Eating For Health

Everyone with diabetes or prediabetes knows that control of blood sugar levels is important.   But did you know that just walking for 2 minutes after meals is helpful in lowering blood sugar?   Yes, just 2 minutes.   After you eat a meal, your body digests the meal and turns the carbs you eat like starches, fruit, and desserts into sugar.   This sugar enters your blood raising blood sugar levels.   Exercising after one eats a meal or snack helps your body get that sugar into cells to be used for energy.    Walking is good exercise as everyone knows.   But for those with high blood sugar, when is it best to walk?   Is it better to go for a 45 minute walk every morning, to walk before you eat a meal or walk soon after you eat a meal?   What does the research show? Going for a 15-minute or a 20-minue walk after meals – A study in 2009 found that going for a 20-minute walk about 15 minutes after a meal lowered one’s blood sugar leve...

Are there things you can do to rev up your metabolism?   Yes.   There are things you can do to rev it up in the short run and other things that will rev up your metabolism longer term.   Some people complain they have a slow metabolism and envy those who seem to have a faster metabolism.   Well there are people that will have a faster metabolism than you for a number of reasons.   So why do some people seem to have a more revved up metabolism?   What are the things you can do to boost your metabolism both in the short term and long term? Who has a faster metabolism? Men – guys will have a faster metabolism than women, even if they are the same height and weight.   Why?   Because guys have more muscle than women. Tall people – the taller one is, the higher their metabolism.   Age – younger people have a faster metabolism than older people.   Metabolism starts to slow after age 40 and some say before that.   It slows about...

Every month I get the Diabetes Forecast magazine.    It always has some interesting articles on nutrition.   The January/February and May/June 2016 issues have many interesting updates on nutrition and health.   Here are a few.   Sit Less, Move More.   Can sitting increase your risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes?   Apparently so.   To study this researchers gave 2,497 adults 24 hour activity monitors.   The 2,497 adults included 1,395 with normal glucose, 714 with type 2 diabetes, and 388 with prediabetes.   Study participants were tracked for 8 days.   The activity differences didn’t seem like much as those with Type 2 Diabetes sat 26 more minutes a day.    Every hour sitting and not moving can increase your chances of developing type 2 diabetes by 22%.   This doesn’t mean you have to run a marathon as study authors noted just standing up every hour helps.   Watching TV, then stand up and walk around du...