Prediabetes is like an early warning sign –with a change of diet/lifestyle you have the chance to avoid developing diabetes.
If you’ve come here because you’re worried you may have prediabetes (or borderline diabetes), read up on how prediabetes can be diagnosed by your doctor.
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/pre-diabetes-tests.html
What does prediabetes mean for me?
People with prediabetes have the early stages of insulin resistance –meaning that you’re producing plenty of insulin but your body isn’t responding to the insulin like it’s meant to.
Insulin helps sugar from your blood get into your muscles and other cells to be used for energy. With insulin resistance, insulin finds it difficult to transfer the sugar into your cells. The result is that your blood sugars will be higher than they should be, notably after meals.
What can I do to prevent diabetes?
In most cases prediabetes is linked with being overweight and losing weight can help to reduce the effects of prediabetes and put distance between you and diabetes.
Look at your activity levels
Activity does more than burn calories, it’s well known to help increase sensitivity to insulin and therefore reduce the effects of prediabetes.
Portion size and quality over quantity
Food for health is one area where quality is much more important than quantity.
Unless you are doing this already, reduce the size of portions you eat, particularly when it comes to the more calorific meals you eat.
It’s a good idea to reduce the portions of foods such as bread, rice, pasta and potatoes and go for lower GI versions of these foods as well such as whole grain bread, brown or basmati rice, whole wheat pasta, sweet potatoes or celeriac, parsnip, carrots.
The great things about these versions is that they carry more nutrients than the ‘white’ varieties.
Vegetables
Look to eat a strong proportion of vegetables. If you don't consider yourself a vegetables person, bear in mind that people’s taste tends to adjust to what they eat. Don’t let first impressions put you off.
Home cooked meals
Make a conscious effort to replace any processed/pre-prepared meals with home cooked/prepared foods. Small changes each week can add up to a big difference in your health.
Consider getting a glucose meter
A glucose meter can tell you when your levels of blood sugar are high and can help to indicate what foods or activities might be causing the levels to go higher.
Particularly if food is pushing your blood sugar levels higher, you can then do something to improve this. Either you could eat less of that food, or you could replace it with a different type of food.
People on the Diabetes.co.uk forum have loads of experience which can help you out with this
Read more on prediabetes:
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/pre-diabetes.html
Frequently asked question on prediabetes
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/pre-diabetes-faqs.html
If you’ve come here because you’re worried you may have prediabetes (or borderline diabetes), read up on how prediabetes can be diagnosed by your doctor.
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/pre-diabetes-tests.html
What does prediabetes mean for me?
People with prediabetes have the early stages of insulin resistance –meaning that you’re producing plenty of insulin but your body isn’t responding to the insulin like it’s meant to.
Insulin helps sugar from your blood get into your muscles and other cells to be used for energy. With insulin resistance, insulin finds it difficult to transfer the sugar into your cells. The result is that your blood sugars will be higher than they should be, notably after meals.
What can I do to prevent diabetes?
In most cases prediabetes is linked with being overweight and losing weight can help to reduce the effects of prediabetes and put distance between you and diabetes.
Look at your activity levels
Activity does more than burn calories, it’s well known to help increase sensitivity to insulin and therefore reduce the effects of prediabetes.
Portion size and quality over quantity
Food for health is one area where quality is much more important than quantity.
Unless you are doing this already, reduce the size of portions you eat, particularly when it comes to the more calorific meals you eat.
It’s a good idea to reduce the portions of foods such as bread, rice, pasta and potatoes and go for lower GI versions of these foods as well such as whole grain bread, brown or basmati rice, whole wheat pasta, sweet potatoes or celeriac, parsnip, carrots.
The great things about these versions is that they carry more nutrients than the ‘white’ varieties.
Vegetables
Look to eat a strong proportion of vegetables. If you don't consider yourself a vegetables person, bear in mind that people’s taste tends to adjust to what they eat. Don’t let first impressions put you off.
Home cooked meals
Make a conscious effort to replace any processed/pre-prepared meals with home cooked/prepared foods. Small changes each week can add up to a big difference in your health.
Consider getting a glucose meter
A glucose meter can tell you when your levels of blood sugar are high and can help to indicate what foods or activities might be causing the levels to go higher.
Particularly if food is pushing your blood sugar levels higher, you can then do something to improve this. Either you could eat less of that food, or you could replace it with a different type of food.
People on the Diabetes.co.uk forum have loads of experience which can help you out with this
Read more on prediabetes:
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/pre-diabetes.html
Frequently asked question on prediabetes
http://www.diabetes.co.uk/pre-diabetes-faqs.html
