I was living with type 2 diabetes since June 2015. I had a wrist fracture and during all of my blood work up before the surgery, I came to know about diabetes. Since then, my colleagues and friends told me that type 2 diabetes is not curable, and I have to live with this forever. In 2015, I was just 27. To be honest, I felt the world just fell apart right in front of my eyes.
This is not the end of the world but at that point I felt exactly like this. I was taking 6 pills a day, 1 pill before breakfast, lunch and dinner and 1 pill after all these 3 meals. After almost 2 years, I was tired of taking those pills. So I stopped my medication. Fast forward to mid – 2019, I read that vegan diet is effective for type 2 diabetes reversal. I was shocked reading the research was done all over the world on the same.
I started following Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Mark Hyman and many more. Over the years, their work and contribution to reverse diabetes is a huge landmark. They published books and now successfully run podcasts to spread more awareness among diabetics. Last year, I came to know about Jesse Inchauspé who is a biochemist and somewhat cracked the code of glucose spikes in our body. So today, I thought of sharing my 5 simple tricks to manage diabetes. Maybe you all can start with these small dietary changes to observe improvements.
- Take desserts after lunch. Yes, you read it right. You may skip desserts or sugary food items in breakfast and dinner. If you are taking desserts in breakfast like, granola, cereals, rolled oats with banana or peanut butter, or bread, butter and jam; then you are causing damage to your health. You will get foggy brain and you will be hungry frequently. After dinner, it’s good to avoid desserts because you are not indulging yourself into tedious physical activities, so you are not burning calories. Better to take desserts post your lunch.
2. Avoiding sugar as much as possible can actually help your glucose spikes. Throughout the day, whatever we eat, our body converts into glucose first to provide all the necessary nutrition to our body cells and brain. So, your body is getting enough of glucose. You don’t need to add on the quantity of sugar in your bloodstream.
3. Fruit juice is a huge no-no for me. I prefer to consume whole fruits, mainly citrus fruits to get enough of vitamin C instead of depending on the supplements. I mostly prefer to take grapes, strawberries, cucumbers, blackberries, black or red grapes, oranges and plums. As I eat whole fruits, I get enough of fibre too in my body.
4. No late-night food. Many people think, once in a while eating late-night food is okay. Just imagine, you had dinner around 8.30 pm, you are wide awake and not sleeping, you are hungry again at 1.30 am. So, you opened your fridge and grabbed some leftovers or some unhealthy food like, cookies, chips or something like this. Again, it’s unhealthy, you are disturbing your circadian rhythm, not indulging yourself into enough physical activities, gaining weight and glucose.
5. Try eating salads as often as you can. You don’t need to order salads from some fancy restaurants. You can add some raw vegetables in a bowl and can add some oil ice oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper into it. It not only tastes good but instantly reduces the glucose spikes in your bloodstream. It also helps you to digest your food faster with good amount of fibre. Remember, fibre is beneficial for your gut health. Obviously, this will improve your poop stories in the long run.
At this moment, all of these tricks may sound complicated, but believe me its easy and sustainable to maintain. Add more lentils and legumes in your diet for better results. This gives you fibre too. While listening to one of the podcasts where Jesse Inchauspé suggesting diabetics to take a tablespoon of plain vinegar in a glass of water and have it some time before their meals. This will quickly reduce the glucose spikes.
