Tips On Managing Your Diabetes
Once you are diagnosed with diabetes, it can seem like a healthy life is beyond your control. It can even seem like you are doomed to worsening health. Don’t fall into this state of mind. There has been much research on diabetes and how to control it. Study the results of this research and follow its advice, and you can manage your diabetes successfully. Many people have done so. You can too.
You will be in regular contact with your doctor in order to manage your diabetes. Before a visit, write down the questions you want to ask, and jot down the answers as he gives them to you. Ask him for recommended reading so you can do more to manage the disease. Let him know you are serious about doing what it takes to make your health better, and determined not to let it get worse. Many places offer you a manager or coach to help you in your daily struggle to keep your blood sugar under control.
Be conscientious about checking your blood sugar often. Don’t make excuses, saying you don’t have time or have something else important to do. There is nothing more important. Avoiding this task is part of denial. Instead, you need to face diabetes squarely and deal with it proactively.
Besides checking your blood sugar, plan ways to stabilize it through a carefully managed diet. There are many foods, such as legumes, that help in this as well as providing good nutrition. There may be many snack foods you are used to eating and thought were healthy–rice cakes, for instance–but which actually have a high glycemic index and are bad for you. The more you learn about how particular foods affect your diabetes, the sooner you will be able to bring the disease under control.
Be sure to enlist the support of family and friends. Teach them about the disease so they understand what you are dealing with. They will understand why, when you go out to a restaurant, they should not encourage you to eat a food “just this once” that is not in your diabetic diet. They will understand the seriousness of the disease.
As with any other struggle, finding a good support group can be a great help. It can be a source of a lot of good information. You can benefit from the experiences of others, especially if they were able to bring their weight and blood sugar under control, and cease medications.
Ask your doctor or nurse to suggest an exercise regimen that would be good for you. They know your physical capacities and can suggest exercise that will help you, without over-stressing your body. Walking is a form of exercise recommended for just about everyone. But there are also other possibilities such as tai chi or yoga that will tone your muscles, and may increase your capacity for exercise.
From these suggestions you can see that there is much you can do to take control of your diabetes and lead a healthier life.
