5 Ways To Prevent Pre-Diabetes

Coming off of the holiday sugar rush, this month’s blog couldn’t have come at a better time: 5 ways to prevent pre-diabetes. With discipline, determination and an understanding, pre-diabetes can be controlled effectively with diet and exercise alone.

The Mayo Clinic defines pre-diabetes as, “The blood sugar level is higher than normal but not yet high enough to be type 2 diabetes.”

The A1C test is a blood test that provides information about a person’s average levels of blood glucose, also called blood sugar, over the past 3 months. The A1C test is based on the attachment of glucose to hemoglobin, the protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen.

• An A1C level below 5.7 percent is considered normal
• An A1C level between 5.7 and 6.4 percent is considered prediabetes
• An A1C level of 6.5 percent or higher on two separate tests indicates type 2 diabetes

Diet and exercise seems to be the go to answer for almost everything, right? When hitting the gym becomes a bore or tracking calories becomes a chore, it creates a slippery slope of frustration, discouragement and disappointment. How about making this time different by changing the way you look at health beyond the scope of calories in and calories out. Check out my five suggestions on how to prevent pre-diabetes.

1. Become active in the community. Whether you join a book club, hiking group, or a cooking class, it doesn’t matter. Studies have shown when we are surrounded by happy people, we become happy. Being engaged in society provides a release of any stress you may be carrying from the burdens of daily life. When stress is controlled, cortisol maintains homeostasis. With normal cortisol levels, insulin regulation and glucose metabolism is optimal.

2. Meditate. You don’t have to spend hours a day meditating. Quieting the mind for 5 minutes/day has shown to have dramatic effects on health. According to the July 10, 2017 issue of Time Magazine, “In a new study published in the journal Obesity, researchers from Penn State University randomly assigned 86 overweight or obese women to receive eight weekly sessions of either mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), taught by a professional instructor, or general health education, taught by a registered dietitian. The MBSR group learned how to use mindfulness techniques—like meditation and breath awareness—to respond to stress. The health education group learned about diet, exercise, obesity-related health issues and general stress management. The goal of these sessions was not to help people lose weight, but to reduce stress and stress-related health problems. In that sense, mindfulness worked better. After eight weeks of training and eight more weeks of home practice, perceived stress scores for women in the MBSR group had decreased 3.6 points from the start of the study on a 10-point scale, compared to only 1.3 points for women in the health education group. Both groups experienced improvements in mood, psychological distress, and sleep-related problems. But only the MBSR group saw a decrease in fasting blood sugar levels—both right after training was completed and when the women were retested eight weeks later.”

3. Increase water intake. According to an article in The New York Times, being too dry releases a hormone called vasopressin. Vasopressin tells your kidneys to hold onto water and tells the liver to release stored blood sugar. So what is the optimal amount per day? The jury is still out on that. Most health care providers advise looking at the color of the urine. A light yellow urine indicates adequate hydration. Dark concentrated urine implies insufficient water intake. So just keep drinking until you can see through the pee.

4. Team up. Partner up with your friends, co-workers, gym buddies and create a challenge for yourselves or join an upcoming race. Being together in a positive environment helps keep us on track. It creates a foundational support and a matrix of resources to keep us accountable. If you ever feel yourself falling off the path, grab your teammate for a hand up. This incredible network ensures a higher success rate and plus, let’s face it, it is fun to do things together. As long as the competition remains healthy and the support unconditional, hormones work together in the same joy as teammates. The result equals a healthy you and happy you.

5. Take a road trip. Let me explain. It is fascinating to see how other people in another city, state or country live. When we get caught up in the monotony of routine life, our creative flow halts in front of our faces. We don’t know what to cook. We get bored of the same route to work. We lose the zest for experience. Getting a fresh perspective on new ways of living can stimulate excitement and help pull you out of a rut. Drive along a country road and talk to local farmers. Visit local restaurants and try out new variations to age old dishes. Peek in on ways other communities stay healthy. Link up with different people in various geographical locations via social media. The scope of learning is endless. Seeing the world through another’s eye reminds us that life is good and health is good and together, all will be ok.

I know this list deviates from “conventional medical advice”, but I feel we are bombarded with one study after another and one statistic followed by the next. The problems of our health only seem to be growing deeper. The United States continues to lead the way in obesity. We spend incomprehensible amounts of funding trying to control a disease process that we have created.

Now is our chance! Our chance to take it back to simpler solutions. Putting the simplicity back into a complex life is where healing and prevention will occur. Don’t go looking outside for more research to come your way, more supplements to find their way into your medicine chest, more guaranteed diets that deliver unrealistic results or more promising science to undo what has been done.

Go back to what you already know: that everything you need is already within you.