It is often very difficult to make changes to your lifestyle, especially when you have been doing things a certain way for so long. But if you suffer from diabetes, it is important that you start to make the changes necessary to protect your health. The following hints and tips can help you prevent diabetes, reduce its effects and make changing your lifestyle as easy and stress-free as possible.
Foods fall on different places according to the glycemic index, a number that details how each food will affect glucose levels in the blood based on its chemical makeup. Having a low GI number is important if you are trying to manage your diabetes.
You can live a far simpler and lower stress lifestyle if you make habitual routines of the things you need to do for managing your condition. As an example, keep your blood sugar meter and your insulin near each other and use them at the same time each day if needed. When testing, keep track of it as a routine so that you don’t forget any steps. Also, try to jot down your numbers.
It is important to bring along high-sugar foods or chewing gum if you are hypoglycemic. Hypoglycemia attacks can happen at any time, so you need to be prepared for that. This is particularly true if you didn’t eat breakfast, as it can cause your body to crave sugar.
Battling diabetes does not always have to involve expensive methods; try brisk walks in the park, jogging or reasonable fitness regimes. Use the local jungle gym for pull ups, and you can even weight lift with canned goods or other heavy household items, such as bottles of laundry detergent.
Gestational Diabetes
Your doctor will do a regular screening for gestational diabetes. You may be putting yourself and your child in grave danger if you do not properly care for gestational diabetes. You might even have to take medication and change your diet significantly.
If you have diabetes, it is very important to take great care in managing what you eat. Every type of food can have a different effect on glucose levels, so it is crucial that you monitor your food intake closely. Large meals require large insulin injections but smaller meals require smaller insulin injections. If you are careful about what foods you do and do not eat, you will be able to better manage your glucose.
Don’t blame yourself for being inflicted with gestational diabetes. It is quite often not something that you could have prevented from happening. Cancel negative thoughts and think positively about your child and yourself. This will go a long way toward lowering stress.
Blood Sugar
If you find a high glucose reading immediately after treating a low reading, do not be unduly alarmed. In some cases, you might overcompensate for low blood sugar by eating too much, while in other cases your body might release hormones into your bloodstream when your sugar gets too low. These hormones can raise glucose naturally at the same time as you are raising it via eating. When this happens, you may want to reduce the food and liquids by about 50 percent and see how if affects your blood sugar levels within half an hour.
If diabetes is a condition you have, cinnamon is a wonderful spice that you can use in your diet with inviting calories, sodium or sugar in. Cinnamon can also accentuate the natural sweetness of some foods without adding sugar that may raise your blood glucose levels. Some researchers believe cinnamon can lower blood glucose levels.
It is important that, as a diabetic, you eat nutritional foods on a regular basis and check your glucose levels, even when feeling unwell and you have no appetite. You need to maintain your water intake due the feeling of dehydration during low glucose periods.
Smoking can have multiple disadvantages, but even more so for those inflicted with diabetes. This habit can bring on a lot of other bad health side effects. Smoking makes a person’s insulin resistant, so the risk of acquiring type 2 diabetes increases if you’re not diabetic to begin with.
Keep checking your blood sugar after giving birth. While gestational diabetes usually resolves with delivery of your baby, you want to make sure you don’t continue to have problems with your blood sugar level. It is thought by a lot of people that once you give birth your blood sugar issues go away, but this isn’t exactly the case.
Every once in a blue moon, someone who suffers from diabetes actually gets cured. Therefore, when the day comes that you find out that lifestyle changes are now necessary in your life, be mindful of the understated emphasis that is put on “life.” As much as this article will help, they will only go so far. The balance is your responsibility.