Do I have to lose weight to prevent diabetes? How can I lose weight so I do not become a diabetic?

If your doctor has told you that you are overweight then yes you need to lose weight because weight gain is a factor in turning into a diabetic. To lose weight is to reverse what you did to get where you are? If you eat too much pizza then stop the pizza. If you watch too much television then stop watching so much television. If you stopped riding your bike and walking then you need to start back riding the bike and walking.

Take the word diet out of your mind and think of this as getting back to where you were at the age of 10.

When you were 10 years old you played outside, ate when you hungry only and enjoyed the little things like a walk down a water stream. Just because you are an adult doesn’t mean you stop being you. Buy a nice pair of tennis shoes and plan to wear them out. Pick a park and walk it and explore as you go. If you enjoy photography take your camera with you and look for opportunities to take pictures of nature.

As far as food goes eat what is healthy. Change the white bread to whole wheat bread. Try a 1 Tablespoon of peanut butter with ? tsp of jelly on whole wheat bread for lunch and see if that doesn’t hold you until supper.

If you like everything organized then consider a diabetic meal plan so you know what you can and cannot eat.

It is the little choices like riding by the ice cream shop instead of stopping and walking the long way around the mall.

Get up in the morning and walk around the neighborhood, explore like you did when you were a kid. Enjoy this journey called life and stay healthy and make some friends along the way.

Do you know that excess body fat is the one really important risk factor in developing type 2 diabetes? Obesity is the one thing you can control. You can see it and you can feel it happening from the first weeks. You know if your clothes are becoming too tight, or if you have to move your belt up one more notch! From there you move onto a larger size in clothes. There is your early warning sign.

Yes, we do have an aging population which could explain the increase in type 2 diabetes and it is more common in the over 50 age group. The truth is 90% of this group have gained a significant amount of weight since their early twenties. Nowadays more younger people are being diagnosed due to obesity; we now have overweight children and adolescents being diagnosed.

When we think of losing weight, the word diet springs to mind. It almost means deprivation to us, why not think of a healthy eating plan instead?

Who has benefited from fad diets? So many of us are dieting, riding a roller coaster of dieting and obsession, feeling deprived, binging then feeling guilty, then back to strict dieting and obsession. Jenny Craig, Atkins, Weight Watchers and South Beach are all fad diets that people usually give away after a short time. Research has revealed people who diet usually gain the lost weight back plus more pounds/kilograms.

Low-fat foods are readily available. Although fat may have been reduced in these foods, often calories/kilojoules are not. And they are usually too extreme in the carbohydrate (glycemic) load.

The main goal of weight loss is to lose body fat, not muscle. Water loss is fast and temporary and is regained very quickly. The formula for long-term weight loss is simple:

• Eat Less … reduce your energy intake. Take in less calories/kilojoules by eating more leafy vegetables and less fats, alcohol, starches, protein foods and refined carbohydrates
• Move More … increase your energy output. Spend more time with physical activity

You don’t need to cut anything out of your diet completely but the proportions are important:

• 30 per cent of your calories/kilojoules should come from lean protein
• 40 per cent from carbohydrates. Select foods with low-GI levels to try to keep the blood glucose response as low as possible
• this leaves 30 per cent from fats. And includes fat in the protein food, oil used in cooking, cream in your coffee, milk and margarine
• unsaturated fats come from olive oil, vegetable sources and fatty fish. They do not raise your cholesterol level
• saturated fats come from animal sources, eg. fat in steak, chicken, bacon, butter and cream. Less than one third of the daily fat intake should come from saturated fats. They have a tendency to promote coronary artery disease and you don’t want that.

An initial realistic goal if you are overweight, is to aim for a 5 to 10 per cent loss of your total body weight. This will help lower you blood sugar levels and give you better control of your type 2 diabetes.