How to Manage Diabetes

Do you follow common health rhetoric about managing Diabetes? Medical experts advise being under the care of a physician to take care of your disease. But what's really causing the disease? Is it just some unknown thing going on in your body that needs continual doses of insulin and other medications? Common medical advice tells Diabetes patients to avoid sugar, and recommends that if desserts and sugar are eaten to drastically reduce fat intake. Following these directives are not only keeping your insulin levels in a haywire state, but they are ruining your health. Not enough emphasis is placed on removal of processed foods, which greatly contribute to the Diabetic condition in the first place, and eating real, whole foods. This is why people with Diabetes, in general, continue to struggle and struggle with their weight and health.

There are some natural alternatives to taking care of your health and your Diabetes. Diabetes is largely a modern disease that is caused by a combination of inactivity and consumption of processed, industrial foods. Eating a healthy diet should enable you to overcome your disease and lead a healthy life. Here are the foods you should eliminate from your diet:

Anything processed and containing refined carbohydrates such as:

• crackers
• bread
• pasta
• bagels
• rice cakes
• packaged cereals
• most breads
• alternative grain products that are processed such as the above
• industrial pasteurized/homogenized dairy products - especially low-fat and non-fat
• processed (roasted, salted, coated) nuts and seeds
• non-organic nut butter that comes from roasted nuts
• refined, vegetable oils like canola, soy, safflower, cottonseed, sunflower, and other vegetable oils
• soy products of all kinds (except those that are fermented like miso and tempeh)
• industrial meats
• conventionally produced fruits and vegetables

Basically, anything packaged, canned, or in a box should be suspect and probably eliminated from your kitchen and diet.

Here's what you should include in your diet:

• grass-fed, naturally and organically raised meats, pasture-raised poultry
• raw milk and dairy (cheese, cream, butter) from organic, pasture-raised cattle
• eggs from pasture-raised poultry
• organically-produced fresh and frozen fruits and vegetables
• raw nuts and seeds
• organically-produced nut butters (avoid peanut butter)
• natural, healthy fats like extra virgin olive oil, palm oil, and coconut oil, real butter from grass-fed cattle, tallow and lard from healthy beef and chicken (see above)
• whole grains (avoid flour) from the bulk isle in the grocery store such as brown rice, oats, buckwheat, teff, quinoa, spelt, whole wheat, millet, oats, etc. that are soaked before eating and sprouted grains (try Ezekiel brand products)
• fermented foods like real, home-made yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, lacto-fermented vegetables, and others

Obtaining regular stretching, movement, and exercise is important too. Here are some guidelines:

• Focus on regular activity rather than length of time spent doing the activity.
• Do something you enjoy and that fits your lifestyle and interests.
• The best type of activity is something you can do outside. It allows you to get fresh air and sunshine (natural Vitamin D is very important for health), and gets you out of your everyday environment of the home or office.
• Start out slow if you have been sedentary.
• Don't focus on calories or fat intake as a method of losing weight. If you do, you will continue to struggle with weight issues. If you are eating whole, healthy foods and obtaining regular activity in your schedule, your normal weight should be easy to maintain.
  

For more insight about being nutritionally fit, and putting more emphasis on eating well to maintain your health and your weight, read Are You Nutritionally Fit?

For more information on types of healthy foods, read How Well Do Know Your Food? Find Out!

For more information on fats and health, read The Importance of Dietary Fats.