Proactively Defeating Prediabetes
Prediabetes is a wake up call that you need to take action or it will lead to full diabetes. Diabetes is a disease that causes the body to not be able to make enough insulin.
This lack of insulin then makes the glucose levels above what’s considered normal. Diabetes is a progressive disease that can cause many complications if it’s not well managed.
However, long before diabetes ever strikes, there is a period of time where type 2 diabetes can be prevented. During the stage where there’s a higher risk of prediabetes, by being proactive with your health, you can stop it in its tracks.
Who Is at Risk for Prediabetes?
While prediabetes can happen to anyone, there are several risk factors that you can have that can raise your level of risk. By knowing what these are, you can take steps to eliminate as many of these factors as possible.
One of the most common risk factors for developing prediabetes is your weight. That’s because the heavier that you are, the more fat you’ll carry. When you carry a lot of excess fat, this makes it more difficult for your cells to use insulin the proper way.
When this happens, you enter a stage called insulin resistance. This stage causes your blood sugar levels to increase. Another risk factor for prediabetes is carrying a lot of weight specifically around your abdomen.
As a woman, if you measure your waist size and your measure is 35 inches or bigger, then your risk level is high. Men who have abdomens that are 40 inches or bigger are at a higher risk.
Not engaging in some form of regular activity is also a common issue that factors into developing prediabetes. Living a sedentary lifestyle can lead to making your cells insulin resistant.
This is why exercise is on the list of top things that can help stop prediabetes from happening. When you’re active, not only does it help you maintain a healthier body weight, but your body burns the glucose.
This helps your body not be insulin resistant. Prediabetes can happen to anyone at any time. But one of the big risk factors is getting older. Once you hit middle age, your risk factor goes up.
Some studies point to the possibility that this risk increases simply because people tend to be less focused on maintaining a healthy lifestyle. When it comes to prediabetes, you can’t escape how your genetics play into it.
If there’s a family history of diabetes, then your risk of developing prediabetes is significantly higher than people with no history of diabetes. There are certain life issues that can arise that can also raise your risk level.
If you had gestational diabetes,even if your levels went back into the normal range after the pregnancy ended, then you’re at a higher risk of getting diagnosed with prediabetes later in life.
There are some medical conditions that can automatically put you at risk. One of these is PCOS or polycystic ovary syndrome. This condition causes the estrogen and progesterone levels to become out of balance.
The condition is linked with weight gain, obesity, and diabetes, raising the risk of prediabetes. While it might surprise you to learn it, having trouble sleeping has also been linked to prediabetes.
When you don’t get the right amount of sleep, it can cause your cells to develop insulin resistance. It’s the insulin resistance that causes the prediabetes to happen.
Those at risk include people who struggle with insomnia, those who work swing shifts, third shifts or whose sleep is often interrupted. If you struggle with high blood pressure, this is also a risk factor because it’s linked to higher fat, raised cholesterol and being overweight.
Understanding Your Diagnosis
If you’ve been told that you have prediabetes, it means that you don’t have diabetes yet. However, it also means that if you don’t make some changes in your life, then you’re on the path to developing diabetes.
If you have common risk factors for prediabetes, you’ll want to get proactive with your health. Prediabetes means that your blood sugar levels are no longer in the range of what’s considered a normal reading.
But that your readings aren’t quite high enough to be considered having diabetes. This is a warning sign that if you don’t take action, within the next 5 to 10 years of your life, or maybe even sooner, your prediabetes will turn into full-blown diabetes.
You should get checked if you carry a lot of weight around your abdomen or if you’ve reached middle age. You should also get checked even if you’re not quite middle aged if you have the diabetes gene in your family.
Your diagnosis will be done using a fasting test. Not eating or drinking anything for at least 10 hours prior to the test should give you a reading of less than 100. If you haven’t fasted, then your level shouldn’t be any higher than 140.
If you have a fasting blood sugar test of greater than 100 but 125 or less, then you’re said to be in the prediabetes stage. If you’re diagnosed with prediabetes, you’ll want to diligently get your A1c levels checked.
An A1c level for someone who is diagnosed with prediabetes is a result of measures between 5.7 and 6.4. Anything higher than 6.4 is considered to be a diabetic range.
Some people assume that a diagnosis of prediabetes means that developing diabetes is a given – but it’s not. You can stop diabetes from developing if you make some changes in your life.
You can cut your risk in half if you take off some weight if your weight is a contributing factor. Losing just 10% of your overall weight can take you out of the prediabetes range and therefore, away from a diabetes diagnosis. Not only will losing weight help, but so will regular daily exercise.
Tweaking Your Nutrition for Preventative Measures.
If you’re like most people, you eat what you want when you want. But if you have prediabetes, you need to be more aware of what you’re putting into your body. Almost 80 million people have prediabetes and if you start now, you can take yourself out of that category and get on the path to better health.
You don’t have to buy a bunch of weird food or starve yourself, but you do want to make some nutritional changes. The first thing that you should do is to cut out liquids that are loaded with sugar.
Not only does sugar in your drinks not satisfy your appetite, but most sugar-laden drinks have very little nutritional value if any. Plus, drinking a lot of sugary drinks can cause you to gain weight.
Make your calories count in the foods that you eat, not in the things that you drink. Even diet drinks trick your body into thinking it’s going to get good calories for fueling your body, and when that doesn’t happen, makes you want to eat more.
The next thing that you can do is to watch how much you put on your plate. You can still eat the things that you’ve always enjoyed eating, but you want to be more proactive with your serving size.
Most people aren’t very good judges of a serving size. What might look like a serving can actually be two or three, which can double or triple your calories. Some foods can raise your glucose level, but keep you feeling fuller longer.
These are your complex carb foods such as whole grain pasta. Foods that are high in calories and known as junk food are foods that can make it difficult to defeat prediabetes.
You can still have junk food when you have prediabetes, but cut back on them significantly. By the same token, you’ll want to watch how much you eat – even among foods that are good for you.
It’s not the foods that you eat that can lead to prediabetes. It’s eating so much food that you end up gaining more weight than is healthy for your body. What drives people to overeat is feeling hungry and reaching for foods that will leave them hungry again in a short amount of time.
Look for foods that are packed with fiber. Not only does fiber leave you with that full feeling, but it’s good for your body.These will be foods such as whole grains, beans, and an assortment of fruits and vegetables.
Try to make sure that your foods are as fresh and as least processed as possible. The majority of your meals should focus on foods like fruit and vegetables.
When you have meat with your meals, make sure that you pick lean meat. Use meats such as skinless chicken breasts, turkey or fish. The way that you prepare your meals can make a difference, too.
Instead of frying your foods, choose to bake or grill it instead. This makes the food healthier for you and less of a prediabetes risk factor. Make sure that your nutrition plan includes plenty of water.
Not only does water stave off dehydration and help your skin look good, but it can also bring down glucose levels. Water is the core of what assists your organs in working properly, too.
Adding Exercise to Help Your Numbers
Exercising is good for you. It can release feel good endorphins, reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease and help to cut your risk of high cholesterol. Even though exercise is important, it doesn’t always take top priority in someone’s life.
It can be easy to fall into a habit of not getting in much or any exercise. But since not having a regular exercise routine can be one of the risk factors for prediabetes, you’ll want to establish a regular time to exercise or get back to it if you used to workout.
You need to exercise at least half an hour daily for five days a week. How long you exercise, how often you exercise and the intensity with which you exercise all matter in helping to keep your glucose numbers low.
The type of exercise you do can vary, but it needs to be something that gets you up and moving. Strength training is good, so is dancing, brisk walking, aerobics, jogging, running and riding a bicycle.
Prediabetes means that you have a higher than normal level of glucose in your blood. If it stays there, it can lead to health problems. Exercising is one of the ways to get the glucose out of the bloodstream and into the muscles.
When you exercise, your body uses the glucose as fuel and it helps the muscles in your body to be able to process the glucose. This is what fights back against insulin resistance.
When you exercise, it takes the strain off your pancreas, because when your glucose levels are higher than normal, your pancreas has to work overtime to try to deal with it by producing greater amounts of insulin.
When you combine aerobic exercise with a strength training plan, you’ll lose weight and cut your risk of prediabetes. You’ll also discover that you feel better and have more energy.
Addressing Sleep and Stress Issues
There are plenty of things that can contribute to prediabetes. Two of these issues are sleep problems and stress. When you don’t get the sleep that you need, it does more than simply make you tired and affect your cognitive skills, it can also elevate your glucose levels.
Not getting enough sleep can cause the body’s sensitivity to insulin to drop. And it doesn’t take weeks for your body to feel the impact if you’re having sleep issues.
All it takes is a day or two before your body’s cells can’t react to insulin the way that they can if you do get the right amount of sleep. In fact, if you’re having sleep issues, the lack of insulin sensitivity in your cells can mimic that of someone who has full-blown diabetes.
A lack of sleep triples the amount of insulin the cells need. If the lack of sleep becomes chronic, the risk of developing diabetes increases. You can eliminate sleep issues by doing things such as taking a warm bath before bed, limiting caffeine and other stimulants, and cutting out stress.
Stress is another issue that can cause your blood sugar level to become elevated. That’s because while there are physical things that can impact your glucose control – such as a lack of exercise – there are also emotional issues that can do the same.
Whenever you’re under stress, there’s a reason why it drives up the numbers of your blood sugar. Your body has stress hormones and when you’re under any kind of emotional upheaval, these hormones go into overdrive.
The purpose of these hormones is to get your blood sugar level to rise under stress. The reason that your hormones do this is a survival instinct that your body has and it’s part of the fight or flight reaction you get.
Your hormones are merely responding to the upset that you feel. Stress has an effect on the body in that it can keep those glucose levels raised for as long as you’re under the emotional upheaval.
When you experience stress, you need to do what you can to eliminate it or take steps to learn how to control it such as by doing yoga or exercising. If you’re proactive in fighting back against prediabetes, you can eliminate the elevated blood sugar levels and regain healthy insulin sensitivity.
