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A Few New Quick & Easy (and even delicious!) Tips for Preventing Diabetes

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Unsweetened Tea

An easy diabetes prevention tip: Switch from soft drinks to unsweet tea. Add frozen fruit slices for extra flavor!

I write frequently on Self Help Daily about preventing diseases. I guess the words “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” are tattooed on my psyche. One of the reasons for this just may be the fact that I’ve seen many of these diseases up close and personal. One such disease is diabetes. My mom fought diabetes for a great number of years. People can, and do, live full, beautiful lives with diabetes – but, make no mistake about it – it’s a game changer.

With a diabetic, the disease they live with has to be in the forefront of their mind at all times. Whereas a lot of diseases (like my thyroid disease, for example) can be pushed out of the individual’s mind 98% of the time, a diabetic must never push their disease aside. Doing so could cause them serious harm.

The serious nature of certain diseases (heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and Diabetes) prompts me to write about their prevention as often as possible.  We’d be nuts not to take experts’ advice when it comes to doing ALL WE CAN to prevent any of these diseases.

I recently read several new diabetes prevention tips and wanted to pass them along.  The number of people being diagnosed with diabetes continues to climb, so it’s obviously time we all pay more attention to preventative measures. These tips are so easy to implement into our lives, I’m sure you’ll join me in doing so right away. As in NOW!

  1. Fish Oil Supplements Could Prevent Diabetes.  I’m starting to think fish oil supplements should simply be taken automatically. They’re known to be beneficial in preventing both heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease, and now they’ve added diabetes prevention to their resume. (See Fish Oil Supplements Could Prevent Diabetes for more information.)
  2. Eat more Walnuts.  Ever notice that, that “eat more nuts” makes its way to just about every list of health tips you read? Good thing they’re so delicious!  A Harvard study found that women who ate two or more ounces of walnuts per week, on average, had a 24% lower risk for type 2 diabetes…those who ate just one ounce of walnuts per week had a 13% lower risk. This one’s almost too easy, isn’t it? Noshing on delicious walnuts each day is more than a little doable, it’s deliciously doable.  (Source)
  3. Say NO to soft drinks. Just one sugary drink a day increases your odds of getting diabetes. Switch to unsweetened tea with lemon or good old-fashioned water and put the odds in your favor rather than stacking them up against you. Tea proves to be a lot of people’s secret weapon when it comes to giving up soft drinks.  Like any true southerner, I have a weakness for sweet tea – but that’s almost as bad as soft drinks.  If you add lemon slices, a little honey, some mint, or (my personal favorite) frozen peach slices and frozen raspberries to your tea, you’ll forget about sugary drinks right away.  As a bonus, you can eat the fruit when the drink’s gone. Trust me, this is the way to go.
  4. Take a brisk walk after a meal.  Doing so apparently stabilizes levels of glucose in the the bloodstream.  The study suggest walking for about 15 minutes after each meal – breakfast, lunch, and dinner. (Source)
  5. Eat Hot Chocolate at Bedtime. Saving the best for last: As a card-carrying chocoholic, I did a fist pump in the air when I read that having a cup of hot chocolate before bedtime can prevent diabetes.  I am so all over this one that it isn’t even fair.

Now where’s that hot chocolate…
~ Joi

Ask Yourself: What Would a Vegetarian Eat?

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Bean Salad

My World Famous Bean Salad

I read a great deal about nutrition, heart health, diabetes, mental fitness, cancer prevention, and other health-related topics.  A lot of nights, I’ll look back over the things I learned that day and feel somewhat like a college student… right down to the coffee breath.

After years of this healthy research, I still marvel at the simplicity of the common thread: Food. For better or worse, we actually are (to a very large degree) what we eat. The food we put into our mouths today will show up on, and in, tomorrow’s scale, blood work, scans, x-rays, and lab work.

Some people say it’s expensive to eat healthy, but it can actually be a little bit cheaper – IF you know what to cut out and what to substitute with.  The same people who say it’s too expensive to eat a healthy diet will do so with a cart loaded down with ground beef, hot dogs, potatoes, and chips.  A quick trip to the produce aisle, bean aisle (does a cheaper food exist than bags of beans?!), and/or frozen food aisle could easily replace each of these unhealthy choices with healthier choices.  But why? Why should you eat less meat and more healthier foods such as beans, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains?

Health Benefits of Eating Less Meat

  • Heart Health.  Even the most aggressive and ambitious meat eater would have to agree that eating less meat reduces your risk of heart disease. He or she may do it begrudgingly, but if they’re remotely reasonable and remotely well-read, they’ll have to admit it. Fatty red meats and processed meats are high in saturated fat, which raises LDL (bad) cholesterol and increases risk of coronary heart disease.  Plus, this is kind of off the official health news grid… but, seriously, do we even KNOW everything that’s in all of the processed meats on the market?
  • Prevent Cancer.  I’ve read, for years, about the meat and heart disease connection. We all have. But I’m also reading more and more (as in almost daily) about the link between cancer and meat.  Cancer is one of the scariest health concerns of this or any time.  It’s like a monster under the bed – a huge, scary monster that no one really likes to talk about or even think about. And yet, there are many proactive things we can do to keep the monster from ever moving in! Wouldn’t we be dimwits NOT to take advantage of the information we have? The British Journal of Cancer published a ground-breaking study involving 35,000 women. The women who ate the most red and processed meat were found to have the highest risk of breast cancer. What’s more, research has linked meat consumption to colon, prostate, pancreatic, and gastric cancers in addition to breast cancer.  The Cancer Project, a non-profit group, explains it this way: Foods with high levels of fat artificially boost the hormones that promote cancer.
  • Weight Control.  When we replace meat with vegetables and fruit, we take in fewer calories (assuming, of course, our vegetable of choice isn’t mashed potatoes loaded with so much cheese you attract the attention of mice from 8 counties).   Even when we think we’re making healthy meat choices, we shoot ourselves in the foot by having the meat fried.  No one can look at a pan filled with melted shortening and think that’s healthy. When we control our weight, we slash our risk of a whole plethora of diseases from diabetes to hypertension.
  • Brain Health. What’s good for the heart is good for the brain. So a heart-healthy diet is your first weapon against Alzheimer’s Disease, dementia, and memory loss.  Your brain loves the healthy nutrients that are found in fruits and vegetables, while (like your heart) it is bruised by processed meat, fried foods, and fatty red meat.  Brain health is something everyone should think about as much as heart health.

It has never been easier to eat more meatless meals than it is today. Boca Burgers, Morningstar Farms, and a host of other meat substitutes are actually downright delicious.  Be sure to not go overboard, though, you’ll want to keep an eye on the sodium.  Throw Boca Crumbles into spaghetti sauces, chili, homemade soup, sloppy joes, Manwiches, etc.  No one will ever know… trust me. I use these meat substitutes regularly. They’re delicious!  I’m especially wild about Morningstar Farms’ Black Bean Burgers. Heat them in a little olive oil and eat them on a wheat bun with picante sauce – absolutely out of this world.

One of the biggest health benefits (or opportunities) of eating less meat may be the fact that it’ll cause you to eat more of the foods that are beneficial to your health. If you aren’t filling up on  fatty red meat or processed meats, you’ll eat more green vegetables, beans, whole grains, and fruits.

Something I’ve started doing is ridiculously simple:  Before eating a particular food, I ask myself, “How will this benefit my health?”  If a great answer doesn’t present itself, I skip it and find an option that does come with a great answer.  For example, a few days ago I was out around lunchtime (shopping for one of my daughter’s birthday!).  It was almost time to return home when I approached a favorite fast food restaurant.  As if they weren’t tempting enough, the sign out front reminded me that one of their juiciest sandwiches was on sale right now.  In the time it took me to drive past it, I realized the sandwich provided ZERO nutritional value to off set its calories.  ZERO.

Some people visualize red meat or fried foods clogging their arteries. I’d have to admit that’d be pretty effective too!

I drove by the fast food restaurant and came home.  I made myself a bowl of tomato soup (thank you Campbell’s) and a spinach, carrot, and red onion salad.  I got JUST as full as I would have gotten with the big greasy sandwich but I didn’t have the “side” that comes with it.  Not fries…… I’m talking about the distasteful side of guilt.  The one that eats at you all day.  As it was, after my heart healthy soup and salad, I FELT lighter and healthier.

It’s an absolutely addictive feeling.

My Bean Salad (pictured at the top): When I make bean salad, which is often because my husband loves it, I sneak in extra vegetables like celery, onion, artichoke hearts, carrots, and sometimes even chopped spinach.  Heart healthy Olive Oil is also used in the salad, which only adds to its nutritional value.  There’s something incredibly filling and satisfying about beans.  When you’re trying to eat less meat, you’ll sometimes have that unmistakable craving where your brain says, “Buddy, give me some meat!”  Beans will satisfy this craving. Without the unhealthy side side of guilt.

~ Joi

13 Ways the Internet Can Improve Your Health!

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Pinterest for Your Health

November is National Health Blog Post Month and I have been honored with an invitation to participate. Each day in November, I’ll post a health-related article or piece of information on Self Help Daily. I’m as excited as I am honored and the reason for the excitement ties in with the subject of today’s post: Top 10 Ways the Internet Can Improve Your Health: Things I Love About social media, the internet, and online health communities.

Why I Write So Much About Improving Your Health and Health-Related Topics

Before I get to the top 13 list, I thought I’d give a quick explanation of why I write so much about health topics such as preventing diabetes, heart health, green smoothies, and so on. There are several reasons, actually, and they each have to do with people I love.

  • A great number of people in my family (on my side as well as my husband’s) have had diseases that most of us hope and pray we never experience. These diseases include diabetes, heart disease, breast cancer, uterine cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, and Hypertension.  Not only did I watch these diseases steal a lot of the quality of loved one’s lives, I saw these diseases take a great number of them far too soon.
  • Even if I didn’t write and/or run a web publishing business, I’d still research health-related topics for the sake of my husband and daughters. I’d read everything I could get my hands on that’d give me an edge in fighting off diseases that haunt our family.  The information I find helps me decide what meals to cook, what activities to encourage and discourage, etc. Knowing what diseases your family is most prone to (and in our case, we seem to be open to just about anything!) gives you an edge – you know what to try your darnedest to fend off.
  • I not only want to protect my family, I want to help you protect your family.  Yes, I am a bona fide people person. If, when it’s all said and done, I can help prevent just one person  from losing a loved family member as early as we’ve lost some of ours – it has been more than worth it.
  • Not only would I like to help pass along information that could save lives, I want to find and pass along information that could help improve lives.

So. That’s why I write about Health-Related Topics.  I’m trying to save the world here, okay?

13 Ways the Internet Can Improve Your Health

The internet gets a bad rap. Thanks to a lot of disgusting websites and a lot of ridiculous people on certain social media sites, the internet often comes across as a modern day Sodom and Gomorrah.  However, there are a lot of ways the internet can improve your health, help you prevent diseases … and potentially save… your life.  This very fact is the reason I chose the number 13 for this list.  Like the internet, the number 13 gets a bad rap. It’s considered to be an unlucky number, so I wanted to take it and create something positive with it – the same way we can all take the internet and do something positive with it.

  1. Medical Websites. You can go to WebMd.com and research symptoms and diseases any time of day or night.  You’ll find things you can do to make yourself feel better and heal faster and find out when or if you need to see a doctor. There are also countless tips for preventing diseases, improving your health, feeling better, increasing your energy, and living healthy on this site as well as others such as Everyday Health and Mayo Clinic. When it comes to health advice and illnesses, I always advise people to stick with the sites mentioned here. Be very cautious where you take advice from for serious conditions.  If you’re searching for ways to make a mouth ulcer feel better, by all means try whatever relief you can – but when it comes to more serious matters, never get your information from someone on a forum, for example, who goes by the handle IronMan5 or Gr8Grl. Know what I mean?!
  2. Real Age.com.  A website so vital, so cool, and so helpful that it gets its own place in the top 10. Real Age.com is more than a website, it’s a tool. When you (honestly!) fill out the questionnaire, you aren’t just given your “Real Age” (as opposed to the year determined by your birth date ).  However, it doesn’t just leave it at that. You’re given TONS of great tips and advice to help you improve your real age and your health and, thereby, increase your chances for a longer life.
  3. Apps. There are apps that count calories for your, apps that tell you how many calories you’re burning, and even an app that reminds you to take your prescriptions! When you search for specific apps, you’ll be amazed by what you find.  If you have time, search for reviews of the apps you find. Do a little research and find the best ones out there.
  4. Fitness. Prevention.com is one of the best places online for fitness articles and exercises.
  5. YouTube Workouts! If you search YouTube for keywords such as Yoga, Zumba, Pilates, Cardio, Aerobics, exercise video, Kettle Bell Workout, etc.. you’ll find some really cool workout videos to increase your strength, stamina, and fitness level. If you aren’t careful, you may even burn some calories!
  6. Healthy Recipes. You can find the most amazing healthy recipes online. If you’re on Pinterest, a lot of people even have boards devoted entirely to healthy eating.  If you need heart-healthy recipes, gluten free recipes,  or vegan recipes, they’re literally at your fingertips.  No one with an internet has the excuse of not having healthy recipes.
  7. Relax and Unwind. At the end of a hectic day, there’s something kind of relaxing about cruising Pinterest or catching up on Twitter.  If you love cats like me, you’ll find that funny cat pictures and/or cat videos are  fun ways to grab a smile or two at the end of the day.  Here’s a little personal tip of mine when it comes to relaxation. After a long day writing and working online, when I get up from the computer, I want to leave all of that craziness behind and unwind.  I’ll often go to You Tube and search for “Japanese Music” or “Classical Piano Music” and let it fill the house as I make supper, do laundry, or simply crash on the couch. I’m not sure anything in the world is as relaxing as piano music or Japanese music.
  8.  Speaking of Twitter… The world has never known a better place for staying on top of important, life-effecting news. If you “follow” your local weather stations, CNN, the Weather Channel, Fox News and other authoritative agencies, you’ll always know (almost immediately) what’s headed your way.  Twitter is also the first place I usually learn about food recalls too.
  9. Relationships. Social Media Sites don’t just help you relax – and they don’t just keep you informed.  They’re also  a great place for making new friends. Any time you build relationships (online or off), it’s good for you.  Mental fitness experts tell us that the more relationships we have in our life, the better.
  10. Official Health Groups and Agencies. What better place to get information about heart health than the American Heart Association, up to the minute information about diabetes from the American Diabetes Association, or information about preventing cancer from the American Cancer Society? Follow these groups on social media, check them regularly, and (when available) take part in their forums.
  11. Newsletters.  Just about every official health agency has a newsletter you can sign up for. They’ll deliver the latest research, tips, and medical advice right to your inbox!
  12. Overcome Addictions and Find Support.  Whatever your own personal monster under the porch is, you can find wonderful support groups online. People who know what you’re going through and can help you overcome, persevere, and take your life back.
  13. Health Communities.  I saved this one for last because, quite frankly, I think it’s huge.  While doing research for my Self Help Daily, my food blog, and well as my mental fitness blog, I visit a lot of  medial websites. Sometimes I read through their forums or I’ll read the personal stories of individuals who have either survived or are surviving a health issue. The advice these individuals have for one another is almost as vital as the support they provide for one another. Some of the strongest bonds in the world take place in these communities.  Personal tips, stories, and simple words like, “I did this, you can too!” and “You’re going to make it!” can mean the absolute world to someone who needs it.  Menopause, cancer, heart disease, asthma, addictions, diabetes – you name it, there’s a community for it and communities are all about strength.

~ Joi

The Scary Diabetes Epidemic

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SaladEating healthy is a huge step in diabetes prevention.

According to the World Health Organization, there are about 346 million people worldwide with diabetes. If you think that’s alarming (and it is), make sure you’re sitting down before you read this next line: The International Diabetes Federation predicts that at least one in 10 adults could have diabetes by 2030, an estimated 552 million people.

If you’ve ever seen diabetes up close and personal, you know that it’s one brutal disease. I know you’re as anxious as I am to keep this monster out of your closet. The good news is that there ARE things we can do to lessen our odds of getting diabetes. With the estimates we just talked about, I’d say the time to start doing all we can do  is NOW and the time to stop doing all that we can is NEVER.

The American Diabetes Association Recommends the following steps to prevent diabetes:

  • Get active and stay active. Add more activity to your daily routine. If you have a sedentary job, make it a point to frequently stand and take walks. Stretch, lift weights, or just walk in place. Another great way to make sure you’re getting enough activity is to wear a pedometer. Aim for at least 10,000 steps a day. Being active doesn’t necessarily mean jogging or trips to the gym. It simply means getting that body moving – OFTEN!
  • Eat healthy foods.  Lay off the sugar and fried foods. Eat more (as in a lot more!) fruits and vegetables. If choosing healthy meals is a problem for you, you might want to register for MyFoodAdvisor. This freeonline resource provides you with new recipes, cooking tips, and a meal plan each month.
  • Maintain a healthy weight. If your current weight isn’t within a healthy range, move Heaven and earth to get it there.

One of the best weapons against diabetes is common sense.  We all know the foods that we should avoid and we know the foods we should eat more frequently. It’s time to stop messing around and get serious about this.

Before it’s too late.

More Dietary Guidelines for Eating Healthy:

  • Eat more meals at home.
  • Make fast food drive thrus a thing of the past.
  • Eat more salads – but lay off of the fattening dressings.
  • Make fruit your “go to” snack.
  • See Dr. Oz’s Anti-Diabetes Drink
  • Choose whole grains. Whole grains contain more fiber which not only help you feel fuller faster – they also keep blood sugar levels more stable. According to Bob Greene, “When you eat foods made with refined grain, like white bread or corn flake cereal, the glucose is absorbed into the bloodstream very quickly. On the other hand, whole grains take longer for the body to break down, so you get a much slower and less severe blood sugar spike. Start replacing your regular white bread and crackers with whole-grain versions, and trade in white rice for brown rice. Pasta is an exception; because of the way it’s made, even regular pasta promotes a relatively slow rise in blood sugar compared to other foods made with refined grains. Whole-wheat pasta is even easier on blood sugar. If you’re not a fan, try Barilla Whole Grain, which at 51 percent whole grain gives you some of the benefits but not the gritty taste, or Barilla PLUS, which has added fiber and protein. The meal plans in the book feature a number of tasty ways to incorporate more whole grains into your diet.“

See The American Diabetes Association for more information about preventing diabetes.

 

Preventing Prediabetes and Diabetes

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Vegetables: A Weapon in the battle against Diabetes!

One of the scariest diseases of all is diabetes.  If, like me, you’ve seen it up close and personal in a family member, you know that diabetes doesn’t play well with others. Can it be lived with? Absolutely. Can you still have a full, beautiful, and wonderful life? Of course!  But it’s no picnic and those of us who don’t have prediabetes or diabetes today would be fools if we didn’t do ALL we can to make sure we don’t have it tomorrow.

According to South Beach Diet, our weight, level of activity, and food are HUGE contributing factors that decide our risk of getting diabetes.  The good news, of course, is that we can obviously control these things.

Below are the foods recommended by the South Beach Diet – foods that’ll help you keep diabetes off of your radar.  I’ve thrown in my own two cents (in italics, to separate me from the experts) with tips for preparing, enjoying, and actually eating (!!!) these foods.

  • Eat plenty of whole grains:  brown rice, barley, quinoa, wild rice, bulgur, slow-cooking oatmeal, whole-wheat pasta, and 100% whole-grain bread.  Brown rice and whole-wheat pasta can be enjoyable. It’s all about adding flavor. With brown rice, I love to throw in slivered almonds. Whole-wheat pasta’s a little bit more challenging. Personally, I don’t love the smell.  That’s easy to take care of, however, with combinations of garlic, basil, thyme, and even red pepper. Barley can be added, effortlessly, to just about any kind of soup imaginable and as for quinoa? Try it! It’s versatile and fun to cook with.  Whole wheat bread takes one simple trick: Buy it instead of white bread. If it’s the only bread you have, it’s the only bread you’ll eat.  I actually like, and prefer, wheat bread with everything now.
  • Eat lots of beans and legumes. Fall in love with beans!  Just be sure you don’t throw in a pound of bacon or bacon grease, please. This all but cancels out the good you’ve done.  Flavor beans with onion, red pepper flakes, bay leaves, and (my favorite) liquid smoke (in the aisle with BBQ sauce). Beans are heavenly with cornbread and green onions. You won’t miss the bacon, I promise.
  • Enjoy a lot of vegetables, prepared using healthy cooking methods such as steaming, sautéing, or grilling.  Don’t drown your veggies in creamy, rich sauces or butter. The same rules that apply to bacon apply to these sauces – you cancel out the good.  My fave way to fix most vegetables is in my bamboo steamer. Delicious.
  • Consume whole, fresh fruits like berries, apples, and/or citrus fruits.  Buy fresh fruit and enjoy it often. Grab an apple on the way out the door instead of a pastry or candy bar. Make fresh fruit salads for dessert and snacks.  My family LOVES smoothies made with fresh fruit as well as fresh fruit served in yogurt. The natural sweetness of fruit, honestly, makes a great after-dinner choice.
  • Include nonfat or low-fat dairy in your diet, such as fat-free or low-fat milk, plain or artificially sweetened low-fat soy milk, and nonfat or low-fat plain yogurt.  If you serve fresh fruit in a whole-grain cereal with low-fat milk, you’ll be a diabetes-fighting ninja.
  • Focus on lean proteins, like skinless poultry or turkey breast, and lean cuts of meat, as well as fish and shellfish. Remember, though, that preparation matters. Fall in love with baked and grilled meats as opposed to fried food.
  • Avoid saturated fats and trans fats; instead, choose monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, found in olive oil and canola oil, for example, and foods high in omega-3 fatty acids, such as fatty fish like salmon and sardines, soybeans, flaxseed, and walnuts.  When you put your mind and palate to it, you can find endless ways to use olive oil. I even cook my eggs in olive oil now instead of butter. That’s a giant step for a southerner, trust me. I also love to slice tomatoes and mozzarella and drizzle them with a little olive oil and fresh basil.  Here’s an alternative for traditional garlic bread for pasta night: First of all, buy a loaf of whole wheat Italian bread.  Bake the bread as directed, with no butter.  In a platter, pour out a little olive oil and dust the top of the oil with freshly ground black pepper.  Delicately dip your bread into this flavorful concoction in lieu of butter.  You can even buy flavored olive oil for this purpose. YUM!

See all South Beach Diet Tips.

Adding More Activity to Your Day
One of the best tips I ever heard concerning activity and exercise basically is this: Your body doesn’t know whether you’re in the gym or in your living room. Just move! If you’re cleaning house or raking the yard, your body’s getting exercise and that’s what’s important. It’s as simple as adding more movements and steps into your daily routine. March in place while watching television, walk the long way to everything you need in stores, park further from the door, adopt a dog (or two) from an animal shelter and fall in love with the joy of taking dogs for walks each day.