Diabetes is a difficult condition to live with. If you’ve recently been diagnosed, you’re probably worrying about how big of an impact it’ll have on your life and the best things you can do to manage and mitigate it. The good news is it can be managed easily to the point that it has a minimal impact on your life if you manage your lifestyle correctly. Maintaining your health will go a long way to how good you’ll feel for years, especially in your old age. Here are a six tips to help you keep a healthier lifestyle with diabetes.
- Change your Diet
Your diet will be one of the most important things you must manage through your decades-long journey navigating this condition. In these times, everyone’s diet is very unhealthy, with a high prevalence of processed and prepackaged food and fast food from restaurants, all of which contain bad fats and added sugars. These are what you need to avoid. Limiting sugar in your diet is staple advice that most patients get upon diagnosis since avoiding sugar and carbs will, in turn, reduce blood sugar, reducing complications from diabetes. Still, you should also remove unhealthy fats and have wholesome foods like grains, meats, and vegetables, which are high in minerals, vitamins, and fiber in some cases.
- Monitor your Blood Sugar Regularly
Knowing your blood sugar level is vital to be able to manage diabetes. Everyone responds differently to different things in their diet, like sugar and fats. Some people are more at risk for complications of diabetes, as their body is more sensitive to the sugar level in their system. Make sure you monitor your blood sugar after every meal and a few times a day when you haven’t eaten. If you have trouble maintaining this habit, you can even get a continuous glucose monitoring device or CGM partially planted in the abdomen to check your glucose levels. You can also get the data delivered to your phone on an app.
- Take Prescription Medications and Injections as Advised by the Doctor
Make sure you take all of your prescribed medicines on time. Your doctor may give you any number of medicines along with or in place of your insulin therapy. Many diabetes drugs have been recently developed to combat complications like weight gain, diabetic shock, and insulin resistance. It’s also easier than ever to get these medicines from the comfort of your own home. You can even buy tirzepatide online, which is once a weekly injection used to treat type-2 diabetes while promoting weight loss. When used in conjunction with regular exercise and diet, it can help people with diabetes reduce weight, promoting a healthier lifestyle. All you need to do is inject it separately after you’ve had your insulin dose.
- Manage your Stress Level
Managing your stress is very important if you have diabetes. Taking on a lot of stress can increase your blood sugar as a coping mechanism, and since people with diabetes can’t process a lot of the sugar in their blood, this can cause further complications, leaving you feeling sicker, which, in turn, can cause more stress. Good ways to combat this include taking vacations if you have a high-stress job, going on walks, exercising regularly, and doing positive activities like yoga or investing time in your hobbies. Focusing on your mental health will greatly impact your physical health.
- Quit Smoking and Drinking
Smoking and drinking are two of the worst habits you can have as a diabetic. Besides the obvious strongly negative effects both of these activities, especially smoking, normally have, they can cause further damage to diabetics because they cause impaired control of blood sugar. As a result, your symptoms can worsen, and your health will decline with long-term consistent abuse of these chemicals. They also increase the chance of heart disease, which is already heightened in people with diabetes.
- Get Regular Check-ups
Getting regular check-ups is key to managing this condition. Your doctor will check for signs of a worsening condition by checking your blood sugar and your weight, and other signs, including the health and integrity of your skin and bones. Severe diabetes can sometimes cause infection of the feet through open sores, which can progress to gangrene; regular inspection by a doctor can prevent or rectify this complication.
Conclusion
When it comes to diabetes, long-term planning is key to being able to combat it. Every decision you take, every time you have sweets when you’re not supposed to, and every time you take a positive step in building better habits all directly impact your health when you’re much older. It’s better to start prioritizing your health now, while you still can, and take control of your condition. If you use the tips listed in this article, you’ll find that it’s much easier to manage and live with diabetes.
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