Every year, November 14 is celebrated as World Diabetes Day. For the last few years we have seen a rise in cases of type 2 diabetes, a lifestyle disorder that happens due to a sedentary and poor lifestyle with bad food habits. If a bad lifestyle can cause a certain disease then it’s the healthy lifestyle changes and good eating habits that can help in reversing it as well. We have to understand that a balanced eating and routine can prevent any disease including Type 2 diabetes as well. Here are some lifestyle habits that you can include in your daily routine to prevent the onset of diabetes:
■ Keep a check on your activity levels because a sedentary lifestyle can affect blood circulation and worsens type 2 diabetes. It’s important to stay active and move around throughout the day and not just for one-hour of workout either in morning or evening.
■ We need to stop following fads and avoiding fats because we we need good fats for different functions in our body. For instance, insulin keeps our hormones and diabetes controlled. All the important vitamins like A, D, E, K are absorbed through fats. So avoiding fats is bad for your body. Try and have healthy fats in moderation as overdoing anything will cause harm to the health.
■ Raw fruits and vegetables are very good sources of fibre, digestive enzymes and trace minerals which help in improving digestion. And with a good digestive system, our body is able to digest and absorb nutrients and fibre in particular which helps in keeping the sugar levels in check, that’s why eating a cup of veggies with every meal is important.
■ High stress, anxiety and low levels of sleep can disrupt hormonal balance and affects the healing or detoxification of body. Most of healing, recovery, repair, detoxification, hormonal balance etc. occurs when we get a really sound sleep — and insulin is a hormone!
So, let’s start making these healthy lifestyle shifts and you can take a step towards reversing your diabetes, but discipline and consistency is a must.