Are You Making These 4 Mistakes With Your Diabetes

You know, they say life doesn’t come with a manual. And while that’s true, I think it is one of the greatest frustrations on the part of the general public that diseases don’t come with manuals either!

If you’re suffering from high blood pressure, hormone imbalance, or even diabetes, you have to rely on your doctor to give you the best instructions on how to deal with that issue – there is no Diabetes For Dummies that can help you with all of the different aspects of your disease because you are unique and so, your issues are going to be unique as well. 

That said, I have found that there are some common mistakes, or missteps, that a lot of diabetics make that could help lessen their symptoms. So today I want to go over a few of them with you and give you some tips on how to avoid them. 

Mistake #1: Not Keeping A Blood Sugar Log

This is the biggest mistake most patients make – or the even bigger one of thinking they can fudge the numbers. 

Listen, there is a reason why you need to be testing your blood sugar twice a day. Your doctor needs to know the trends you experience so they can adjust your treatment. If you aren’t keeping a log and are just making it up, you have a ever low chance of actually having your treatment plan work. 

Oh, and about fudging the numbers, your Hemoglobin A1C will tell your doctor what your average blood sugar level has been over the past 3 months, so they’ll know something is off. 

But beyond keeping a log for your doctor benefit, it’s also important for you to know. If, over the course of 3 months, you know that you’re blood sugar drops around 2:00pm, you can be prepared for when you aren’t in your normal environment.

If you wanted to take this one step further, you could write down what you eat along with your test numbers – that way you start to get a better idea of how your body responses to the food you eat.

Which leads us to mistake #2…

Mistake #2: Avoiding Carbs Altogether

Alright, time for from Dr. Tamika straight talk: not all carbs are bad for you! In fact, there are some carbs, like Barley, that can actually help stabilize your blood sugar levels for hours after eating them. 

However, don’t take this to mean that you can chow down on just any carb. No, you need to become familiar with the Glycemic Index, a website that lists the Glycemic Index of most food stuffs so you can determine is something is going to throw off your blood sugar or not. The glycemic index is a system that ranks foods on a scale from 1 to 100 based on their effect on blood-sugar levels. By knowing where on the glycemic index a food is, you can steer clear of the “sugar heavy” carbs and eat more of the stabilizing carbs.

You can learn more about the Glycemic Index and how they test foods at www.glycemicindex.com. 

 Mistake #3: Not Pairing A Carb With A Protein

Again, this has to deal with the types of food you are eating but any carb, when eating alone, is going to convert into sugar much faster than if you eat with a protein. So make sure that you consume your carbs with some form of protein in order to slow down the conversion process. 

One of my favorite snacks I tell patients to eat is apple slices and either sunflower seed butter, almond butter, or cashew butter – not only are they tastier than peanut butter but they also tend to have less “filler” ingredients. Go organic if you can, that would be even better. 

Mistake #4: Skipping A Meal

DON’T DO THIS! Even for a someone without diabetes, skipping a meal is a bad idea but for if you have diabetes, you are going to throw off your entire day by not eating at the right time. 

You need to make sure that you are eating small, regular meals throughout the day. I know some of my patients think this is a pain – there is too much to do in the day for them to be taking breaks every 3-4 hours to eat something. But trust me, getting on a regular eating schedule is one of the best things you can do to lessen symptoms and to help you lose weight! 

That’s right, eating smaller meals more frequently can actually help you lose weight because you will keep your metabolism going. That will level out your blood sugar levels as well as burn fat. 

It’s not an excuse to skip exercise but over time, sticking to a regular eating schedule can help you ditch the extra weight and keep you feeling alert without that sugar crash that so often follows meal time for diabetics.  

Mistake #5: Not Exercising

You knew I was going to bring this up – exercise is a huge part of keeping your diabetes in check. BUT, the good news is that you don’t have to spend hours at the gym. 

The best exercise for diabetics is actually HIIT exercises – or high-intensity interval training. 

Here’s just a sample workout for you to see how it works: 

First: get the okay from your doctor. Anyone with a health condition, including diabetes, should get clearance from his or her medical provider before starting a high intensity program. 

Build a base. You should start out small. Build up to doing HIIT by doing some less intense aerobic exercise (walking, walk/jog, stationary bike, swimming) at least three days per week. And really, just going for a 30 minute walk can be a huge help if you haven’t done any exercise for a while. 

Go gradually. You want to start slow. This isn’t about exhausting yourself. You can simply change up your walking route to include a small hill. The point is to slowly increase the intensity of what you are doing to build up your fitness level. You can also do intervals on a stationary bike, treadmill, elliptical, or in the pool.

Time the interval. When you are ready to do intervals, you need to time them. Again, this isn’t about exhaustion, it’s about getting your blood pumping and muscles moving. You should being pushing yourself but not to your limit. You want to get your heart rate up. So while this may be a light jog for one person, it could be a short sprint for another. Listen to your body and don’t over exert yourself. 

Rest right. You want to cool down on your “off” interval but you don’t want to stop moving. So go from jogging to walking, biking uphill to downhill, or swimming hard to treading water. You want to cool down and rest but not stop altogether. 

In the beginning, your break might be three to four times longer than the “on” interval. As you continue to do HIIT, you’ll be able to do more half and half. Ideally, you would want to be one minute “on” to one minute “off”.

No matter the interval length, you’ll want to try and do at least 3 sets to really help pushing the blood through your body and help reduce your blood sugar levels. 

Now, What If I Told You That By Using These Techniques Plus A Few More, You Could Actually REVERSE YOUR DIABETES? 

Would you be interested in learning more? I bet you would. 

If you act fast, I’m willing to offer you a FREE Reverse Your Diabetes Assessment with one of my patient care coordinators. During this phone call, you’ll discover a few more of the techniques I use to help my patients natural reverse their diabetes as well as what you can do to help lessen your symptoms. 

Simply click this link and schedule your FREE Reverse Your Diabetes Assessment today. But you have to hurry because I can only take 20 new patients a month – and my spots fill up fast!