Diabetes Weight Loss Plan and Diets Management
What is diabetes weight loss plan and diet management? How is the connection between diabetes and weight loss? Can weight loss management help people with diabetes?
If your doctor has told you that you are one of the more than 16 million Americans who have pre-diabetes, the American Diabetes Association has some very good news for you. In March 2005, the ADA released the results of the multi-year Diabetes Prevention Project. In a study that followed thousands of participants who volunteered to have their habits monitored and to follow dietary and exercise recommendations. All participants had been diagnosed with ‘pre-diabetes’, a condition where the blood sugar levels are higher than normal, but not yet in diabetic ranges. Untreated, more than half of those people diagnosed with pre-diabetes will develop full-blown type 2 diabetes within a decade.
For the study, the participants were divided into two groups. One half were given dietary recommendations. The other half got the same dietary recommendations, plus the recommendation to exercise at least 30 minutes daily, five times a week.
How is the result of diabetes weight loss plan & diet? Those who included daily exercise in their routines and followed the diet recommendations cut their risk of developing diabetes by 58%. Do you know what the reason is? Those who made the recommended changes in their lifestyle lost ‘a moderate amount’ of weight. Even more important, researchers found something that they didn’t expect. Those in the treatment group had a substantial chance of reducing their blood sugar level to normal, something that had been assumed was impossible.
Apparently, losing weight not only prevents a worsening of diabetes, it reverses the damage that obesity causes to the cells that produce insulin.
Here’s the even better news. Those results were achieved by people who lost ‘moderate’ amounts of weight - from 5-7% of their total body mass. In other words, if you weigh 200 pounds and have been diagnosed as pre-diabetic, losing just 10-15 pounds can more than halve the risk of developing full-blown diabetes, and may reverse your condition entirely.
Here are some diabetes weight loss plan and diet tips from the American Diabetes Association:
1. Keep your diet balanced. Eat a variety of foods in all food groups, with an emphasis on grains, starches and fresh vegetables and fruit.
2. Learn to eyeball portions. Portion control is far more important than restricting what foods you eat. A ‘portion’ of raw vegetables may be considerably larger than a portion of the same vegetables cooked. There are some handy reference guides on their web site at www.diabetes.org
3. Add one half hour daily of moderate exercise to your daily routine five days a week. This one single lifestyle change seemed to be the key to both weight loss and the beneficial effects derived from it. It was the single significant difference between the two groups in the study.
The results of the Diabetes Prevention Project only confirm what has been the best advice in dieting circles for years - losing weight with a balanced diet and exercise is the healthiest way there is.
©2005-www.findperferctdiet.com
