High blood-sugar levels can increase urination, contributing to dehydration. In addition, diabetic complications such as autonomic neuropathy, which affects the nerves serving internal organs and regulating blood pressure, blood glucose, and perspiration, may impair your sweating response, increasing the risk of heat-related illness.
Be sure to drink fluids before, during, and after exercise, especially in warmer environments. The American Diabetes Association recommends drinking at least a half liter of fluid two hours before exercise. Plain water is usually sufficient for sessions of one hour or less. For workouts lasting longer than one hour, water and extra carbohydrates are needed. People with diabetes will absorb beverages with a 6- to 8-percent carbohydrate solution, such as sports drinks, more easily than soft drinks or fruit juices, which are typically 13- to 14-percent carbohydrate solutions.
Problems Due to Poor Circulation
People with diabetes need to protect their feet when they exercise. If you have a more severe case of diabetes, you may also have nerve damage or circulatory disorders, such as peripheral vascular disease. This may cause impaired blood flow to the extremities (the hands and feet). Extra protection of your feet will help prevent bruising or injury.
Be sure to wear appropriate athletic footwear, and wash and dry your feet thoroughly after exercising and check for sores. Petroleum jelly may help to decrease friction on specific areas. If you have an open sore that is not healing, consult a health-care professional immediately. When not treated promptly, an infection can spread to the bone, resulting in amputation.
Avoid fitness equipment that may impair circulation, such as bands or buoyancy equipment on legs or feet in water exercise. Inadequate blood supply can cause you to be more prone to pain, aching, or cramping during exercise. Rest for about two minutes if cramping occurs during a workout.
While it may seem like there are a lot of precautions related to exercise, it is one of the best things you can do to help improve blood sugar levels and insulin sensitivity. With a regular activity program and improved nutritional habits, Type 2 diabetes can be avoided or controlled. Regular exercise and healthy eating habits are also keys to weight management. With time and consistency, you can lose excess weight, restore insulin sensitivity, reduce cholesterol and triglyceride levels, and may even make the use of further medications unnecessary.
By: Lisa Adan Mills
Posts Tagged ‘Soft Drinks’
Diabetes and Dehydration
April 10th, 2010Juices That Cure Diabetes
April 10th, 2010
Diabetes is one of the debilitating conditions of health in the world today. It almost affects all parts of the body, and with time, damages them significantly. For this reason, the suitable care is necessary in order to make sure that the body will have a chance of combat. The common instructions are to eat the healthy food_ grains, beans, vegetables, fruits, low-fat milk and meat. Cut down on foods and drinks with a lot of added sugar.
If a diabetic take insulin or oral diabetes medicine, he may need to have some thing before during or after his exercise. But what to drink? as neither the soft drinks nor the juices are allowed, water we don’t want to have again and again. Do you suffer from the same dilemma? Here is the answer. Now you can drink any fresh juice of your choice out of the following list. Remember you can make a big difference in your diabetes control through what you choose to eat.
It was generally considered that once you have diabetes you cannot take any juice. This is wrong as there are some juices that heal the functioning of pancreas thus controlling your diabetes.
The most important amongst them are
Cucumber juice
Lemon juice
Carrot juice
Bitter gourd juice
Rose apple juice
Tomato juice
Cabbage juice
French bean juice
Spinach juice
So now when you are exercising, don’t wait to be thirsty to drink plenty of fluid. Dehydration can hinder your strength and endurance. The juices provides carbohydrates and fluids for exercise that lasts for more than one hour.
By: Tehmina Mazher
Treating Type 2 Diabetes With Lifestyle Changes
March 7th, 2010
Diabetes type 2 is an increasingly common problem in Western Societies.
So much so, that it is estimated that 1 in 4 people in adulthood will have diabetes or prediabetes.
This is a huge proportion of people.
Yet it’s a problem that can be modified or reversed altogether with lifestyle changes.
Even if it can’t be completely reversed, lifestyle changes can make a significant improvement and will compliment medications well.
But the fact that prediabetes and type 2 diabetes (non insulin dependent diabetes) can sometimes be reversed has spurred many people to make healthy lifestyle changes and avoid the need for medications, and the health problems associated with these conditions being out of control.
So let’s have a look at the top tips for lifestyle changes to help with the treatment of diabetes type 2.
Here they are:
1. Having low GI instead of high GI foods.
This is helpful for preventing as well as treating type 2 diabetes.
There are studies now showing that consumption of a high GI drink (the study looked at soft drinks in particular) everyday increases the likelihod of developing diabetes.
In terms of treatment, low GI foods don’t spike the blood glucose levels as much as high GI foods,
For example, take leafy green vegetables instead of potatoes, have sourdough or multigrain bread instead of white bread, and have whole fruits instead of fruit juices.
2. Have lean sources of protein, not sources of protein that contain high fat.
Learn protein sources include natural yogurt, chicken (skin off), fish, tofu, and eggs.
Lean proteins are great as they give you the protein requirements without excess fat, and they also lower the GI values of foods as they slow absorption of carbs.
2. Regular aerobic exercise such as walking.
Before starting to exercise, check with your doctor in case you need to do tests to ensure that you’re safe to exercise.
Exercise helps to reduces blood sugar levels, inmproves sensitivity to insulin (so helps the cause of type 2 diabetes), reduces cholesterol levels, decreases blood pressure, and reduces stress.
In fact some studies show that exercise was as good or better than medications in treating prediabetes.
3. Weight loss.
By doing the above, you will achieve weight loss in a healthy way.
One more handy tip.
Rememebr to avoid having one or two big meals a day.
Many people do this to try to lose weight but it does the opposite. It slows your metabolism greatly and will stop you from losing weight.
Instead, have 3-5 small meals a day.
This will maintain an even blood sugar, as well as keeping your metabolism high, both very important when you want to lose weight and reverse diabetes type 2.
So there you have it.
Thes tips will help you with both weight control as well as treating diabetes naturally.
Because your blood glucose levels will be more even, you’ll feel better mentally as well. An added bonus so many people don’t realise until they experience it, and never want to go back!
So enjoy these tips and if you know of anyone else with diabetes and will benefit from these tips, why not let them know about this article?
By: Matt Hamburg
