Effective Diabetes Management: Diet, Exercise & Medication Guide

Effective diabetes management requires a multifaceted approach that includes three pillars:

1. 1) Nutritious diet

2. 2) Regular exercise 

3. 3) Medication at your doctor’s advice

Achieving a balance on these three pillars enables you to better manage your blood sugar levels and diabetes. The benefits of regular exercise and a nutritious diet don’t just stop with diabetes. They improve your mood, energy and help prevent future health issues.

A. Diet – 5-Pronged Framework

A healthy, well-balanced diet that is customized to your lifestyle is essential to manage diabetes. Here are some tips.

1. Macronutrients: Fill half your plate with non-starchy veggies (avoid potatoes), a quarter with lean protein (pulses, white meat like chicken and fish), and a quarter with fiber-rich complex carbs like beans or whole grains. This combination will keep you full for longer and aids in blood glucose regulation.

2.  Monitoring sugar intake and choosing complex carbohydrates: Limit added sugar and prefer complex (fiber-rich options) over simple carbs to avoid glucose spikes and crashes.

3. Micronutrients: Focus on obtaining vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants from fruits, vegetables, nuts, and seeds to meet micronutrient needs. A colorful plate that makes a rainbow out of a mix of the above will do the trick.

4. Portion control: Keep an eye on your portion sizes by listening to your body – it’s good at telling you when to stop! Eat to 80% fullness, not 100%.

5. Avoid ultra-processed foods: Home-cooked meals with locally sourced fresh ingredients are the best. We are lucky in India to have access to a whole diversity of fruits and vegetables – make the most of it and let the world envy us. Avoid packaged ingredients or foods with emulsifiers, preservatives, stabilizers, high levels of simple carbohydrates, and saturated fats.

 Home Monitoring: Post-Meal Blood Sugar Testing

This is a simple test to understand how your meal has affected your blood sugar. If you have a glucometer at home, check your pre-meal and 90-minute post-meal blood sugar to appreciate how your blood sugars have reacted to the food you have consumed. Meals rich in fiber, and protein and poor simple carbohydrates will cause smaller blood sugar spikes.

To make sustainable lifestyle modifications, you could consider scheduling an appointment with a qualified dietitian who is knowledgeable about diabetes. Diabetes-friendly diets do not have to compromise on taste. They simply require a bit of preparation and awareness.

 B. Exercise: Getting in Shape for a Better You

1. Regular physical activity: Exercise helps muscles utilize insulin and absorb glucose efficiently for 24 hour improvements. Blood sugar control can be significantly improved with as little as 30 minutes each day.  The current recommendations are 150 minutes per week or 750-1000 kcals weekly.

2. Tailored routines: Set realistic targets. Start where you are able and gradually increase duration/intensity. Any form of exercise is good. If you are sedentary: Start slow and watch your heart rate. Getting your daily exercise from gardening, taking public transport, and taking leisurely walks also counts! 

3. Special Care: Take special care of your back knee and hip joints. It is always better to have your gait analyzed. This is a very important step that people miss.

Exercise potently lowers blood glucose levels when done regularly, working synergistically with diet. You might need to change how much food or medication you consume as you become more active. These educated modifications can be made by monitoring your blood sugar using a glucometer and your HbA1C tests every 3 months if needed and working with your physician and nutritionist.

C. Medication: Striking a balance for the best control

Anti-diabetes drugs are an important part of treatment alongside lifestyle modifications (such as diet and exercise). When blood sugar levels remain high, oral tablets, insulin therapy, or other injections can help control symptoms and minimize consequences.

Active participation in your diabetes care, in close collaboration with your doctor, will help determine the appropriate medication/s. Regular blood tests for glucose, HbA1c, and lipid panels, will help tailor medication, diet, and exercise. Testing gives us an insight to our condition that will enable us to consistently make better decisions about our health. 

Stay informed about your condition. Continue learning about new treatment approaches and technologies to be a knowledgeable, empowered patient. Ask your doctor for a reliable source of information, as not everything on the internet can be trusted. Understand diabetes and let the body understand what you are doing to it. Remember we have only one body that we can work with. Remember that health span is more important than life span. Prudent dietary and mobility practices are quintessential for a long health span.

Conclusion

In summary, tackling diabetes hinges upon finding a nutritional, fitness, and treatment formula that suits you. Seek expert advice whilst also taking an active role in informed self-management day-to-day and long-term. Diabetic-friendly foods like the Ruby Roti by Navrelia Foods, with a balanced macronutrient profile, save you a lot of time and effort as they have done most of the thinking for you. They have pioneered this product to have the lowest glycaemic index for a roti mix India has ever seen! This essentially means that it is the best roti mix for sugar control to our knowledge. We will explore the concept of glycaemic index, simple estimates of macronutrients heart rate zones for exercise, and different types of exercises in upcoming blog posts … stay tuned.