Diabetes is a medical condition when your fasting blood sugar is more than 120 and HbA1c is more than 6. This occurs when your pancreas is not being able to produce insulin or when your body is resistant to insulin.
One of the classic signs of diabetes is if you’ve been working to drop the pounds and it hasn’t been working, you might want to take a closer look at your blood sugar levels. That may be the reason your efforts aren’t working.
You may think that blood sugar is only a problem for people who are diabetic, but that’s not true.
Why does being Overweight cause Diabetes? And why do I need to reduce the excess body weight?
What is true is that people who are diabetic have a pretty good chance of being overweight in fact, 80% either have too much weight on them or go all the way to being obese. There’s a good reason for that.
Once you start down the road of being overweight, you run the risk of having insulin resistance. When you’re insulin resistant, your body’s cells stop responding to the hormone insulin.
Insulin is there to help your body convert the energy from its food to fuel. When that process stops working, sugar builds in your bloodstream.
When your body sees extra blood sugar, it sends a signal to make more insulin. The whole thing becomes a vicious cycle, and you end up storing that extra sugar as fat.
If this process makes you feel like you’re waging a hopeless battle, there’s good news. You can stop the cycle by losing weight.
But if your blood sugar levels have climbed too high, you need to be smart about how you go about it.
I am sad to say this but high blood sugar is epidemic in India.
Can you believe it now plagues more than 1 in 3 adults? This condition is called prediabetes and 90% of people who have it don’t even know it.
High blood sugar doesn’t manifest in a series of symptoms until the damage becomes serious. If you have prediabetes, you’re likely to develop type 2 diabetes within a few years.
What are the complications of Diabetes?
Diabetes drastically increases the risk of blindness, neuropathy, kidney failure, heart attack, stroke, and other serious health issues.
Most people erroneously think they can simply take a pill to lower their blood sugar and all will be good. But without some real changes to their lifestyles the disease will progress.
What are the How to reduce blood sugar (Diabetes)? 8 Natural cures for Diabetes complications of Diabetes?
There are some steps you can take to lower your blood sugar naturally and either lower or eliminate your risk for complications associated with high blood sugar.
1. Choose your carbohydrates wisely
Get most of your carbs from fruit, vegetables, and whole grains all carbs with a high fiber content. Avoid processed foods.
2. Combine carbs with a protein
When you eat a meal or snack, combining a protein with a carb helps slow down the digestion of the carb, thereby preventing a spike in your blood sugar. Nuts and seeds contain carbs, proteins, and fiber.
3. Avoid sugary and sweet drinks
Liquid enters the bloodstream much more rapidly than food and raises blood sugar. We now know that diet drinks involving any kind of artificial sweetener or natural sweeteners are just as bad as sugar (if not worse) in terms of raising blood sugar. Start off slowly by keeping yourself away from the taste of sweet.
4. Exercise regularly
Moderate exercise for at least 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week can have a profound impact on your health. It can lower blood sugar and blood pressure, help you sleep better, and lose weight.
5. Reduce your portion sizes
When you eat, reduce the size of the portions you put on your plate and choose not to go back for seconds. Especially cut back on the portion of the carbs you take. Eat slowly and savor your food.
6. Maintain regular mealtimes.
If you know you have high blood sugar, this is especially important. This routine will provide your body with a rhythm to prevent sharp rises in blood sugar. By the way, don’t skip breakfast! That’s one of the worst things you can do for your weight or blood sugar.
7. Reduce your stress
Under stress, the body secretes cortisol into the bloodstream. Cortisol prevents insulin (a hormone produced in the pancreas) from doing its important work of lowering your blood sugar.
8. Lose weight
This is very important. It has been proven that Losing just 5 to 7 percent of your body weight can significantly lower your blood sugar and will probably lower your blood pressure as well.
To get a detailed indivisualised diet plan on diabetes and weight loss please contact Dietitian Prioshka at NutriSlim Diet Clinic or call us on +919049364351.
Your holistic nutritionist and dietitian,
Prioshka. Rodrigues
(NutriSlim Diet Clinic, Goa-India)