Health Fitness

Ensure Good Blood Sugar Control: 10 Dangers to Avoid

Any diabetic will tell you that it is not very easy to have good blood sugar control without medication and/or insulin, but what can we learn from those who have managed to maintain normal blood glucose levels for years, simply by choosing good dietary habits. , exercise and stress management? What are some of the pitfalls they are careful to avoid that allow them to live “drug free”?

Here are 10 considerations that might help you get and maintain normal blood sugar.

  1. Know what situations trigger glucose spikes; for example, on “sick days”. When you’re sick, your body releases more glucose, apparently as a defensive measure. This makes it more difficult to maintain normal glucose levels.
  2. Lack of proper control can lead to difficulties in controlling blood sugar. It is much easier to monitor your blood glucose level today with more modern meters. You can even measure your A1c yourself, at home!
  3. Having a poor diet or not following your diet plan. Eating the wrong types of foods, such as low-fiber foods, sugary foods, drinking caffeinated beverages, or drinking fruit juice instead of eating fruit. Foods that lack enough fiber or foods that are high in saturated fat only worsen glucose control and cause other health problems at the same time.
  4. Not eating at the right times; that is, having variable eating patterns. This sends conflicting signals to the brain and does not help the process. Blood sugar control benefits from regularity in your eating and sleeping patterns.
  5. Not getting enough rest or sleep, or managing stress properly can thwart your efforts to control diabetes.
  6. Snacks can make it more difficult to maintain normal blood sugar levels because they can cause delayed gastric emptying, a situation in which the stomach takes too long to empty its contents, leading to indigestion and other problems.
  7. Interaction with other medications can counteract blood sugar control. This can especially occur in situations where the patient is taking multiple medications for several conditions at the same time.
  8. Lack of regular exercise makes diabetes control very difficult because inactive muscles don’t need energy and therefore don’t make demands on the blood’s supply of glucose.
  9. Information overload and misinformation can lead to confusion and indecision on the part of the diabetic. Pharmaceutical companies are always “telling” people to ask their doctor to prescribe something else. There is always a new treatment that promises more and more, and patience wears thin on the part of the patient by not sticking to a diabetes care plan.
  10. Carbohydrate counting and carbohydrate rationing. It’s easy to “tie the number” and forget that what really matters is the quality of the carbohydrates. Reducing the intake of carbohydrates does not solve the difficulty of assimilating glucose; “training” your system to properly handle glucose (again) does.

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