Diabetes and prediabetes are becoming a major concern for the modern generation as people cannot keep their blood sugar in check, majorly because of their unhealthy eating habits.
Read this blog till the end to know all about prediabetes and how one can take some steps to manage and reverse it with ease to lead a happy and healthy life.
Prediabetes: An Overview
In case you have ever been diagnosed with prediabetes, it is high time. Generally, it means that the blood glucose is abnormally high, with most of the time, the reason for this being insulin resistance.
Statistics show that people who have been diagnosed with prediabetes are at a higher risk of suffering from type 2 diabetes. It is also likely that they may develop some sort of cardiovascular disease.
But these are just possibilities, and it is not necessary that you will have type 2 diabetes. Taking the necessary steps and getting your blood sugar levels to a safer zone is the key to further preventing things from escalating.
Therefore it becomes important for you to know all about the right sorts of foods that you can eat to make this happen.
But what is the connection between prediabetes management and your diet? Let us get into it.
Impact of diet on prediabetes
There are plenty of factors that can play a key role in jeopardizing the health of an individual suffering from prediabetes.
In case your family has a long history of diabetes, the genetic factor is something to look out for. Although, plenty of other factors also has a major hand in developing the disease. Being lazy and being overweight are some of the potential factors that are commonly known.
For those who don’t understand, when the sugar from the food you ingest starts building up in the bloodstream, insulin cannot move it into the cells with ease. That is when a person is declared to be suffering from prediabetes.
Many people believe that carbs are the main reason people suffer from prediabetes. But the type of carbs and the amount consumed is what really impacts blood sugar levels in the body.
Patients find it hard to get their blood sugar levels down after every meal in most cases. Keeping the carbs intake in check can be of help. Eating more calories than your body needs results in them getting stored as fat.
This leads to an increase in body weight, commonly belly fat, which is why it is often seen that people who have prediabetes also suffer from weight problems.
So, what are the factors that can be of help when one wants to reverse this condition to lead a healthy life?
How To Manage Prediabetes
- By eating a clean diet
The major concern for people with diabetes is the inclusion of processed food in their diets with high levels of sugar, fats, and calories without nutritional value. If your diet includes a lot of red meat, the red alert should be there by now.
Coming up with clean dieting habits should be the number one priority for people when they are suffering from high glucose levels.
- Fruits with complex carbs
- vegetables
- lean meats
- whole grains
- healthy fats, like avocado and fish
- 2.Regular exercising
Being lazy is not the best of traits, and it can play a key role if you suffer from prediabetes. It is common knowledge that exercising is good for both your mental and physical health as well. Not only that, but it also helps in lowering the blood sugar levels by ensuring that the insulin sensitivity increases significantly.
A minimum reduction in blood sugar levels for up to 24 hours can be seen after a workout.
As a beginner, take things slow and try to come up with light workouts for 15 to 20 minutes until your body gets used to the exertion. Once that happens, increasing the intensity and time period for the workout can be a good choice.
Exercising can include several things and working out for 60 minutes 5 days a week can help you see some major changes. Here are some of the exercises.
- Biking
- Walking
- Aerobics
- Sports
- Jogging
- Rope skipping
- Swimming
- Get rid of excess weight
Now that we know about the exercising part losing weight is one of the major perks of working out.
One may think that losing 5 to 10% of your body weight can turn things for you, although it may vary differently for different people.
Having a large waist size can come in handy as well since it can increase insulin resistance. It can be about 40 inches for men and more than 35 inches for women.
Keeping your diet in check and working out regularly are two things that hold the key to losing weight. There are other things that one can resort to as well.
If you feel that you cannot eat in moderation, try to skip large meals and break them down into 5 to 6 meals a day instead of having 3 big portions in a day.
- Less intake of carbs
Even though you have chosen to eat healthy, tracking your carbs is still important. Try to eat complex carbs, as that is better than consuming unprocessed carbs. Here are some such foods.
- Beans
- Whole grains
- Veggies
Being rich in fiber, such carbs can keep you full for a longer period and are harder to break down for the stomach, which is why these get absorbed slowly. All this further prevents the blood sugar levels from increasing significantly.
Limiting simple carbs that get absorbed quickly can stop a straight spike in blood sugar levels.