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Diabetes is a complex and often restrictive condition. Should you be diagnosed, there are a lot of limitations you might face in your daily life. There are, however, specific lifestyle changes for diabetes that will have a positive impact on your health and well-being.
While prevention is ideal, if that is not an option, one has to adopt a healthy lifestyle that enables one to manage diabetes effectively.
This article will help guide you through some aspects of managing diabetes as a way of life and offer tips to make life healthier.
How to Live A Healthy Lifestyle With Diabetes?
Many people often treat diabetes as a life-shattering disease when, in reality, that is not necessarily the case. If you are here wondering that having diabetes is the end of the world, you are mistaken.
Diabetes can be regulated if the person takes good care of their health and opts for a healthy lifestyle. This is where the majority of us go wrong. If you are curious about the potent lifestyle changes for diabetes management, we have a few that we will share with you.
Check These Lifestyle Changes For Diabetes
- Consume a Healthy, Nutritious, and Balanced Diet
Food and nutrition play a crucial role in managing diabetes. Any imbalance or irregularity in food habits can cause a ruckus in one’s health. The primary metabolite, glucose, is central to diabetes. Hence, one should abide by a serious diet to keep their blood glucose levels in check.
People with diabetes need to consume foods that will boost their health and metabolism and not cut down a food group completely. Many think that cutting down carbs from the diet will help restore normal glucose levels, but that is not true. Carbs are essential for several bodily functions. Balancing your diet is more effective than eliminating specific nutrients.
- Have Regular Checkups
Ensure that you get regular checkups. Having a proper understanding of your glucose level every month is important. You need to ensure that your glucose levels are in a healthy range.
Not just the glucose levels, diabetes has the tendency to impose other health issues as well, which is very important to keep in account.
Make sure that you keep track of your cholesterol levels and blood pressure from time to time to ensure that you don’t develop risks of these underlying diseases.
- Stay Active
Yet another important lifestyle change for diabetes is maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle. One of the main reasons behind the induction of diabetes is because of the sedentary lifestyle. Hence, it is essential to ensure that you opt for an active lifestyle and include exercises to stick to daily.
It is not about overstraining yourself or going above and beyond your capability. Ensure you put in 30 minutes of heavy workouts that will make you breathe harder than you normally do.
Living an active lifestyle helps your muscles absorb more glucose, decreasing the bioavailability of glucose and thus helps keep the blood glucose levels in check.
- Manage Your Stress
Stress is one of the most common reasons behind the development of diabetes for many. The higher levels of cortisol in the body often account for the imbalanced glucose levels in the blood.
There are many possible chances for the blood glucose levels to fluctuate. When stress is unmanaged, it can significantly impact your blood sugar levels.
The best way to cope with stress is by practicing various forms of yoga and meditation to regulate blood sugar levels in the best possible way.
- Quit Smoking
Smoking has the potential to affect your health in a number of negative ways. Not only are you increasing the risks of cancer, but you are also exposing your body to several other health risks.
Diabetes already places an extra strain on your body, and smoking exacerbates these issues, increasing the likelihood of complications.
It is thus essential that you quit smoking. This helps in cutting down the associated risks, such as heart disease and cancer.
- Keep Your Alcohol Intake in Check
Alcohol consumption has the potential to make your blood sugar levels either spike or drop too low. For people with diabetes, make sure to eat something while drinking alcohol to balance out the glucose fluctuations.
Many alcoholic drinks, especially cocktails, are loaded with sugar and high-carb content, which can be bad for the body. It’s essential to be mindful of these factors to maintain stable blood sugar levels.
- Ideal Weight Management
One of the most critical lifestyle changes is to focus on losing weight effectively. Obesity is one of the biggest enemies of diabetes. It is vital to ensure that you let go of the sedentary lifestyle and switch it to an active one.
If you are an obese person and want to lead a healthy lifestyle, you must find ways that will help you lose weight in a healthy manner.
When you have an ideal weight, it becomes easier for the body to metabolize the glucose, which helps manage diabetes better.
- Take Care of Your Feet
People with diabetes have a higher tendency to develop issues like blisters and wounds on their feet. If not managed properly and carefully, these issues can be slow to heal and may lead to serious complications.
Diabetics need to pay close attention to foot hygiene and care. Regularly check your feet for any signs of damage, keep them clean and moisturized, and wear comfortable shoes for adequate protection.
By prioritizing foot care as part of your diabetes management, you can reduce the risk of complications.
Conclusion
Making lifestyle changes in managing diabetes leads one toward a healthier and more enriching life. With a balanced diet, regular checkups, active lifestyle, stress management, and other good habits combined into daily chores, it becomes easy to keep blood sugar levels under control and minimize the risks of diabetes. Therefore, these changes indirectly add up to your general well-being and are not merely for the sake of controlling diabetes. Take control of your health today, and pave the way for a healthier, more vibrant tomorrow.
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Feb 2019Written by Somapika D
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Sep 2024Edited by Lakshmi Gayatri
