Part 3

Diabetes in Reverse: The Foods You Eat

How much and what kinds of foods you eat is the second factor in reversing Type 2 diabetes. If someone were diagnosed with the color red causing too high glucose levels, the simple solution would be to avoid the color red.

But because it’s food (quantity and quality) that cause Type 2 diabetes, the task is a little harder. After all, you can’t avoid food.  (this food is not the best for your health)=>

What you can do however is make sure what you eat works with your body instead of against it and helps to maintain a steady, normal glucose.

What is it that decides glucose control?

You do by the foods you eat. Foods that are carbohydrates can be classified by number on the glycemic index. This index lets you know how high a certain food will send your glucose reading. This is important because the higher a food’s glycemic rating, the worst effect it will have on being able to reverse your diabetes.

Carbohydrates are either simple or complex. The difference is found in the way the body absorbs them-whether it’s a fast or slow absorption.

Carbohydrates that are high on the glycemic index are foods involving white flour-sandwich bread, any meat coated with a white flour coating, an example would be breaded nuggets or haddock, white rice, flour tortillas are all high on the index.These foods can raise your glucose levels significantly.

Understand though that just because a food is low on the glycemic chart doesn’t mean it’s good for someone who’s trying to reverse Type 2 diabetes.

Fruits contain natural sugar and will spike your glucose rapidly. Until you get your glucose levels down low enough where your diabetes is reversed, watch your fruit intake.

Diabetes in Reverse: Your Exercise Routine

The third factor in determining that diabetes can be reversed is exercise. Lack of exercise is one of the causes that leads to weight gain that leads to inactivity that leads to diabetes. It’s all connected.

The same as if there had never been a diagnosis of diabetes, maintaining a healthy body weight and exercise is good for the body. It promotes health and longevity and can prevent or stop certain diseases including diabetes.

Since diabetes goes hand in hand with heart disease, by starting a daily exercise routine, you’ll be able to head that one off before it becomes a problem as well. The kinds of exercise you do depends on what your body can handle to start with.

If you’re a bona fide couch potato and the only race you’ve won lately is to the refrigerator before your show returned from commercial break, you’ve got to start slow. The best way to go from inactive to active is not rushing full speed ahead. The key is consistency. Daily exercise even if all you can do is ten minutes a day to start with.

You can begin with ten minutes a day for a week. The next week, add five minutes, after that, five more until you’re exercising thirty minutes a day. Because diabetes is known to impede healing, until you reverse it, be careful when you exercise. Don’t strain yourself. Make sure you take the time to warm up your muscles first.

You also have to watch for low glucose readings after you exercise. Exercise drops the glucose and the rate and number it drops depends on what kind of exercise you do for what length of time. So take your reading before and after you exercise. Make sure you have a snack nearby in case it does drop too low.

The purpose behind a regular exercise routine is for the weight loss. Losing excess weight helps your body’s ability to use the food. Your pancreas doesn’t have to work as hard if you’ll do the hard work instead.

Diabetes in Reverse: Managing What Led to the Lifestyle

No one wakes up one morning and decides to fall into a feeding frenzy, gorging himself or herself on food until the numbers on the scale rise dramatically.

It’s a slow process. Maybe there was an accident and your mobility was taken away from you for a period of time. Perhaps there was some emotional stress that led to what’s known as food therapy-trying to medicate and quiet the issue or issues with food.

Whatever caused the weight gain, especially if it was brought on by emotional causes must be dealt with. Whether it’s self help, the support of a group of like individuals or therapy, you have to expose and dig up the root of the cause.

Stress can cause glucose levels to spike and it must be dealt with. If you can change whatever is causing the stress in your life, then do it. If you can’t, then you must learn how to manage it and by the way, exercise is a great stress reliever

You have to take the first step though in order to change. There’s no way to sugar coat it, there are no magic potions you can mix up to wish away a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes. What there is though is a reversal in the power of your hands.

If you get diagnosed and choose to do nothing, you are making a choice that will have a lifetime of consequences in the form of health complications.

A diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes doesn’t have to be the end. It can be the signal that it’s time to take a hard look at your lifestyle and make some changes to take back control and head in reverse.

Rita