Type 2 Diabetes - Why You Should Be Eating More Vegetables and Berries

When it comes to staple foods, there will always be foods that are better options than others for people with Type 2 diabetes to include in their eating plan. Especially if body weight and blood sugar are serious concerns. While white rice is a staple for many, any whole-grain alternative would be better for someone trying to improve their blood sugar control. Lean meats are excellent sources of protein but are not viable for vegetarians, who must find a different way of getting their protein in a healthy manner.

As far as carbohydrates go, there are many ways to meet your daily requirements - even if you have Type 2 diabetes. Do not be misled into thinking you have to cut your overall intake, or they are the reason why you have high blood sugar levels. What you likely need are some simple dietary changes. And this is where your staples come in.

You have heard the suggestion many times before to eat more fruits and vegetables. It bears repeating because even if you have made recent efforts to improve your diet, there is still a good chance you do not eat fruits or vegetables as often as you should.
Vegetables and berries as your choice of fruit are not only essential but also hard to beat. They are effectively "super foods" for a few reasons...

• they are rich in a variety of vitamins and minerals.
• they are low in sugars; berries are a particularly excellent choice of fruit because they are less caloric than other fruits with their more moderate amount of sugar. Plus, there are always one or two types you are bound to like enough you could eat them daily.
• they contain plenty of fiber, which helps with satiety and is essential for optimal digestive health.
• they can be eaten at any time as part of a meal, appetizer, snack, or dessert.

Combine all of the above, and you have just a few but significant reasons why vegetables and berries are the ultimate staples of any healthy diet.
A major problem most people have with weight loss has to do with appetite management and caloric intake. Either it's...

• hard to maintain daily discipline in regards to appetite control, or it
• proves to be difficult to keep a caloric deficit long enough to get sustainable results.

While these issues have several workable solutions, one simple piece of advice is to eat more berries and vegetables.
With raw vegetables or a handful of blueberries, it is hard to eat past your caloric limits. The same cannot be said about sugary cookies or a bag of chips. At the end of the day, you can consider this yet another friendly reminder to eat your fruits and vegetables.

Although managing your disease can be very challenging, Type 2 diabetes is not a condition you must just live with. You can make simple changes to your daily routine and lower both your weight and your blood sugar levels. Hang in there, the longer you do it, the easier it gets.
For nearly 25 years, Beverleigh Piepers has searched for and found a number of secrets to help you build a healthy body. Go to http://DrugFreeType2Diabetes.com to learn about some of those secrets.
The answer isn't in the endless volumes of available information but in yourself.

By Beverleigh H Piepers 

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9674088

Since When Did Dessert Become Breakfast?

I actually can't remember a time when people didn't have dessert for breakfast, but I didn't realise it at the time.
When I was a child my standard breakfast was either a fried egg on toast or some wheatbix with milk and sugar. Looking back my breakfast wasn't perfect but for the times it was pretty good.
I have to admit being a little envious of the children of some friends of my parents. They had either coco pops or sugar frosties for breakfast and access to cola at the family business. But they have certainly paid the price with poor health.

Even today we think of dessert as something just a bit, or a lot naughty. It is sweet, rich and often comes in a large serve at the point of the meal when you really don't need more food.

But here's the problem. Dessert is often a combination of a big serve of sugar, fructose, gluten and vegetable oils. A truly disastrous combination of three of the worst food groups. Driving heart disease, diabetes and obesity to just name a few of the problems.

So now we look at popular breakfasts. Cereal, sweetened, or unsweetened, flavoured yoghurt, fruit juice, toast with jam or nutulla. It sounds different than the dessert but when you look at the ingredients, they are no different.

From a health perspective having dessert for breakfast would do the same job in your body. Both equally bad, although breakfast could be worse because of the possibility to have so much sugar and fructose.
Before you argue the point let's look at the most common breakfast foods.

1. Flavored yogurt, often low fat. It's either full of sugar, or artificial sweeteners with carbohydrate bulking agents to provide consistency in place of the fat. This is poor quality processed food.
2. Often has a 35% or more sugar content, even the so called healthy sports cereals. The healthy and often expensive cereals are often toasted in vegetable oils, contain gluten and are wheat based. Even oats rapidly convert to glucose in your blood.
3. Fruit juice. A big hit of fructose for your liver to process, it shuts down your leptin hormone which tells you, that you have had enough to eat, and it oxidises your LDL cholesterol, which sets you up for hardening of the arteries.
4. Toast, is a combination of grains which convert to glucose, gluten and roundup residues which attack your gut.
5. Gam/jelly/Nutella. Just a lump of sugar.

We just need to think of breakfast as a normal meal not one that requires special sweet food.

By Ian Newton 

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9670161

Type 2 Diabetes - Lifestyle Factors Connected To the Development of Diabetes

Type 2 diabetes is in many ways a predictable disease. It can be anticipated, if not prevented. The risk factor can be estimated to a reliable degree, based on several crucial factors. And yet, it is still an epidemic in our society. Go figure!

There are several reasons why we leave ourselves vulnerable to Type 2 diabetes as a population. Break down these issues further, and we have excuses and justifications as to why these problems are not addressed.

Let's focus on the causes. While this is not a final list, most of the primary factors driving the development of this form of diabetes are listed below. These are specifically related to lifestyle, which means they are all under our influence in some way or another...

1. Overconsumption of carbohydrates. It almost always begins with an over-consumption of sugar and carbohydrates. And it usually does not end there, since this factor is usually present along with several others.
Carbohydrates are essential in any healthy and balanced diet. But the key word is a balance. Most people consume more carbs than they need, given most of us are not extremely active individuals. Unless you are living a very active lifestyle or have a physically demanding job, there is no need to eat so many carbs.

2. Poor eating habits. To build on the above, poor eating habits are almost always the cause of diabetes in the long run. Overeating, frequent snacking, and weak appetite control are a recipe for weight gain and increased blood sugar readings.
Remember: it is just as important to remove old habits, as it is to establish new ones.

3. A lack of direction. Interestingly, not having direction behind your lifestyle may facilitate not only the development of Type 2 diabetes but also a multitude of health problems. It is crucial to be mindful of your body and well-being, even if you are not attempting to lose weight or improve your health.
Lacking direction in regards to your health leads to taking it for granted, which could prove costly should you be afflicted with a severe health problem.

4. A sedentary lifestyle. Lastly, a sedentary lifestyle is arguably the factor with the strongest correlation with the development of Type 2 diabetes. Those who are physically inactive are more likely to be overweight and have bad habits like snacking while watching TV. These issues tend to snowball as health declines with age.

Even if you have a sedentary job, there is no reason not to exercise for forty minutes during your free time on four or five days of your week. Considering physical activity may even add years to your life; never feel a workout is wasted time.

Although managing your disease can be very challenging, Type 2 diabetes is not a condition you must just live with. You can make simple changes to your daily routine and lower both your weight and your blood sugar levels. Hang in there, the longer you do it, the easier it gets.

By Beverleigh H Piepers 

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9612390

Type 2 Diabetes - Evidence Suggests Red Meat Is Linked With a Higher Rate of Gestational Diabetes

In March of 2017, the European Journal of Nutrition reported on a study showing limiting red meat and iron could help to lower the risk of developing diabetes during pregnancy, also known as Gestational Diabetes. Researchers at the University of Navarra in Pamplona and several other institutions in Spain compared 3298 healthy Spanish women who reported having at least one pregnancy between 199 and 2012. The participants answered a dietary questionnaire that included questions about red meat, processed meat, and iron. A total of 172 cases of Gestational diabetes were diagnosed...

• mothers who ate the highest quantities of red meat had more than twice the risk of developing diabetes during their pregnancy as those who consumed the lowest amount.
• those who ate the highest amounts of processed meats had twice the risk of developing Gestational diabetes as those who ate the least.

The iron intake was also associated with an increased risk, although high iron came from high meat consumption. Iron supplements were not linked to diabetes developing during pregnancy. The scientists concluded high red and processed meat, rather than the iron found in the meats, raised the risk of Gestational diabetes.
Iron is an essential nutrient for expectant mothers increasing their blood supply as well as providing iron for fetal blood...

• by the end of pregnancy, about 600 to 700 ml of blood flows through the placenta.
• between weeks 24 and 29 of the pregnancy, blood flows through the umbilical cord between mother and baby at a rate of about 443 ml/minute.

According to the National Institutes of Health in the United States, pregnant women need to take 27 mg of iron per day for a healthy mother and baby.
Some good vegetable sources of iron include...

• legumes,
• seeds, and
• green leafy vegetables.

1. Two cups of raw spinach, with only 14 calories, will supply 1.6 mg of iron.
2. Two cups of kale, with 66 calories, supply 2.2 mg.
3. One cup of lentils containing 230 calories, contains 6.6 mg of iron, or about 25 percent of what a pregnant woman needs per day. If that sounds like a lot of calories, bear in mind one 214 gram steak with 4.0 grams of iron, contains 250 calories.
Healthful beverages are also a source of iron...

• a cup of soy milk, at 135 calories, supplies 1.6 mg of iron.
• almond milk, at only 60 calories per cup, provides 0.7 mg of iron.

Many times obstetricians prescribe prenatal vitamins with iron as well. No need for red meat with so many healthier choices of iron sources.

Although managing your disease can be very challenging, Type 2 diabetes is not a condition you must just live with. You can make simple changes to your daily routine and lower both your weight and your blood sugar levels. Hang in there, the longer you do it, the easier it gets.

By Beverleigh H Piepers

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9664596

Type 2 Diabetes - A Diabetes Diagnosis Is A Warning of What Is to Come

You may find what you are about to read uncomfortable. Depending on where your health currently stands, the following information may add to your list of worries. But it is going to benefit you if it serves as a wake-up call. If you are at that stage, the only motivation to work for you is the kind coming from recognizing your health is not in good shape, and it is bound to decline if you do not intervene soon.

Much of this has to do with Type 2 diabetes. Besides being one of the most common diseases affecting adults and youth worldwide, it is much more deadly than many of us are led to believe. Whereas a condition such as cancer is taken seriously and is recognized as an immediate warning of what may unfold, high and unstable blood sugar levels and Type 2 diabetes does not usually provoke the same response.

Negative feelings aside, when someone is diagnosed with cancer, treatment options are immediately taken into consideration. Anything that can be done is researched and discussed. The same cannot usually be said about a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, even though it also promises a shorter lifespan, albeit with less severe and immediate complications.

The fact of the matter is high blood sugar is almost always a warning of what is to come. Rarely does high and unstable blood sugar remain the only problem a diabetic needs to worry about. Kidney complications, heart disease, vision problems, nausea, and general nerve pain and discomfort are all brought on by out-of-control blood sugar readings. Not always. But often, and it only tends to get worse from there.
Having untreated Type 2 diabetes shortens the average lifespan of afflicted individuals, similar to other serious diseases. But this form of diabetes is not always taken as the important problem it is. Instead of stopping at nothing before it is treated, many people are content with merely coping with their disease, and relying on medications to ease their daily troubles.

Coping with the illness is not the same as treating the disease. It cannot even be considered part of the solution. Ideally, diabetics will develop a plan to get rid of their unhealthy blood sugar readings and focus on daily efforts to make progress. Slowly and surely Type 2 diabetes can be reversed, at a fraction of the time it took to develop.
You do not have another choice if you do not want to see your health squandered and your quality of life take a sudden hit at some point and threatening your life expectancy. You cannot afford to underestimate diabetes.

See it as a warning of what is likely to come if you remain a bystander to your health. If you act and take control of your well-being, you can begin to abolish your concerns as your condition improves one day at a time.

Although managing your disease can be very challenging, Type 2 diabetes is not a condition you must just live with. You can make simple changes to your daily routine and lower both your weight and your blood sugar levels. Hang in there, the longer you do it, the easier it gets.

For nearly 25 years, Beverleigh Piepers has searched for and found a number of secrets to help you build a healthy body. Go to http://DrugFreeType2Diabetes.com to learn about some of those secrets.
The answer isn't in the endless volumes of available information but in yourself.

By Beverleigh H Piepers

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9666393

Type 2 Diabetes - How Much Does Family Medical History Matter?

What you have heard regarding family medical history and the chance of developing particular diseases may or may not be reliable information. It depends on the source, and you have to consider the possibility of bias. Opinions differ, and they may affect the conclusions you are being told.

At the end of the day, though, you know there is a relationship between family history and disease, but the extent is something you still do not likely understand. While this is not medical advice, you could benefit from an informed opinion. More importantly, it is information to help shed light on the relationship existing between family history and disease. Even though medical advice with scientific references will always be irreplaceable, it usually is not the most digestible.

On that note, many prevalent diseases in our society share one common cause: a poor lifestyle which often features an unhealthy diet. Unhealthy food choices are the cause of many preventable health problems, which includes notable complications like heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. But if these issues have a primary cause influenced by lifestyle, to what degree does family medical history matter? This is the question that needs answering. Some blame their problems on the genetic factor when the real issue is elsewhere. But are some people predisposed to disease to such a degree, the primary cause becomes family history?

Pinpointing a balance is difficult. It is an undisputed fact an unhealthy body and an unfortunate family history are both causes of disease. But the truth is, determining whether one factor overshadows the other is futile because it is hard to establish a universal rule. In other words, for some people, family history will matter more than for others. Some adults may have had a poor diet for years and still do not have high blood sugar. Others will have prediabetes despite eating relatively well - they may just be more vulnerable due to an uncontrollable genetic factor.

How much does family medical history matter in your case? This is a question you must answer by discovering the necessary information. Determine what you may be at risk for developing and act accordingly. This is a factor affecting each of us differently, so how you are personally affected is all that should matter.

It is not a concrete answer to the central question. But there is a solution to take away here. There will always be factors determining your health within and outside of your control. Focus on the former. Even if you feel you are not given the best odds, you must play the hand you are dealt.
Type 2 diabetes runs in families but this does not mean if one of your parents has diabetes, a similar diagnosis has to be your fate as well. You can change things. If you eat the same kinds of food as say your parent did, you too are very likely heading for the same diagnosis.

Lastly, know when it comes to health and well-being, a healthy diet and lifestyle are the ultimate factors to tip the scales in your favor. The same cannot be said for having a stellar family medical history.

Although managing your disease can be very challenging, Type 2 diabetes is not a condition you must just live with. You can make simple changes to your daily routine and lower both your weight and your blood sugar levels. Hang in there, the longer you do it, the easier it gets.

For nearly 25 years, Beverleigh Piepers has searched for and found a number of secrets to help you build a healthy body. Go to http://DrugFreeType2Diabetes.com to learn about some of those secrets.

By Beverleigh H Piepers 

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/9664512

Type 2 Diabetes - Time to Turn Over a New Leaf

You may be one of many to have been recently diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. You are not alone: many people are in the same predicament. Moreover, there is a solution, so you should not despair. As you are about to learn, Type 2 diabetes presents an opportunity: a fresh start. For you, it may be time to turn over a new leaf.

Since it catches many by surprise, an out of control high and unstable blood sugar diagnosis is a common cause of worry, anxiety, and frustration. But these feelings should be pushed away. Instead of seeing Type 2 diabetes as a crisis, see it as a wake-up call - a chance to improve your lifestyle.

You are also not alone if you have had any ambition in regards to your health...

• losing weight,
• lowering your cholesterol and blood pressure, and
• enhancing your fitness

are all shared and worthwhile goals. But you may have slipped a few times. You did not stick to your new eating plan. You could not keep your routine going in the gym. Life just got in the way.

Type 2 diabetes has a silver lining. It presents a new beginning. You don't have to accept poor health, as it is in your power to change how you live. The deadly effects of high blood sugar levels are real. But so are the solutions. It is a shame so many, even the majority of Type 2 diabetics choose to cope with their condition, as opposed to fighting against it.

While anti-diabetes medications are necessary sometimes, they are often a crutch. Let us not kid ourselves: we are fortunate to have them because it allows us to manage a disease that needs to be controlled. But even the highest quality medications have limitations, not to mention side effects. The ideal situation is one where medications are no longer needed to manage blood sugar levels. Not requiring diabetic medications is the first step to alleviating the disease, possibly forever.

If you start to see diabetes as a fresh start, you will realize what many thinks is not possible is far from an unreachable task. By making changes as advised by your doctor and changing your lifestyle to promote better health, you will be able to make significant progress. Guaranteed.

Don't be a victim: don't allow Type 2 diabetes to overstay its welcome. Get rid of it for good, because you can. It takes patience and persistence. You might need instruction and guidance. But you can develop those things, and help is certainly available if you are willing to look.

Commit to a better future one where Type 2 diabetes is no longer a threat to your living. Join the countless number of former diabetics who are now living healthier lives, despite once being diagnosed with a deadly disease.

Although managing your disease can be very challenging, Type 2 diabetes is not a condition you must just live with. You can make simple changes to your daily routine and lower both your weight and your blood sugar levels. Hang in there, the longer you do it, the easier it gets.

For nearly 25 years, Beverleigh Piepers has searched for and found a number of secrets to help you build a healthy body. Go to http://DrugFreeType2Diabetes.com to learn about some of those secrets.
The answer isn't in the endless volumes of available information but in yourself.

By Beverleigh H Piepers 

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/expert/Beverleigh_H_Piepers/123142