Even if New Year's resolutions for better diabetes control have gone by the wayside, it's not too late to resolve to control blood sugars for better health.
After the holiday feasts and festivities leading up to the New Year's Day, millions of diabetics resolve to take better care of their blood sugar levels so they can enjoy better health with fewer diabetes complications in the New Year. If you made New Year's resolutions you did not keep, it's not too late to resolve again to maintain normal blood sugar levels for a healthier finish to the year. Here are five suggestions.
Five Ways Diabetics Can Take Control Over Their Condition
- Resolve to test your blood sugar levels at least every day if you are a type 2 diabetic, and several times a day if you are a type 1 diabetic. There is simply no other way to know whether diet, exercise, insulin, and other medications are doing their job unless you test, test, and test some more. If you have a problem with the pain of testing, it's help to test on the side of your fingers and thumbs, not in the fleshy parts. Drawing a drop of blood for your blood sugar reading from the sides of fingers and thumbs may hurt less than testing on your arms, but pricking the broad part of your fingertips is sure to be painful.
- Take up easy exercise. A walk around the block won't do a lot for controlling diabetes, but every little bit helps. Even better, check with your doctor to see if you can start doing aerobic exercise of the huff-and-puff variety, or maybe start lifting weights. Intense exercise requiring maximum exertion has two very important effects on your blood sugar levels. While you are doing the exercise, your muscles burn 30 times as much sugar to make the same amount of energy. And after you do the exercise, for about two hours your muscles are 50 times more sensitive than usual to insulin, helping them take in the glucose they need to restore their energy supplies.
- Eat your veggies, especially leafy greens. Spinach in the diabetic's diet is very helpful, because it provides nitrates that give cells all over the body the antioxidants they need to burn energy even under low-oxygen conditions. This may mean that you can work out longer, but it may also mean that the parts of your body that don't get as much blood circulation will work a little better.
- Give up soft drinks, including zero-calorie soft drinks. Three Diet Cokes a day can easily cost your $1500 a year. That amount would go a long way toward paying for your diabetes care. Carbonated beverages, even with they are artificially sweetened, place a burden on the kidneys to neutralize phosphoric acid with calcium drawn from bone and glutamine taken from muscle. An occasional diet soda probably doesn't hurt, but more than one a day spells trouble.
- Go nuts. Almonds, walnuts, macadamias, and pecans are high in fat, but they paradoxically can help you lose weight, but helping you control appetite. It's best to eat a handful of nuts about 30 minutes before one of your scheduled meal times every day. Clinical trials in Australia have found that people who take up eating nuts as a snack typically lose one pound (about half a kilo) a month without dieting.
It's Never to Late to Choose Healthy Living
These five resolutions can make a profound difference in diabetic health, and it's never too late to decide to do better. Make the changes in your lifestyle today that will keep you healthier for many years to come.
Copyright Robert Rister. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.
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