Info About Diabetes

Diabetic guidelines aren’t as easy to describe as you might first thing.  Certainly it’s “eating right” and “getting enough exercise”.  But what do those terms mean?  What’s “right” and “enough”?

Exercise and Diabetes

Does the “E Word” (exercise) make you want to cringe?  A lot of people can relate to that, including you and me.  But exercise and diabetes go together hand in glove.

So why is exercise important to diabetic guidelines for controlling this disease?  Let’s think about it for a minute.

When you exercise, your muscles need fuel, right?  What they use is glucose — also known as sugar.  By pulling glucose into the muscles, you’re regulating the excess sugar swimming around in your blood.  Make sense?

Ok, so you know the why — now the how as in “how much”?  Diabetic guidelines say at least 30 minutes five times a week is what’s needed to help regulate your blood sugar.  Now do you see why diabetes and exercise go together.

And by the way, if you can’t manage 30 minutes 5 times a week, start where you can and build up your time.

There you go — diabetes, exercise, blood sugar and you.

Diabetic Guidelines and Eating

Eat right.  What does that mean?  Well, avoiding sugar and sweets is the first thing most people think about.  But there are other foods just as likely to send a person with diabetes into a tailspin.

Any food that quickly raises your body’s blood sugar is a food to stay away from, or at least be cautious of, in your everyday diet.  What are some of these goods?

• Fruit juices, especially sweetened juices.
• White bread, white sugar, white rice, white potatoes, regular pasta.
• Rice cakes, bagels, pretzels.
• Cakes, cookies, sodas, ice cream, candy.
• Sugary fruits like pineapple and watermelon

Surprised at the fruit juice?  Don’t be.  It’s the fiber in fruit that slows down the rise in blood glucose, and processed juices just don’t have any worth mentioning.

 Naturally items like veggies, whole-grain fiber and lean protein show up on the menu.  But guess what — so do healthy fats like olive oil and omega 3 oils found in cold-water fish like salmon.

Additional Reading

Here are some other posts and pages from this site, as well as outside resources you might enjoy.

• Diabetes Diet Books
• Mayo Clinic on Diabetes and Exercise
• Brittle Diabetes