5 Simple Strategies to Lower Blood Sugar
Type 2 Diabetes is a condition that affects millions of Americans over their lifetime. Type 2 diabetes is so rampant that more than 10% of the American population is diagnosed with it, while about 30% of the remaining people have pre-diabetes. Of that 30%, it's estimated that 90% of that, 30% are completely unaware of this fact. Therefore they never take action in time. From my own clinical experience, I can say that the number of unaware pre-diabetics and diabetics is most likely a little higher than reported. This is because I am often the first to diagnose a patient with pre-diabetes or diabetes or inform them that their pre-diabetes has evolved into type-2 diabetes.
It is said that type 2 diabetes is reaching epidemic proportions for all Americans; however, we are in the middle of a full-blown silent epidemic in the Black community. If the stats aren't enough, we have an onslaught of dialysis clinics stacked in our neighborhoods to prove it. As of 2014, the percentage of African Americans diagnosed with type-2 diabetes was 13.5%, and the estimates for pre-diabetes surpass the 30% range. This means that on average, in a room of three African Americans, at least one for sure but maybe two have an HA1c that would put them in the diabetic range. This is a huge problem.
Before moving on to the solutions, there are two misconceptions that I need to address.
Most people believe that type-2 diabetes runs in their families. They think that this was something that was bound to get them eventually because they were genetically cursed. "Mama got it; daddy got it, so I know I'm going to get it." You've heard me say this before, and I will continue to say it, but we have to throw that thinking into the trash can of history because it serves us no good and is incredibly detrimental to our future generations.
The next issue comes from the medical side, and it's the constant pushing of an outdated and played medical ideology that type-2 diabetes is a chronic and progressive disease. I mean, it's just amazing how deep the denial and finesse are when it comes to this particular topic. Many of my colleagues will start doing what I call "Medical Splaining" to excuse their actions to continuously push rhetoric that is, at the least, not the complete truth. The most common medical advice given to "diabetics" is to live with it and manage it with medications to slow down its pace, but eventually, it will progress, and it will get you.
Not only is that pathway disempowering, but it's also not the truth. We now have multiple studies proving that type 2 diabetes is not chronic nor a progressive disease. This is also something I've seen many times in my clinical experience. Type-2 diabetes is preventable and reversible, and it is NOT a life sentence. It's the consequence of inappropriate lifestyle choices, but all hope is not lost. Diabetes, pre-diabetes, and insulin resistance are reversible, and here is how.
Your body is constantly remodeling itself. Studies show that about one percent of your body cells are renewed daily. These cells will manifest themselves in you as more robust and more vibrant cells or as weaker and older cells.
So how can you assure that you give your body the best chance to bring forth the more vital and more vibrant cells that will, in turn, translate over into health? By wisely choosing the materials/foods you give your body to use for rebuilding, which are, in fact, real whole foods, especially leafy greens.
Whole foods are merely natural foods in their natural state, free from any additives and unprocessed. Meaning they have not been altered or, if any, very little. These foods will satisfy your hunger, but they will also be naturally rich in natural nutrients that synthetic nutrients can’t compete with. In addition to their nutrients, many have been shown to have anti-inflammatory, anti-aging, and anti-cancer properties.
If you want to experience high-performance health, whole foods with a strong emphasis on plants, especially leafy greens, are where it’s at. As healthy as the labels will claim, “food” that comes in a wrapper, package, box, or window with additional ingredients, such as preservatives and additives, is just not real whole foods.
Here is where a lot of discipline is required. A lot of people resort to a sweet treat, some chips and a can of 50 cent soda as comfort food or even to fill up a craving, but in the long run, the consumption of all that junk adds up to extra fat and weight that can lead to unfavorable health conditions, diabetes type 2 included.
You need to know and understand that type 2 diabetes is NOT a medical condition; it is a Dietary/lifestyle condition. You don't treat dietary/ lifestyle conditions with medications since a lack of medicines was not what caused it in the first place. The equation for type 2 diabetes looks like this, "Refined foods + frequent eating + lack of movement = insulin resistance over time." This is lifestyle all day. By adjusting and improving the variables above, we will now be able to improve and or reverse diabetes.
Over and over again, you've probably heard me say that "the Standard American Diet is a disease; it is a dysfunction of nutrients. Why? Because it's at the root of these preventable/ lifestyle conditions. It's almost impossible to achieve the status of diabetes without the use of processed foods. More than one-third of the population is obese, and around 70-80% have some insulin resistance level, which is what causes it: the standard American Diet. Uncontrolled amounts of highly refined and heavily processed "foodstuff" that cause metabolic havoc on our bodies.
Processed foods are the nutritional version of colonization that launches an internal war on your physiology. This daily attack of processed foods will cause the body to protect itself via insulin resistance, increased blood pressure, cholesterol, and other protective adaptions that will be demonized and treated as diseases. However, these adaptations are merely protecting us from ourselves. The real question is what kinds of foods we should consume for optimal health? There are different diets and ideologies, but our goal at H-BAMN is to get us back to whole foods, at least 70% plant-based. If you choose to incorporate animal sources in your diet as a part of the other aspect of that ratio, make sure it's organic.
The growing number of people who have obesity can be attributed to mainly two things. The first thing is consuming processed foods, which we've pinned above. While the other thing is a sedentary lifestyle, which, simply put, is the lack of movement and physical activity.
For my patients and clients, I usually recommend walking daily or HIIT. HIIT is a methodology that I prescribe to all my patients, especially those who are pre-diabetic or have type 2 Diabetes. It does wonders for my patients who choose to implement it for their health.
So what is HIIT? Well, it's something that we all used to do at some point in our life. Whether we were playing hide and seek, freeze tag, or riding our bikes playing chase, we all at some point habitually did HIIT. Doing HIIT seemed so natural that it was baked into our play. It was never something that had to be taught.
HIIT is Going TOP SPEED for a short burst, followed by a short rest period in between, followed by several more rounds of going all out. Essentially, this is fancy talk for being a kid again! Although a very popular method among kids, the health effects of HIIT are anything but child's play.
You see, type 2 diabetes and HIIT are inherently natural enemies. HIIT gives the pathology of diabetes extreme difficulty when trying to persist as a disease. However, high-intensity interval training has been shown to override this insulin resistance momentarily, thus making the muscle cells very sensitive to the glucose present in the bloodstream without the use of insulin, which, in turn, will increase insulin sensitivity while also improving uncontrolled blood sugar levels.
The reason this happens has been well documented. Each cell has glucose transporters (GLUT4), which insulin usually activates to allow glucose into the cell. However, HIIT sends your muscles into beast mode because the INTENSE contraction of the muscles will now simulate the GLUT4 transporters, absorbing glucose whether insulin is available or not. Why? Because for your cells to participate in this intense workout, they will use the glucose they already had while needing more to continue.
Clinically, I have seen this work multiple times with my patients who have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. When I give them a prescribed HIIT workout plan, along with these other strategies, their HA1c and several other markers for diabetes improve.
Fasting is everything, and Fasting is my gospel. Unfortunately, due to the successful miseducation from the pharmaceutical, medical, and health care industries, many people believe that diabetes is all about blood sugar control. With the focus incorrectly on blood sugar, many will see the need for medications that help keep levels managed within a specific range. Although the constant presence of high blood sugar levels is a problem, this is the inappropriate focus of the condition because high blood sugar levels are merely a result of the underlying issue, which is insulin resistance.
Due to the constant exposure and presence of insulin, our cells have made the intelligent decision to down-regulate insulin receptors so that there is not a continuous influx of glucose inside of an already glucose stuffed cell. This downregulation of insulin receptors then leads to the build-up of glucose in the bloodstream. All of this is a protective mechanism that is protecting us from ourselves. So how do we call off this protective mechanism? By ceasing the onslaught of food so frequently. In other words, by implementing the correct fasting regimen as a lifestyle, you'll be able to reverse insulin resistance and achieve healthier blood sugar levels.
This step mainly focuses on the supportive aspect of pre-diabetes and diabetes type 2 reversal. We have to collectively re-remember that nature holds most of the answers to many of our health issues, especially with diabetes. Along with all the other steps, an accurately designed, naturally-sourced herbal supplementation can help.
Several herbs, vitamins, and minerals are beneficial in decreasing blood sugar while increasing insulin sensitivity.
This is to name a few, but there are so many more herbs out there that would have a similar effect on blood sugar and insulin sensitivity. The problem with consuming these beneficial herbs daily would be unpractical and costly. However, if you can find these ingredients in an all-in-one supplement like our Blood Sugar Support, I would highly recommend taking it daily.
Our Blood sugar support is made of more than ten natural ingredients that are hand-picked because of their actions against diabetes, glucose tolerance, and insulin sensitivity. As a result, it’s not only natural and fully absorbable, but it also doesn’t have any adverse side effects.
These five simple steps can help anyone prevent diabetes and, with the best efforts, even reverse type 2 diabetes. It doesn’t happen overnight, though; it can be a long, tough battle, but what matters is the commitment and diligence to reach the end goal, which is health. Type 2 diabetes is not a dead-end road, it is reversible, but you have to put in the work!