15 Things Diabetes Doctors Do to Keep Their Own Blood Sugar Under Control
How to control blood sugar
Maintaining healthy blood sugar levels for people with type 1 or 2 diabetes includes regular exercise, healthy, nutrient-dense meals, tracking blood sugar levels, and (for some) taking insulin. Here’s some helpful advice from health experts with diabetes on how they manage their own blood sugar that might help make it easier for you to manage your own.
Prepare home-cooked meals
After a long day at work, there's nothing better than making your own tasty food. Your gut and blood sugar will both be grateful. "My family and I eat at home," says Joel Zonszein, MD, who is a professor of medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and runs the Clinical Diabetes Center at the Montefiore Jack D. Weiler Hospital.It's important for me to be able to talk and eat at the table with my wife and kids without our phones, TVs, or computers.
In fact, for more than 30 years, the Nurses Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study asked 99,000 men and women about what they ate for lunch and dinner. People who said they ate at least two home-cooked meals a day were 13% less likely to get type 2 diabetes than people who said they ate less than six home-cooked meals a week.
Exercise for at least 30 minutes a few times each week
It's not a surprise that one of the many good things about exercise is that it lowers blood sugar. Jennifer LeBlanc, a BSN, RN, and certified diabetes instructor at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, says, "Aerobic workouts like running tend to keep my blood sugar levels low because I burn through my energy and glucose more quickly." LeBlanc has type 1 diabetes."Anaerobic exercise burns slowly, and my blood sugar doesn't go down until hours later." LeBlanc does her workouts to a 30-minute boot camp fitness video. The video has short bursts of high-intensity exercises and strength training breaks with lunges and squats. They say 150 minutes a week, which is 30 minutes five days a week.
Avoid starchy foods first thing in the morning
No one wants their blood sugar to rise in the morning because it could make them crash later in the day. This is what your body does in the morning to help you wake up. It's called the "dawn phenomenon." When your body makes a lot of hormones, your blood sugar levels rise quickly. People with diabetes may not like the dawn phenomenon because their insulin reaction doesn't work right with the rise in glucose, or they have to use more insulin to deal with the rise in blood sugar.
Scott Soleimanpour, MD, an assistant professor of endocrinology at the University of Michigan Health System and someone with type 1 diabetes, says, "I notice that if I eat anything starchy in the morning, my blood sugar hits through the roof."
He and LeBlanc both eat low-carb breakfasts in the morning, like a hard-boiled egg with a protein shake or a single-serving cup of Greek yogurt with a cup of coffee. These foods keep them full without sending their blood sugar levels through the roof.
Eat meals rich in fiber
Fiber-rich foods slow down the rate at which your body absorbs sugar, which keeps your blood sugar from rising too fast. "This way I don't go back and forth between high and low blood sugar after I eat," says Dr. Soleimanpour. "I try to eat fiber-rich foods to keep myself full at lunch so I don't snack later."
He slurps down a homemade kale drink for lunch. It has five to six cups of water, a few cups of kale, and 1/2 to 1 cup of pineapple to make it taste sweet. He drinks water with a couple tablespoons of dissolvable fiber to keep his blood sugar steady if he doesn't get to eat a full lunch.
Go ahead and eat that slice of toast for breakfast
If you only eat a small amount of toast, even if it's not whole grain, it won't immediately make your blood sugar go through the roof. A small study in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition suggests that toasted white bread may have a lower glucose index than fresh white bread. Dr. Zonszein says, "Eating toasted bread is better than eating regular bread because it burns some of the carbs." He tries to eat carbs in small amounts for breakfast, like a bite of toast or half of a bagel. Even adding cheese can make the bread less high in sugar.
Of course, people with diabetes should eat whole grains because they have more nutrients and the carbs contain more fiber, which lowers blood sugar after processing.
Find an activity that helps you relax in five minutes or less
Unfortunately, the busy lives that most people live these days cause a lot of stress. When your body goes into "fight or flight" mode, it makes a lot of hormones that may cause your blood sugar to rise if you don't take a moment to relax. When you're under a lot of stress, your body makes more glucose to make up for the rise in hormones. This is bad for people with diabetes because their insulin won't let their cells use the extra energy.
Apps for meditation like Headspace and relaxing music (think Enya) help LeBlanc calm down quickly. Managing your diabetes can be hard if you do a lot of things that make you stressed.
Use a nutritionist to help you make a diabetic-friendly diet plan
Dr. Soleimanpour says, "I have worked with a lot of great certified diabetes educators and nutritionists over the course of my career." "I would ask them to tell me why a certain food is good or bad." But you don't need to be an endocrinologist to get that information. You can just talk to a nutritionist or a diabetes supervisor.
A lot of health insurance plans do pay for nutrition and information about diabetes. You should call your insurance company to find out what they cover. The better you can take care of your diabetes, the more information you have. You can even get these easy tips from people who already have diabetes on how to live a healthy life.
Measure your blood sugar an hour before bedtime
Every night before bed, Dr. Soleimanpour checks his blood sugar. He says, "Night is one of the worst times of the day for diabetics to get low blood sugar." "If your blood sugar reading seems a little lower than usual, now is the time to do something about it before it gets too low."
He says to take glucose pills or drink four to eight ounces of juice if you have a low blood sugar attack before bed. As soon as your body has had time to heal, check your blood sugar again before bed to make sure it is back to normal.
Remember that people with type 1 diabetes need to check their blood sugar often because they need insulin to stay alive. (The autoimmune disease kills the cells in the body that make insulin.) People with type 1 are more likely to have episodes of low blood sugar because of this.
Talk to your doctor about when and how to check your blood sugar and what to do if you get a type 2 diabetes diagnosis. Type 2 diabetes is the most common type and can be managed with good eating, exercise, oral medications, and sometimes insulin.
Scour the web for new recipes with a skeptic’s eye
Dr. Soleimanpour is always looking for fresh new ideas to make his meals more interesting. Though the name "healthy recipe" might lead you astray. Before you waste your time and money at the store on things that might hurt your blood sugar more than help it, read the labels carefully.
"I read between the lines," Dr. Soleimanpour says. When you look at the ingredients in a meal, you might think it's really healthy, but it's not as good for you as you thought. When you try a new meal, you should always make sure that the ingredients won't make your blood sugar go crazy.
Swap out fruit juice for actual whole fruits
It tastes great like orange juice, but it doesn't have any extra sugar. Instead, eat an orange. "An orange has a lot less sugar when you eat it than when you squeeze it." "Eating a whole orange also gives you fiber," says Dr. Zonszein. "When you eat whole fruits instead of drinking juice, the sugar slowly gets into your body." You can also get fruits like papaya, grapefruit, and melon that are lower in sugar and carbs than fruit drinks.
Research the menu items before you eat at a restaurant
When you go out to eat, you can't be sure what's in the food or how healthy it is. A lot of chain places list the number of calories on their menus, but it's also important to know other nutritional facts. Before he gets something from the menu, Dr. Soleimanpour tries to learn more about the food.
He says, "Be ready so you know what you're eating and what the rules are for the amount of carbs and high-fat foods." CalorieKing and MyFitnessPal are two useful apps that can help you find out how many calories are in a famous chain restaurant meal.
Check your blood sugar before you eat every time
He tells him that right before he eats a meal or snack is the best time to check his blood sugar. If you check your blood sugar before meals, you'll have a good idea of where it is before you eat, he says. Consistently checking your blood sugar can help you avoid diabetes problems that you might not be aware of. Talk to your doctor about when you should do these tests at home.
Eat every 2-3 hours for a blood sugar check reminder
Not only does LeBlanc say that eating small meals and snacks often keep her metabolism going, but it also helps her remember to check her blood sugar often during her busy workday. "I check every time before I eat," Leblanc says. "It keeps you more on track."
Like most people with type 1 diabetes, she checks her blood sugar four or five times a day.
Stay out of the junk food aisle at the grocery store
There is no greater truth than "you are what you eat" when it comes to your blood sugar. The food you eat can tell a lot about your blood sugar levels. At the grocery store, Dr. Zonszein tries not to push his cart toward the shelves that are full of sweets and highly processed foods.
The doctor says, "Pick the right food when you're at the store." "You'll eat the soda and ice cream that you buy." But you won't be able to resist buying sugary snacks if you don't buy any.
Consider investing in a continuous glucose monitor
A continuous glucose monitor (CGM) may be a better way to check your blood sugar than sticking your finger in several times a day. You should talk to your doctor about it. A tiny sensor under your skin sends information to a portable monitor on your hip, which records it. The wearable device checks your blood sugar 24 hours a day, seven days a week. People with type 1 diabetes use these devices more often than people with type 2 diabetes because they need to test and change their medications more often.
The CGM helps LeBlanc keep track of her daily blood sugar levels because "it alerts me when my blood sugar is getting too high or too low." CGMs aren't perfect, even though they make it easy for people to take care of their diabetes. The National Institutes of Health say that people with diabetes should check the accuracy of their CGM with a finger-stick glucose test at least twice a day. This should be done before any changes are made to their insulin dose. But with newer devices like the Dexcom 6, you don't have to check this often unless the glucose number is out of range. It is always a good idea to check your fingerstick glucose if it is low or high for no apparent reason and you are not otherwise sick.