You’ll hear a lot about deadly diseases out there like cancer, and even some types of influenza, but diabetes has taken a back seat in terms of importance. If you’re one of the many people who have diabetes, then you know this disease takes a back seat for no one. Read this article and use these tips to help manage your lifestyle.
Skip the french fries and ditch the baked potato – it’s time to replace your carb-heavy side dishes with something that’s actually GOOD for a Diabetic. Salad! I’m not talking potato or pasta salad, they’re both carbohydrate disaster areas. Pick up some lettuce, shred some vegetables, throw on some tomato wedges and a nice light oil and vinegar dressing and dig in!
Do you know what your A1C is? If you’re Diabetic, you should know it along with your weight. This number indicates how well you’ve been controlling your blood sugar over the long-term, which will tell you if you need to be checking your fasting blood glucose levels more often to see what’s going on.
The more you exercise, the more insulin sensitive you become. Even if you’re not feeling well or injured you’ll need to find something to do that gets your heart pumping. If your legs aren’t working, use your arms, or vice versa. Even rolling around on the floor can get your Diabetes in check.
If you have been diagnosed with diabetes or at high risk of acquiring the disease, it is vitally important that you lose weight. About 80 percent of all diabetics are overweight carrying excess body fat has been proven to contribute to the development of the disease. Losing weight is often times all one needs to do to completely control all diabetes symptoms.
If you’re Diabetic, don’t overeat simply because your sugar is low. A single pack of sugary candy or a glucose tab is a much safer and more controlled method of bringing your sugar level back up. If you overeat in reaction to a low, you’re likely to spike your sugar instead of bringing it back to normal.
If you live with diabetes, be extra careful if you have a pedicure. People who suffer from diabetes are more likely to get foot infections, so it is important to be extra careful not to pierce or cut your skin.
Gestational diabetes can be a dangerous complication of pregnancy. It causes high blood sugar and can affect your health as well as your baby’s. Luckily, gestational diabetes can be controlled by a healthy diet, exercise, and sometimes medication. It usually resolves itself after the baby is born.
It is important to control pre-diabetes with proper diet and exercise as well as keeping weight at normal levels. Studies show that even pre-diabetics are at risk of developing dangerous long-term damage from even mildly elevated blood sugar levels. These effects can be damaging even to the heart and circulatory system.
Make sure to go to your podiatrist often if you have Diabetes to get routine foot check-ups. Your feet are susceptible to peripheral neuropathy and infection, so having them looked over will ensure you don’t end up with them being amputated. It only takes a small amount of time to ensure your feet are healthy, so do it!
If you see ANY damage to the skin on your feet and you have Diabetes you must let your podiatrist know as soon as possible! He’ll be able to tell you what to use to keep it clean and free of infection, and prescribe you an antibiotic cream or gel if necessary.
Paper and pen are your greatest weapons in defeating Diabetes. You should keep track of your exercise via a log, a diet diary to see what causes you blood-glucose spikes, blood pressure log, blood sugar reading log, and when you take your medications and how much, you have taken.
If you’re often too tired in the morning to make breakfast, figure something out that you can do while you’re half asleep. A diabetic MUST eat in the morning, so try something like a protein shake or a muffin and an apple. Pour yourself a tall glass of milk to go along with it!
If you feel that your medication is not working to control your diabetes, you may want to talk to your doctor about switching medications. There are a wide variety of different diabetic medications and what works for one person, may not work well for you. Or your dosage may need to be increased.
If you have diabetes, you should try to cut out alcohol or talk to your doctor if you can not. Alcohol can cause low blood sugar, which is called hypoglycemia. The effects can be very hard to predict with different people. Doctors will allow some people to have a drink or two with proper management, but it is best to avoid alcohol altogether.
In order to prevent gestational diabetes, try eating a low glycaemic index diet. These diets help to slow the digestion of food, which allows the body to adjust to the amount of sugar that is consumed during a meal. In turn, this helps to prevent women from developing gestational diabetes.
If you are a diabetic and you are trying to conceive a baby, visit a preconception diabetes clinic. Women have diabetes may have problems conceiving or carrying a baby and these clinics can give you valuable advice about foods, diets, and medications to assist you in having a healthy pregnancy.
Get moving. Staying active can help reduce your risk for diabetes, and can help control the disease after diagnosis. An hour long walk every day is enough to make a significant impact. You can also increase your walking in everyday activities to boost the amount of exercise you get. Park farther from the store in the parking lot, and do an extra lap around the mall when you are out shopping.
As you read in the opening, diabetes isn’t one of the more important diseases out there in the mainstream. But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be incredibly important to you, especially if you have the disease. Just getting by isn’t enough. You can thrive with this disease if you use tips like the ones you just read.