When you have type 2 diabetes it’s more important than ever to eat a healthy diet, be physically active, and lose weight (or maintain your target weight). Monitoring your blood sugar, following your doctor’s instructions, and seeing your healthcare providers regularly, are also a part of managing your diabetes.
What you shouldn’t do is simply take your medications and believe that everything is going to be okay. It won’t. Your health will continue to suffer.
If you have Type 2 Diabetes, here’s how you stay healthy.
A diabetes-friendly lifestyle incorporates healthy eating, physical activity, and blood sugar management into everyday activities. When you have type 2 diabetes it is important to develop these healthy habits to help keep your condition under control. Making changes to your daily life is easier than you might think; you can get started by breaking it down into a few simple steps:
- Get with a healthcare team that will help you understand and control your blood sugar.
Your primary care doctor will normally be your team leader, but your team will also include nurses, educators, dietitians, pharmacists and specialists. Consult your team regularly. Get all of your questions answered. And, most importantly, visit your healthcare providers even when you are well. They need to see and monitor your progress so you can stay well. - Learn about your health condition.
Everyday activities affect your blood sugar. Only through educating yourself can you learn what to do and what not to do. For instance, what you eat, how much you eat, and when you eat all work together to change your blood sugar. Exercise has an impact, too, including how long, what you exercise, and when you exercise. Diabetes treatment is continuously evolving. Staying on top of the latest information will help you make the best choices and prevent complications. - Live a healthy lifestyle.
Living a healthy lifestyle is the number one thing you can do to control your blood sugar. A healthy lifestyle is all about choices, including your food choices, level of activity and your body weight. It all adds up and makes a significant difference in your blood sugar.- Talk with your doctor about starting an exercise program, and break your exercise goals into smaller steps. For instance, start out with a 5- to 10-minute walk 3 times a week, and add a few minutes each week as you get more comfortable.
- Try incorporating one additional fruit and vegetable into your daily meals. It can be as simple as topping your morning cereal with blueberries and fixing a small salad to have with dinner.
- Work with your doctor to develop a regular blood sugar testing schedule and determine your target blood sugar range. You can keep track of your blood sugar levels between appointments in the Daily Diabetes Management Journal.
- Reward yourself for progress toward your goals and reaching milestones, and remember that you do not have to go it alone! Let friends and family know about your plan to lead a healthier lifestyle. They can be a great support system when you need it and help keep you on track.
- Check out the ABCs of Diabetes Management for more simple ways to get active and eat healthy — getting started is easier than you may think!
If you travel, here’s how you stay on track.
When you have diabetes, it can be challenging to maintain your schedule of eating, blood sugar testing, and medication during travel, because your daily routine is disrupted and you’re away from home. Here are a few tips that can help keep your blood sugar in check when you’re on the go:
- Talk with your doctor about your travel plans and discuss whether you need to adjust your medication and blood sugar testing schedules for traveling
- Research nearby restaurants and grocery stores in your travel destination so you know your healthy options for meals and snacks
- If you are taking a long car trip, test your blood sugar before leaving. If it is 70 mg/dL or below, eat or drink something that will raise it quickly, and wait until your blood sugar is back at a normal level before getting behind the wheel. Check out the Low Blood Sugar Checklist for tips on how to get through an episode of low blood sugar
- Pack more snacks, drinks, and blood sugar testing supplies than you think you will need, so that you are prepared in the event of travel delays. Store everything in an easily accessible carry-on bag
- Always wear a medical alert bracelet when traveling
Here’s how BloodSugarBasics.com can help.
This website exists to help type 2 diabetics who want to help themselves. The website offers free information about blood sugar, how it becomes dangerously elevated through diet and lack of exercise, and how to bring it back down to healthy levels.
This website is not for people who want a silver bullet. It simply does not exist. You’re going to have to work hard to get your health back.
As a type 2 diabetic, you can’t be cured. However, your condition can be put into full remission. That’s why I published the 7-Steps to Life without Type 2 Diabetes. These are the steps I took that worked for me. I did it through creating and maintaining a healthy lifestyle for myself.
A major factor in restoring my good health is the food I choose to eat. Being a bit of a foodie, I love tasty food. Learning that tasty does not have to mean bad for me, was a big hurdle.
This is why I purchased a healthy cooking food blog called Life as a Plate, featuring Paleo, Primal, Gluten-Free and Sugar-Free (free of processed sugars) recipes and merged it with BloodSugareBasics.com. Getting back to eating healthy food was important to me. After all, most of our weight and blood sugar problems come from wheat, bad fats, processed foods, and sugar (sucrose and fructose), not to mention our portion sizes. I’m happy to share these healthy recipes and will be adding many more.
BloodSugarBasics.com can best help you by offering a framework to use to improve your high blood sugar condition, lose weight and begin restoring normal health. If this is what you want, it’s important to start by learning about the forces working against you. We have been systematically lied to. Only by learning about the lies, and how they hurt you, can you begin to reject the poison we’ve been fed and are quite literally hooked on.
Living with your type 2 diabetes, in a healthy way, is a process of adopting new lifestyle habits. All it takes is the will to change and the knowledge to know what and how.