doesn't interfere with the bead it seems. I'm a solid 3-4mph faster on these new semi-slick tires than I was on my old knobbies. I can't really go offroading or bombing down stairs on these though, so I'm probably going to build a second wheelset with stronger rims and offroad tires and just swap them until I at some point pick up a second bike.