If a blood sugar shows you have fluctuating blood sugar levels, it can come as quite a shock.
As a type 2 diabetes patient, how do you prevent severe complications despite the highs and the lows?
In this article, you will learn everything a diabetes patient needs to know about stabilizing your fluctuating blood sugar levels without medication.
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This is how you stabilize fluctuating blood sugar levels
Diabetes is quite something. It has far-reaching long-term consequences. The complications are intense: everything from shorter life expectancy to problems with your eyes, kidneys and heart. In the short-term too, the symptoms and complications can be unpleasant and dangerous.
It is, therefore, vital to prevent your blood sugar level from fluctuating. Doing this can minimize the chance of becoming hyperglycemic or hypoglycemic. And, in the long-term you, stop yourself from becoming even sicker and getting all kinds of type 2 induced complications.
Purpose of this article
In this article you will get 7 tips to keep your blood sugar levels within bounds. And all this without medication. This will ensure that you can live healthily once again.
What does a fluctuating blood sugar level mean?
Whenever you eat something, sugars enter your blood. Your body has to do something with these sugar as soon as possible.
If that does not happen? Then the sugars remain in your blood and they can cause a lot of damage. Your organs will eventually be affected by the high blood sugar. Which causes them to work less efficient or even completely shut down.
Your blood sugar level should stay within an ideal window. A healthy lower limit and an upper limit.
If your blood sugar falls below the lower limit, your blood sugar is low and you can get a hypo. If your blood sugar is too high, you can end up with a hyper.
Your goal is to keep your blood values between the lower and upper limit.
Your mechanism to keep everything within a healthy range is 'broken' in type 2 diabetics. Your body can not regulate it properly. As a result, sugar that you ingest will stay in your bloodstream for far too long which causes all kinds of trouble in the long run.
Symptoms of a fluctuating blood sugar level
The symptoms of a fluctuating blood sugar level are mainly felt in the 'blood sugar drops'. This means you can experience signs and symptoms like:
The symptoms above are not to be taken lightly!
Women can also experience all these symptoms during their pregnancy. Although they don't have type 2 diabetes, they can experience fluctuating blood sugar due to hormonal changes.
Although taking medication can be necessary for some women during pregnancy, it is often not needed. With the right nutritional changes, you can prevent and/or mitigate these fluctuations. The same thing goes for non-diabetics.
#1 The causes of fluctuating blood sugar levels
You have type 2 diabetes. That is not great to have, but that fortunately does not make you 'different' from me. Because blood sugar regulation is determined by three things in every human being regardless of their health:
Your goal is to optimize all three elements.
You can be very relaxed and exercise regularly. But if you only eat cookies, you will still have a fluctuating blood sugar.
And even if you eat healthy and exercise but experience lots of stress, you will keep having fluctuating blood sugar levels. Reducing stress is just as important as nutrition and exercise.
Of course you cannot tackle everything at once. Start with the part that is most difficult for you.
This will automatically make the next steps easier for you.
If you complete one part, then you can move to the next hurdle.
#2 Walk to lower your blood sugar
Exercising is not a matter of training until you have won an Olympic medal. You do not have to be an Olympic athlete to stabilize your type 2 diabetes.
But what is needed is to become more active than the average person.
The average person (depending on where in the world you measure it) watches TV for at least three hours a day and hardly moves. It is therefore not very difficult to move more than the average person. And you don't have to run marathons to do that.
A 15-minute walk after a meal can do wonders for your blood sugar level.
During and after a meal many sugars enter your bloodstream.
Your body needs to process this. Otherwise, the excess sugars might cause lots of damage.
But that is precisely the problem if you suffer from fluctuating blood sugar:
It is not easy for your body anymore to process the sugars.
You can give your body a nudge in the right direction by walking fifteen minutes after every meal. Then the "sugar gates" in your body open up which makes it easier to use the sugars.
For example, research shows that by walking after a meal, you reduce your blood sugar by 25%. And if you do it every day, it will have a positive effect on how your body processes sugars. So it is a very healthy habit to implement.
#3 Improve the mobility of your body
Besides walking regularly, it is a good idea to loosen up your body. And by this I mean that you stretch the stiff muscles in your body so that they become flexible again.
Of course, this means that the sugars in your blood will end up in the right place more easily.
But did you also know that it significantly reduces your stress?
You can see when someone is tense. He or she looks stiff and they keep their body in one rigid position. Like when people pull up their shoulder to their ears all the time.
If you continuously have shrugged shoulders due to a bad working posture, it will also be stressful for your brain. Your brain does not know the difference between having pulled up shoulders because you are emotionally tense and because you have been in an awkward position all day long. But the reaction of our brain to this is the same.
That's why yoga works so well for stress reduction.
You start moving your stiff muscles and joints without making yourself really tired. The result is that your body feels better and you reduce your stress.
You can also do another sport that is not so strenuous but that you do enjoy. This also helps to keep your body flexible.
Yoga and gymnastics are perfect because they purposefully mobilize your body and loosen it. Also, yoga is a combination of meditation and exercising, which makes it extra stress reducing.
Beware
How does stress cause unstable blood sugar?
There are several ways:
Even if you eat healthy and exercise, but you are chronically stressed, you will continue to suffer from a fluctuating blood sugar level.
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#4 Reduce your sugar intake
Movement and the amount of stress you have are not the only important things. Of course, your nutritional pattern also plays a huge role.
If you ingest lots of sugars every meal, you will make it very difficult for your body. After all, it can no longer deal appropriately with all those sugars that keep your blood sugar levels high. That is why it is good to eat as few (added) sugars as possible.
The lesser, the better.
What if you eat fewer sugars and only eat healthy things that do not raise your blood sugar level? Then you are much more resistant to fluctuations in your blood sugar. And you will have less of the symptoms associated with fluctuating blood sugar.
The most important sugars to avoid are:
But also think of:
These products are high in sugars/carbs and low in fibers. Thus making them cause fluctuating blood sugar levels in (non) diabetics.
I would advise you to eat as little bread, pasta, rice and potatoes as possible. The less you eat them, the easier it will be. And the better your blood sugar level will become.
#5 Eat enough proteins to prevent fluctuating blood sugar levels
Scientists like to experiment on rats. Rats resemble humans a lot in terms of physiology. Which makes it easier to try things out that can never be tested on humans.
For example, it has been found that rats keep eating until they have ingested a certain amount of proteins. Only then do they stop eating.
"By adjusting the percentage of proteins in the diet, scientists were able to influence how much the rats ate."
The same applies to people. When you eat enough protein, it makes you eat less.
This is good for keeping your blood sugar stable and for losing that excess weight.
Proteins are better for you than sugars.
Especially the combination of proteins and fats is healthy.
This will suppress your hunger and stabilize your blood sugar.
Checklist of high-protein products
Which products contain proteins?
Eating meat, fish, poultry, eggs or dairy product, rapidly reduces your appetite and will keep your blood sugar constant.
#6 This is the healthiest thing you can eat
Nutritional scientists do not agree on many things. This is because food science is a relatively new field of study and many questions have not been answered yet.
The result is that there are lots of arguments and there are different ideas about what the healthiest diet is.
But most of the researchers agree on the following two points:
And most people unfortunately eat far too much sugar and far too few vegetables.
That's too bad. Because vegetables help to keep your blood sugar in check. They are full of healthy fibers that give you a full feeling and help with the digestion.
The more fiber you eat, the slower the sugars that you have ingested will be broken down. As a result, your sugar level rises less quickly and high.
I sometimes write: "When hungry, eat a cucumber."
Cucumbers barely raise your blood sugar because they hardly contain sugars. And the fibers and the fluids help slow down the absorption of sugars.
And did I mention that vegetables are full of essential vitamins, minerals and antioxidants?
That is also a reason why food scientists are huge fans of them.
You will rarely find the combination of nutrients in vegetables anywhere else.
That is why I want your plate to contain at least 50% vegetables. Which will result in:
#7 Eat more sour tasting products
And I do not mean sour candy but instead a bit of vinegar, lime or lemon juice.
Before insulin was discovered, vinegar was used as a remedy against increased blood sugar levels.
Of course, it does not work as well as insulin, but if you have type 2 diabetes, it can offer that little extra to keep your blood sugar level within a healthy range.
Because if you eat something in combination with vinegar, you will experience less of a blood sugar spike (and the accompanying drop) after a meal.
In the traditional kitchens, it is very typical to always add a bit of acidity to your food. You will be amazed at how nice it is to add a bit of lemon juice or vinegar to basic dishes. This works exceptionally well in sauces.
Diabetes-Free Secret
A fluctuating blood sugar level is the precursor to type 2 diabetes.
The tips above will undoubtedly give you a nudge in the right direction, but would you like to know more about how you have gotten a fluctuating blood sugar level and how you can completely reverse this? Then I have something nice for you.
Recently it has been discovered that it is possible to reverse type 2 diabetes. And you can find everything you need to do this in your local grocery store.
You can reverse type 2 with one powerful principle. It's something I call the"The Diabetes-Free Secret". I have written a number of pages about this secret that will change your life forever. You will learn:
Enter your e-mail address below and I will send you the E-book for free.
Greetings,
Ben Kuiper
P.s: what do you do to prevent or stop fluctuating blood sugar levels? Leave a comment below