In my last post, I highlighted this article with some terrific strategies for reversing pre-diabetes. I’d like to add a few others that have been critical in helping me keep my blood sugar under control:
- Find a support network Losing weight, exercising, changing your diet – these are all wonderful suggestions, but they can be extremely hard to implement without a support system.
- There are Diabetes Prevention Programs around the country that can help. Do you like the idea of meeting face-to-face with the same group of people every week and having a support group? Your local YMCA can also be a great resource and may even host a diabetes prevention program.
- Contact a nutritionist or dietician who is also a certified diabetes educator.
- Apps are another option. That’s what I ended up choosing, because I liked the idea of daily interaction and accountability. (It’s also more cost-effective than one-on-one counseling.) I used Yes Health for 6 months and saw my diet and exercise routines transform. At the end of the program, my HbA1c was down to 5.7 and my cholesterol had dropped 40 points. There are lots of apps out there, but what I like about Yes Health is that the coaches (nutritionists, registered dietitians, and licensed fitness trainers) are focused on diabetes prevention and can help you design a balanced, nutritious diet that will also keep your blood sugars under control. They’re also very skilled in providing constructive feedback (even when I confessed to eating 3 cookies one night, their comments were honest, helpful, and didn’t make me feel bad about myself.) Taking pictures of every meal and snack and getting instant feedback is a very powerful tool, and helped me break some bad habits and form new ones. It can take a good 6 months to break habits formed over a lifetime!
- Try to get your family on board. We’ve tried all kinds of new diabetes-friendly meals as a family – cauliflower pizza crust, chickpea pasta, almond-flour pancakes – and rarely has anyone complained, or even noticed the changes. I cook the same meal for the whole family, to help reinforce the message that I’m not on a “special diet” because of my pre-diabetes. Healthy eating benefits everyone.
- Eat an Early Dinner My husband typically gets home from work at 8pm, so I used to wait to have dinner with him, after the kids were in bed. We’d eat around 8:45 or 9pm, and then go directly to bed – not unlike when I lived in France for a year. However, this is one case where adopting European habits wasn’t working to my advantage. Research suggests that eating late can cause elevated blood sugars the next day, so we decided it made sense for me to eat on my own at 6:00pm, at least during the work week. (I still chat with him after he gets home and help prepare his dinner, so we didn’t lose that time together.) Eating dinner earlier made a huge difference because:
- I stopped snacking after work (usually on something less-than-healthy).
- I have time after dinner to move around and drink water, both of which lower after-meal blood-sugar levels.
- I sleep better because I’m not going to bed with a full stomach.
- My morning blood sugar levels are lower, and I’m hungrier for a protein-packed breakfast.
- Get plenty of good-quality sleep Early to bed, early to rise… Ben Franklin knew what he was talking about. Night after night of waking up with my children when they were babies and toddlers probably took a toll on my blood sugar levels, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I only knew that I was stressed out and craved carbs constantly after a bad night’s sleep. That stage has (mostly) passed, and now I’m often in bed at 9:30pm. If you have babies or very young children, it’s hard to avoid interrupted sleep, but try to alternate night-duty with your spouse – your health depends on it! Enforcing boundaries is also important as they get older. A former coach of mine told me she trained her children, 4 and 6 at the time, to go to her husband on weekends so she could get a couple of nights of uninterrupted sleep. Somehow, they remembered that if it was a Friday or a Saturday, they couldn’t wake mom. A friend who is a single parent taught her (school-age) children to change their own sheets if they wet the bed and to only wake her in an emergency. She knew that solid sleep would help her be a better parent, and she couldn’t afford to compromise it. Sleep is so, so important to good health and stable blood sugar levels. Setting boundaries helps you, and your children, get a good night’s rest.
What strategies are you trying? Which ones are most effective? Remember to be gentle and patient with yourself, too… you are playing the long game!