Type 2 Diabetes

Let's talk practical and impactful for our well-being🤸‍♂️

We all know that fitting in more exercise can be a struggle, but here's a simple, evidence-based approach:

🍽️Postprandial walking (walking after a meal).

Especially for those managing type 2 diabetes, taking a stroll after a meal can really make a difference.🌅

It's not about hitting the gym hard; it's about finding a doable way to improve our health.

⬆️This study found that walking after dinner improved blood sugar readings more so than walking before dinner, or not walking at all.

How?

When we follow that meal with a bit of exercise, our muscles and fat cells become more receptive to insulin's effects. Since insulin moves glucose into the cells from the blood stream, being more insulin sensitive will lower our blood glucose.

Exercise get our muscles to wave a welcome flag for glucose to enter. 🏃‍♂️💪

Also, during a walk, muscles can pull in glucose solo, no insulin needed, thanks to their contractions during exercise. It's like a double team effort for glucose uptake. 🏋️‍♂️🍭

Can you schedule in an evening walk this week?

Herbs to stabilize blood sugar, see in BIO

Before the calories police come swinging at me, I’m not saying that calories don’t matter, but it’s a waste of effort for most people when they only focus on calories and not on where their calories are coming from.

Trying to control calories eating an ultra processed low protein junk diet, will require extreme effort and willpower.

Losing weight on a whole food high protein, low carb diet is way more effective in my experience because you’re leveraging more satiety for less calories and you’re lowering insulin, which helps unlock fat from storage. The calories end up taking care of themselves without need to count them.

Besides, even if both groups lost the same weight, who do you think will be metabolically healthier and more likely to maintain the weight loss?

You can also spend hours doing cardio, go on juice cleanses, take weight loss supplements or get on weight loss drugs. You may find temporary success, but you won’t feel great and sustain your weight loss the minute you go back to eating your standard diet.

A healthy weight requires a healthy and flexible metabolism. You accomplish this by making sure your hormones are working in your favor. You can target more satiety per meal, less hunger between meals and easy fuel transition from sugar to fat burning when not eating. The latter requires that your insulin level drops low enough when not eating to unlock fat from storage.

The ideal diet for this is a whole food high protein, lower carb diet with fat used as a lever when weight loss stalls to decrease calories from energy. You don’t want to cut your protein calories because this is how you end up hungry and craving bad things again.
Herbs to stabilize blood sugar, see in BIO

When people start a low carb diet, there is often an initial rapid 5-10 pounds weight loss in the first 1-2 weeks. Many people dismiss it as “just water weight”, missing the fact that low carb is working and is doing what it’s supposed to do. That rapid drop in water weight tells you you’re doing the right thing.

A low carb lifestyle is not only about losing body fat. A low carb diet has many metabolic benefits, the most important one is a drop in insulin, which has many downstream benefits.

Insulin is known for its effect on glucose and that insulin resistance is the cause of type 2 diabetes, but it has many other functions. One of the most underrated functions is insulin’s effect on salt and water retention by the kidneys when constantly elevated.

When you go on a low carb diet, you dramatically drop insulin level, which causes the kidneys to dump sodium and water. It has a powerful diuretic effect. People experience rapid decrease in swelling and as a consequence, blood pressure also improves.

Insulin affects blood pressure in other ways too like causing blood vessels to thicken or constrict. This also improves but can take longer, hence the slow improvement in blood pressure for some.

Another major aspect is rapid drop in inflammation, which is also accompanied with fluid retention.

The point is, don’t dismiss or let anyone downplay the rapid initial benefit of fixing your diet that may not be related to fat loss, which will come sooner or later.

A low carb diet is not a crash diet to just lose weight. It’s a lifestyle change that has ripple effect on your metabolic health.

Every person should try it for a few months at least to experience it for themselves.
Herbs to stabilize blood sugar, see in BIO

When I was younger, I used to think “thank god this disease is invisible, at least no one really knows i have it.” For some reason as a kid, it felt embarrassing. I hate the extra attention. But for the most part, I could hide it. I could avoid the questions if I slipped away to the nurse quietly and didn't tell anyone what was wrong. I could tuck my pump into the front of my jeans so no one knew I had something attached to me. I could keep everything to myself. At the time that was perfect. No one had to know I had diabetes! I was just like everyone else! But actually on the inside I was constantly thinking about things that everyone my age wasn't thinking about. Blood sugars during gym class crashing, feeling like crap all day because my blood sugar was high due to a pump failure, not being able to concentrate in class because I was worried I was going low and would have to stand up in front of everyone to tell my teacher I needed to go to the nurse. Being in high school and college and being constantly concerned that whatever beverage I consumed would destroy my blood sugar and no one would know how to help me. Always worry about insulin dosages and blood sugars and pump site changes and carb counts. It all adds up so quickly, and for a kid its just too much. As kids, I think we were too naive to realize how much we were carrying internally. Always being told we’re “so mature” for our age, but in reality, what choice did we really have? It’s so much more than just the physical pokes and prods. It’s the constant feeding of information and thoughts into our brain that we can never, ever turn off.
Herbs to stabilize blood sugar, see in Intro of Page
shared by: hidden person

Industrial fructose, such as added sugar, table sugar, and high fructose corn syrup, is associated with declining liver function and hypertension. Additionally, industrial fructose may impact body weight, blood pressure, insulin levels, and lipid levels.⁠
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On the other hand, the fructose found naturally in fruits is packaged with fiber and antioxidants, which may help to explain why people experience positive health benefits when they eat fruits. Adding berries to a meal, for instance, can help blunt an insulin spike from high glycemic foods. The fiber in fruits can help slow the release of the sugar, and fruit phytonutrients can help inhibit the transportation of sugar into our intestinal walls and bloodstream.⁠
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Cutting down on sugary foods may be easier said than done, but it’s worth it for our health. Learning to use fruits as sweeteners is one way to add more fruits to our diet while also lowering the amount of added sugars we consume. Swap in date paste, dates, or ripe bananas, for example, in place of maple syrup or table sugar. At first, recipes may not seem as sweet, but, within a few weeks, your taste buds will adjust.⁠
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