Prediabetes is when your blood sugar levels are unusually high because you’ve developed a resistance to insulin. It’s when your body can’t use insulin properly anymore. It’s often the stage before you get type 2 diabetes.
Prediabetes also leads to more harmful ailments like heart disease.
But having prediabetes doesn’t always mean you’ll get type 2 diabetes. Early intervention can still save the day. You’ll need to get your blood sugar off the range of prediabetes. Diet is important, and you need to know the foods you need to eat and avoid.
Many factors can cause your prediabetes. Genetics is a huge factor. If someone in your direct family has diabetes, you’re more likely to get it yourself if you’re not careful. If most of the day you’re inactive, and you’re overweight or obese, you’re more at risk.
When you have prediabetes, the sugar from food begins to accumulate in your bloodstream, and insulin won’t be able to move in your cells easily.
The main culprit of this is the amount and type of carbohydrates you consume regularly in meals. A diet of refined and processed carbs can cause blood sugar spikes.
People with prediabetes have a hard time lowering blood sugar levels after meals. Watch your carb intake.
When you eat an excess of carbs, they become fat, and multiple studies show the link between body fat and insulin resistance. That’s why the common notion of overweight people is that they’re diabetic or prediabetic.
Studying the Glycemic Index
We can’t control all the risk factors for prediabetes, but some of these can be managed. When you make lifestyle changes, you can manage your blood sugar and let it stay within a healthy range.
The glycemic index is a great resource to know the general information of what food could spike your blood sugar.
Foods that belong on the higher tier on the glycemic index are going to raise your blood sugar more. Foods on the lower scale is more tolerable.
Refined carbs are high on the glycemic index. Examples are white bread, potatoes, white rice, soda, and artificial fruit juices.
Foods that rank on the median part of the glycemic index are whole wheat bread and brown rice.
Foods that rank low on the GI are non-instant oats, or steel-cut oats, non-starchy vegetables like carrots, beans, natural corn, and whole wheat pasta.
Foods that are rich in fiber are better than foods that are rich in complex carbs. Protein is also best for people with diabetes. Foods like chicken meals and seared fish.
When you start to notice your body growing in size, especially as you get older, if it doesn’t look good, you should seriously consider watching the amount of food you eat. Sometimes it’s a matter of how much and how often you eat.
Giving Up Certain Drinks
A lot of us have grown up with sugary drinks with every meal. When your doctor tells you you are nearing prediabetes, have prediabetes, or have diabetes, it is now necessary to break this habit altogether. When it comes to artificial fruit juices, it’s definitely not healthy. These are chock-full of unrecommended artificial sugars.
If you’re an alcoholic, and you start to observe your body break down with too much consumption of alcohol, it’s best to cut back.
Practicing Eating Lean Meats
Meat has no carbohydrates. It’s the best tasty food you can still eat when you’re diabetic. Chicken without the skin, turkey, egg whites, fish, cod, flounder, tuna, trout, tilapia, tenderloin, fat-trimmed roast, ground beef, crab, lobsters, shrimps.
If these start to weigh your body down, you can have intervals of tofu and legumes.
Some people hardly drink any water, and they start to observe the skin under their nose crack, their tongue feels scaly, or their urine smells too putrid, and is extremely yellow. This can easily be solved by drinking more water.
For people who have prediabetes, water is better than sodas, juices, and energy drinks.
Don’t Be Part of the Prediabetes Statistic
It’s estimated that 84 million US adults have prediabetes. And 90% don’t know they even have diabetes. When you feel unwell because of your weight or diet, and you want to feel better, it’s best to talk to a diabetes doctor you can trust.
Want to Keep Reading?
Continue reading with a Health Confidential membership.
