Having high blood sugar values can have serious consequences for your body.
It is therefore vital to lower your blood sugar if you have type 2 diabetes.
In this article you will discover 15 tips to improve your blood sugar values quickly.
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Lower your blood sugar value within a couple of weeks
Your blood sugar values (both regular blood sugar value as your hba1c) describe everything about your type 2 diabetes. If they are too low, you may have problems. But if they are too high, you will definitely have a problem.
If your blood sugar values are not good (too high), it can have dangerous consequences for your health. Think of:
Yes, too low blood sugar levels can be dangerous. However, too high blood sugar values are much more common an thus much more dangerous.
Purpose of this article
It is important that you improve your blood levels to a healthy and normal range.
That's why in this article you will get 15 tips to improve your dangerous blood sugar values within 5 weeks so you can live a healthy life. I will also teach you the best way to never worry about high blood sugar levels again.
Are you looking for ready-made recipes that can prevent and cure type 2 diabetes? Then click here.
What are acceptable blood sugar values in type 2 diabetes?
Before I start with the tips, it is helpful to reflect on what are acceptable and healthy blood values for a person who has type 2 diabetes mellitus. Or a person who is on the verge of getting type 2 diabetes. This is called pre-diabetes.
You officially have type 2 diabetes when you:
The lower, the better
These are the values that determine whether or not you have diabetes.
This automatically means that the lower you can get your blood sugar value (below 7.0 mmol/L), the healthier this is for you.
As long as that does not drop below 4.0 mmol/L. This is only possible if you inject too much insulin or use too much medication.
Everything above 7.0 is considered type 2 diabetes. If you are a healthy person, your blood sugar value will fluctuate around 5.0 and 6.0 mmol/L.
Your body seems to be very good at regulating your blood sugar levels. Even without paying extreme attention to your diet. But when you eat too much fries and bread, your body will suffer.
Which brings me to the first tip:
#1 Less carbs to improve your blood sugar value
You develop type 2 diabetes by consuming an unhealthy amount (and type) of carbs and sugars.
If it is not at your 50th, then you will develop it at your 80th. Type 2 diabetes is one of those diseases that you cannot get out of.
No matter how clever you try to be.
There is a reason why babies don't have it but older people do:
You develop it through years of eating unhealthy food.
Less carbs = less diabetes
Since the amount of carbs that you eat are an important factor in the development of diabetes. It is obvious that reducing this will reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes. When you combine this with high-quality carbs, you will pretty much exclude the development of type 2 diabetes.
#2 Improve your carb-source
As I mentioned above, the amount of carbs you eat is not the only determining factor for developing type 2 diabetes.
Imagine the following:
Person 1 consumes 100 grams of sugars a day by drinking soda. Person 2 consumes 100 grams of sugar a day by eating appels.
Do you think both people have the same amount of chance to develop type 2 diabetes?
Just the amount of sugars does not tell everything
Most people might answer the question above with "yes!". But that's wrong.
Although both people indeed consume 100 grams of sugars a day, the quality of the sugars cannot be compared.
Soda is nothing else than a chemical concoction full of sugar.
Fruit, on the other hand, contains vitamins, antioxidants and above all fibers, making it a lot healthier. This makes fruit a lot more qualitative than soda. Even if you get the same amounts of sugars.
Healthy substitutes for everyday products
There are many things you can do to make food healthier:
A low-quality carb-source is often characterized by the fact that you hardly (or not at all) have to chew on it. You can often swallow it within a few seconds. For example, compare a sip of soda with a bite from an apple. Features of healthy carb-sources are:
#3 Replace your carb-source
Regarding your health, there is one saying that you should never forget:
Prevention is better than cure.
Preventing type 2 diabetes is ultimately easier than curing it. Although the cure of diabetes with the help of food is certainly possible, it will take a lot of energy. You have to change an unhealthy diet that you have maintained for years.
To avoid having to conquer such a difficult task, it is best to prevent yourself from eating bad carb-sources.
As western people we like to eat potatoes and bread. Unfortunately, these two products are not exactly healthy. At least, not compared to the alternatives that you can eat. There are different products that you can eat as a substitute for this.
The best substitutes for potatoes & pasta
Think of:
You can eat all of the above with a piece of meat and vegetables.
Looking at the list above, beans are by far the healthiest. They contain everything that is healthy for your body, intestines and blood sugar levels:
Beans are certainly among the top 10 healthiest products on earth. They also appear to be able to stabilize and lower blood sugar values. Enough reasons to eat it, if you ask me.
Additional information
When you decide to eat beans, make sure you choose the beans without a sauce. Beans in tomato sauce are often full of added sugars and salt. You don't want to eat either as a type 2 diabetes patient.
#4 Drink less unhealthy drinks
Personally, I would like to get as much results as possible with as little effort as possible. If I can become a millionaire by working hard for one week, I'd rather do that than work hard for 50 years.
Why would you simply work 'hard' if you can also work 'smart'? With that mindset you can get much further in life. Also regarding your health.
If there is one tip in this blog that you absolutely MUST apply, then it is this.
Nothing, but i mean nothing, is unhealthier for your body than sugary drinks. I'm talking about things like:
Consuming these kinds of products, is like having an atomic bomb go off in your body.
From an evolutionary point of view, our bodies are not familiar with sugary drinks.
The body has therefore never learned to process these sugars in a decent way.
What kind of sugar-rich drink is found in nature? Not one.
How sugar-rich drinks ruin your health
At most you can make a debatable argument for honey. And even that was hard to find in nature.
Because sugary drinks contain a lot of sugars and no fibers (you don't have to chew on them), it is super fast absorbed into your bloodstream. This ensures your blood sugar value to rise very fast. As a shock reaction, your pancreas produces too much insulin.
To eliminate this excess of insulin, your body gives you the signal to eat/drink more. Insulin can only disappear from your bloodstream if there are carbs and/or sugars in your blood. This gives you a vicious circle:
Now you know why I am so strong against liquid calories. They are very bad for your diabetes, blood sugar levels and overall health.
It is best to NEVER consume these drinks. Two wines a week or beer is okay. But it certainly should not occur every day. They still contain sugars I'm afraid.
For healthy sugar-free drinks you can take a look here.
#5 Choose the correct proportions on your plate
Serving. It is something we all do in the UK and USA. Of course I am talking about serving food;).
When you get a empty plate at a buffet, do you consciously think about how you will fill it up?
If you are like most people, the answer is "no". Or, if you have given a more extensive answer, it will be something like:
"I will fill my plate with what I like."
There is of course nothing wrong with that. As long as it is not incredibly unhealthy. I understand you sometimes feel like eating fries. Although that is far from ideal for you as a diabetic, eating fries once in a while will really not be a problem. But do it in moderation.
Filling three quarters of your plate with fries and filling the remaining space with a hamburger is not exactly healthy. But even in less extreme examples you will probably not have ideal proportions on your plate.
How do you eat your classic potatoes, vegetables and meat?
Most people use the following proportions:
The proportion for a type 2 diabetes diet
However, this is not the healthiest proportion you can apply.
Because what is much healthier is to start your serving with vegetables.
Fill half of your plate with this. The remaining 50 percent of your plate you fill up with meat first and as last the potatoes.
Healthy consequences when using the right proportions
This way you achieve different things:
All in all, these are things you want to achieve as a diabetic. Too many vegetables does not exist. People who get type 2 diabetes because they have eaten too much green vegetables do not exist.
So don't be too careful with the servings. In an ideal situation you serve 50% vegetables and replace the potatoes (or rice/pasta) with a healthier variant as you learned in tip #3.
This way you hit two birds with one stone.
#6 Choose fiber-rich products
You have undoubtedly heard of the term 'fibers'. As you may know, fibers are very healthy for your blood sugar levels and intestinal flora.
However, there is a good chance that you do not exactly know what types of fibers there are and what their function is. I will explain that to you in detail.
Fibers in food actually come in 3 types:
Now the above terms of course mean nothing to you. Fortunately, I can explain it to you in an easy way so you'll know more about these important nutrients.
Fibers are the building block of plants. They give the plant firmness. It is also what you have to chew on in order to be able to swallow vegetable food (fruit, vegetables and nuts). As you have read before, they come in 3 types in plants.
Soluble fibers
Soluble fibers can dissolve in water. These fibers are incredibly good at lowering your blood sugar levels. By dissolving in the water of your intestines, they make the food mash very syrupy. This makes it difficult for carbs and sugars to be absorbed. The consequence of this is that sugars are absorbed more slowly and less in general.
Insoluble fibers
Insoluble fibers cannot dissolve in water. It is just like trying to dissolve flour in water. It will mix but not dissolve. These fibers appear to stimulate your intestinal wall. This will improve your bowel movements. In addition, our intestinal flora digests these fibers so that it keeps itself healthy and provides our body with healthy fatty acids (butyrate) and vitamines.
Resistant fibers
Resistant fibers cannot be digested by our body or the intestinal bacteria.
These fibers only have a positive effect on our intestinal function and bowel movements.
More fibers is always better
The fibers mentioned above occur in different proportions in plants. But those are not the only places where you can find them. Nowadays you get more and more 'fiber-rich' variants of normal products. Think of:
Therefore always choose the whole-wheat version if you get the chance. This is much healthier for your blood sugar levels and intestinal flora.
Watch out
The fact that whole-wheat products are healthier does not mean that you have to eat large quantities of them. Too many carbs remain too many carbs. The attack on your body of wholegrain products is less, but if you often eat them in large quantities, the positive effect will disappear. This is of course not ideal for your blood sugar values.
#7 Snack wisely with fruit
Making tips practical is sometimes difficult for people. If I would give you the tip to "eat healthier," you still don't know what to eat.
Often you will think that you have to do very extreme things to eat healthier. But often there are a just a couple of things that you have to change to eat much healthier.
Take this tip for example.
I will be very honest with you:
There is no healthy dessert on this planet.
All cookies, ice creams, candies and other sweets are bad for your body.
No matter how many healthy sweeteners you add, they are unhealthy products.
The fact that you have to add a healthy sweetener to something, already indicates that it is probably not very healthy.
Fruit is healthier than ice-cream for several reasons
Fruit is the perfect replacement for all sweets in your life. Although there is a stigma about eating sugar as a diabetic, the sugar from fruit is not the same as added sugar.
Although fruit also contains glucose and fructose, this is always a lot less than in cookies and ice cream. In addition, the sugar ratio is not the same. And the fibers in fruit also makes it a much healthier replacement.
Use your healthy common sense
Do not suddenly eat 10 pieces of fruit in one day. Two to three pieces a day is more than enough. You are (almost) a diabetic so your body cannot handle more sugars. Even if they are healthy sugars.
#8 Make a grocery list
I recently spoke to someone at the gym. The person told me how much he wanted to lose weight and that he often said to himself that it is really time now. But when push comes to shove, he does not succeed.
I tried to support him and continued my training.
Look. The problem is not that you don't want to eat healthier. Perhaps you have told yourself dozens of times that 'now' is really the time. But when you are offered an unhealthy dish, you do not say "no".
The bridge between 'wanting' and 'doing' is called discipline.
How you can turn 'wanting' more easily into 'doing'
Without discipline and urgent need, it will be very difficult to change.
Without these two components you have no pressure to change.
You need discipline to be able to say 'no'. Saying no to all temptations in the supermarket.
Yet there is an easy trick that you can use to get less unhealthy products into your home:
Make a grocery list.
Research shows that you buy less unhealthy junk food when you go to the supermarket with a grocery list. You then do the groceries with your list and not with your eyes.
Because you are constantly busy with your list, you will not see all the temptations. This allows you to do your groceries much healthier and faster. You no longer walk like a zombie from aisle to aisle.
#9 'Fat' quickly lowers your blood sugar values
Nutrition can generally only consist of 3 types of nutrients:
Fats do not have a negative influence on your blood sugar value or insulin level. In an ideal eating pattern you eat a lot of healthy fats. For me, the diet consists of 50% healthy fats. My blood sugar value is almost never higher than 5.5 mmol/L. Even after a meal.
Because fats do not have a negative influence on your type 2 diabetes, you therefore want to eat as much fats as possible. So you have to consciously choose fatty products:
Combine fats with proteins
This ensures that you eat more fats without adding fat. In combination with proteins, fat has a nice effect. You become very saturated. This reduces the chance that you eat too much.
Additional information
Carbs and sugars saturate very badly. In addition, the increased sugar and insulin levels ensure that you continue to be hungry. All in all, this is not very good for your body or blood sugar levels.
#10 Never buy low-fat products
Now that you and I are talking about fats, I still have to make one small addition:
Stop eating low-fat products.
This is one of the worst things you can do with your health. Low-fat products are, well, low in fat. This means they contain less calories and you can theoretically eat more of them.
What manufacturers 'forget' to tell you is that they are replacing the fats they extract with unhealthy sugars. This is something they have been doing since the 70s. Since the 1970s, type 2 diabetes has rose explosively worldwide.
So NEVER, and I mean NEVER buy a low-fat product. Especially when it comes to dairy products. Nothing at all is healthy about diet products. No matter how flashy the packaging and marketing claims they are. You recognize these types of products by the text:
Buy the 'normal' version of these products. Although it does indeed contain more calories, it is much healthier. Avoiding diet products is one of the best things you can do to reverse your diabetes. Your blood sugar values will improve very quickly.
#11 Drink the healthiest & cheapest drinks
Avoiding sugary drinks is, as you have read, one of the best things you can do. But if you are no longer allowed to have juices, you probably do not know what you can drink in addition to water.
Fortunately there are a few healthy alternatives. These drinks appear to be able to lower your blood sugar values.
Drinks with lots of antioxidants make you healthier. Antioxidants are slightly toxic substances. They are not toxic enough to make your body sick. On the contrary.
Why poison can make you healthier
Your body becomes more active when it comes into contact with these substances. This makes the body much more alert. It is just like what exercise does with your body. In principle, exercising itself is not healthy. But the effect of exercise on your body is healthy. It ensures that your body gets in a better condition and learns how to use oxygen more efficiently.
Cheap drinks full of antioxidants
The healthiest and sugar-free drinks you can drink are:
I can say a thousands of words about each of these drinks. They are healthy for the body in various ways. Everything is due to the powerful antioxidants in them. As long as you do not drink these drinks with sugar, you can never really have too much.
Research shows that drinking 5 cups of coffee a day is fine as long as you are healthy. People with heart problems can better stick to a maximum of 3 cups.
#12 Sprinkle more herbs on your food
Antioxidants are not only found in healthy drinks. They are found in many vegetable products. The more color and taste a plant has, the more antioxidants it generally contains.
There is one category that does very well in terms of antioxidants:
Herbs (fresh and dry)
Herbs, regardless of which one, contain an enormous amount of antioxidants per gram.
Because of this you just need a little bit to consume these magical antioxidants.
Just like with healthy drinks, the antioxidants here work by stimulating your body and immune system. This makes your body more efficient at processing sugars and make you more sensitive to insulin.
Both will ensure that your blood values will get a lot better. The effect of antioxidants is relatively small, but if you add herbs to your food every day, it certainly counts. Because there are just a few things that you can do that will have a very rapid effect on your health. Except of course: more exercising, stop drinking sweet drinks and stop eating sweets.
#13 Get of your sofa
Exercising has never been so cool as it is now. Going to the gym in particular seems to spread like fire. And that's a good thing too.
Because exercising is one of the best things you can do for your body. Although it naturally costs energy and is not always fun, it is incredibly good for you as a type 2 diabetes patient.
Exercise, or actually moving, has the benefit of making your body more alert and efficient. Just like with the antioxidants, this will help people with type 2 diabetes. There are various explanations for this:
All in all, you have enough reasons to work out!
Exercise or movement?
Additional information
It is better to replace the word exercise with the word 'movement'. Because you don't have to destroy yourself every day in the gym.
The rules are very simple:
The most important thing is that you exercise and move consistently.
This is a characteristic of healthy people.
Doing a little bit every day is better than debilitating yourself once a week.
Of course it is even better if you challenge yourself a little every day. This keeps the body adapting and it will improve itself. And you can improve your blood sugar levels faster or even get rid of your type 2 diabetes.
#14 A cavemen diet has a lowering effect on your blood sugar value
As you may have noticed, many tips here have one theme:
You must consume 'REAL' food.
By real food, I mean food that doesn't come from a factory.
Food that does not come from a glittering packaging that a celebrity advertises.
The point is that you eat like your ancestors, when they were primeval people. Because from historical sources, science knows that diabetes was pretty much non-existent at that time.
There are cases known here and there. They were people with unfortunate genetic abnormalities or (which was more often the case) rich people who ate very unhealthily.
And by unhealthy, I mean a lot of sugars and pastries.
Always remember the following about what you eat:
"Did my ancestors have access to this food 10,000 years ago?"
If the answer is "no" then you should not eat it either. It's that simple to eat healthy. By always giving an honest answer to this question, you can quickly and easily improve your blood sugar values.
#15 The best kept secret on earth to improve your blood sugar values
Of course I save the best for last. This tip cannot be summarized in a few sentences in this article. That is why I have summarized these for you in a few pages. Because it is the best way to lower your blood sugar levels.
In these pages I will explain the most powerful principle on earth with which you can reverse your type 2 diabetes within a few weeks. You can even go illness-free through within 6 weeks.
All this is the work of one mechanism that you can set in motion in a natural way.
It's what I call The Diabetes-Free Secret.
And I will share it completely free with you. Purely because I want you to stop being sick and taking these blood sugar-lowering drugs that will never make you better.
Enter your e-mail address below and receive it immediately via e-mail.
Greetings,
Ben Kuiper