How to Control Blood Sugar Levels?
India is considered the world's capital of diabetes. Yes! Diabetes or we often know it as sugar. Do you know why? It is because of the way we arrange our meals on our plates.
Well, a diabetic's initial thought is, "Will I ever be able to keep my high blood sugar levels under control without medications"?
Fortunately, reversing diabetes can be done naturally.
Diabetes is a lifestyle disorder linked to high blood sugar levels. It happens when your body is unable to use the extra glucose that is present in the blood. But in order to function, we require glucose.
We obtain glucose from the food we eat. Our body uses glucose as fuel to energize itself. Insulin, a hormone that stores fat and sugar, facilitates the entry of glucose into cells where it is converted to energy.
Therefore, choosing the right food items in the correct portion is very important. Not only this, but we also need to choose the correct lifestyle to deal with this issue.
Let’s discuss how one can control blood sugar levels!
How to control Blood Sugar with Diet?
If you want to know how to control blood sugar with diet, then follow the below-mentioned tips.
1. Manage Your Carbohydrate Intake
There are some mistakes that we Indians make during eating. The majority of our diet is made up of carbohydrates. We all have the habit of consuming rotis more than vegetables. By following this, we are adding more carbohydrates to our plates, which is responsible for increasing our blood sugar levels.
My advice for this is, to increase the portion of vegetables in comparison to roti and don't fill up on bread and biscuits in the morning. You can replace it with homemade panjiri and some good fats instead.
Carbohydrate consumption has an adverse impact on blood sugar levels. [1]
You can still consume carbohydrates while controlling your blood sugar. However, choosing whole grains like sabudaana, and oats over processed grains and refined carbohydrates deliver more nutritional value while also helping to lower blood sugar levels.
2. Consume Healthy FatsIncluding healthy fats in your diet is one of the natural ways to improve blood sugar levels. According to a study, eating fats (desi ghee, homemade butter, coconut oil, olive oil) instead of carbohydrates can lower the chance of getting type 2 diabetes. [2]
3. Consume foods rich in protein and fiberIn order to maintain healthy blood sugar levels, a high-fiber diet is important as it is not absorbed by our body. Now, what it does is, it delays the time in sugar absorption, which will gradually decrease your blood sugar levels. [3]
Including veggies and legumes to support maintaining appropriate blood sugar levels. Healthy fats such as soaked nuts and seeds, makhana, etc. should take the place of your snacks. Fiber-rich foods aid in detoxification, help control blood sugar levels and decrease the absorption of glucose.
For the development of muscles, tissue healing, and immunological function. Protein must be a part of every meal. Take a protein shake with your meals if your diet doesn't provide enough protein for you.
4. Intermittent Fasting
For those with diabetes, the purpose of intermittent fasting is to feed the body's energy needs by burning fat stores, losing weight, enhancing insulin sensitivity, and lower levels of blood sugar. A study revealed that people with type 2 diabetes who had used insulin and fasted at least three times per week no longer needed insulin after a month. [4]
It will keep the glucose level in check. Don't snack much and if you want to do while snacking eat something that doesn’t spike your insulin like almonds, coconut slices, coconut water, and healthy fats like desi ghee or butter.
Speaking from personal experience, my father was pre-diabetic about 7 years ago, and I encouraged him to follow intermittent fasting, and now he has no symptoms of diabetes.
In case you are still confused about what you should consume, you can go to my website and download the Low Carb and High Fat Diabetes diet plan for free.
5.Consider supplements over medications
People taking diabetes medication have lower absorption of vitamin B12. Therefore people with diabetes usually experience symptoms like numbness and tingling sensation as this nutrient appears to be deficient in many diabetic patients. Several studies show a connection between diabetes medication use and vitamin B12 depletion.
Blood Sugar Control contains Berberine HCL, Vitamin B12, natural bitter melon fruit extract, metavive, and chromium picolinate. B12 will help you in getting rid of the tingling sensation in your hands and feet. Furthermore, The supplement will assist with weight loss, are advantageous in the scenario of a leaky gut, and are excellent for patients with type 2 diabetes as well as pre-diabetics. [5]
Berberine is bitter, it is commonly used to treat diabetes, high blood cholesterol or other fat levels, and high blood pressure.
This will also help you to tap your diabetes medications.
References
[1] https://diabetes.org/healthy-living/recipes-nutrition/understanding-carbs/carb-counting-and-diabetes
[2] https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1003347
[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3257631/
[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6194375/
[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2694078/